cwisnia

Other than an occasional email to friends over the years, sharing something funny or interesting that happened at one convention or another (valuable historical material indeed), I didn’t begin writing any of these experiences down until the plane ride back from Baltimore’s convention, September 17th 2005. At that time, I thought it would be fun to start keeping a journal, as I went to different cons and met different people. It wasn’t until February 2006 and San Francisco’s Wondercon, that I realized I would also like to go back and document all the past I could remember, before it got too far into the past.

One memory would lead to another, usually faster than I could get them all down. I’ve managed to keep way too much of this fresh in my head. I guess with a life dream of making comics, and meeting all my comic book heroes in the process, every event feels like such a big deal. It’s like I’m in Junior High again, and things matter. And it all feels so important. (To nobody but me, just like in Junior High…) I find I can chart the chronological time by relating it to the work I completed each year, and the associations of who I showed it to at what conventions.

I plan to post all this stuff chronologically. I had a seven or so-year backlog worth of experiences. So all that past material isn’t so much a diary. It’s technically my “memoirs.”

Everything that’s happened from September 2005 and on is an actual diary entry, even if I don’t post it on the day. I have written, and will continue to write, as soon as I can after every event. Hopefully, if not on the flights home from the cons, (on this great new laptop I’m loving more every day), then the week I get back.

Naturally, there must be plenty of inevitable hindsight vision, romanticizing, and possibly mistakes in these events of the past (such as the actual year at Wondercon I first met Sergio Aragones, for example — since I’ve spoken with him every year for at least five years). But when you meet your idols like this, even if you forget the dates, the memories stick with you. Everything they said was so important and amazing to hear…

BLOG WARNING

Please read carefully before continuing on to Blog!

This diary was written solely as a means to elevate myself in the eyes of potential fans, and wow them, regarding my role in the industry of comics.

These are my own reminiscences and opinions and versions of these experiences, people, and conversations, to the best of my knowledge and memory and ability, or as described in romanticized terms to make for a good story.

I know I can’t get quotes word-for-word, so I just do my best. Know that anything in quotes isn’t necessarily an exact quote. I’m just trying to capture the sense of what I think people were trying to say at those times. Or what makes for a good story.

Sometimes I’ll write something down, and then remember something else about it later. Some nuance I forgot to mention. Or I’ll have different feelings or thoughts about something that happened, after I’ve had time to think about it, or see the results or consequences. Or some event that hadn’t seemed important at the time, I’ll realize later actually was important to me after all.

Of course, over time, as you tell or think about a story over and over, you just keep subconsciously working it over in your head, and it starts getting to be better or more entertaining as you do. So how accurate is a diary or memoir, anyways?

Last of all, it’s hard to get a tone or attitude across in text. Please assume at all times that my tone is of utter enjoyment, awe, pleasure, and gratitude toward this great industry and everyone who makes it up.

If you can live with all that, then read on, dear reader!

Chris
So here it is, for your reading pleasure. Hope you get a little pleasure, and not just a bunch of reading.

 

1. Introduction by Rob Oder

What true American hasn’t dreamed about living the prestigious, celebrity life of a comics artist? SEE FIRSTHAND! At last, someone has bravely allowed unprecedented access, through his vigilant, informative (often blatantly exaggerated, romanticized, and sometimes grossly inaccurate!) diaries, into this secretive, lucrative, and enviable industry! Thrill to the action and suspense! Enjoy!

Rob Oder, Editor-in-Chief!

2/25/06, in an Orlando hotel for MegaCon

The deeper I try to wedge my tiny little emasculated wedge into the comics industry, the more I realize how much I don’t really want to do anything except talk about comics. I hope writing a blog about the experiences of trying to make comics will be a healthy outlet for this unhealthy, annoying, obsessive behavior.

Ever since I started really pushing to make my way in, maybe over the last seven or eight years, I’ve gone through what seems to be the usual laughable, humiliating, fun, frustrating, sad, pathetic, exciting, or absolutely hopeful or shattering experiences that I suspect all the other fans or aspiring professionals have gone through.

We’ve tried to meet or write to our idols in the industry. And sometimes it’s been amazing, and sometimes it makes us wish we’d never met them. Sometimes it’s harder to appreciate their art after, and sometimes we love it more than we realized, once we get that glimpse of who they are.

If we read comics, we’ve all thought we had a good idea that would make a good comic at one time or another, and maybe we’ve tried to share it to artists we admire and look up to. Maybe we thought or hoped they’d say what a unique and amazing idea it is, and how smart and clever we are, and how much they want to draw it for us, but they never did.

Then there’s the communal, necessary experience of waiting in a goddamn portfolio review line and having our dreams shattered. Or if we’re lucky, maybe we’ve felt that spark of an editor or artist liking our work, which is usually followed by the disappointment of seeing the spark peter out before our eyes over time.

For some of us who pushed harder, there’s the experience of finally landing a professional job, or if you took my route, resorting to self-publishing, and receiving the first reviews you get, and the first sales numbers you get, and the kinds of people you meet when you’re on the other side of the table.

But, unlike so many self-publishers, I’m lucky enough to have a day job where I can work a basically part-time schedule, and make enough to help me finance this habit that is not much better than crack or heroin. Unlike so many self-publishers, I’ve managed to amass a staggering role call of pin-up contributors, including my two personal, most absolute favorite, living artists. My books so far contain, or are soon to contain, pin-ups by Dick Ayers, Mike Allred, Thomas Yeates, Sam Kieth, Bill Sienkiewicz, Irwin Hasen, all three of Los Bros Hernandez, John Severin, Steve Rude, Ryan Sook, Tony Millionaire, Ramona Fradon, Mike Mignola, JH Williams III, Herb Trimpe, Peter Kuper, Peter Bagge, Dave Gibbons, Simon Bisley, Russ Heath, Sal Buscema, Al Feldstein…

And for every pin-up I’ve been kissing myself to have gotten, I’ve approached (I’m guessing) another three of my favorite, most respected and cherished artists.

That’s a hell of a lot of stories I’ve got to tell about a lot of fascinating, great, amazing artists, goddamnit.

There’s the memorably audacious Steranko, who demanded I take off my tie while addressing him. He also told me to shut up while I was talking to him, boomed joking insults about my masculinity, and told me that if my wife is the girl of my dreams, I must sleep on a lumpy mattress. I found him hilarious, and I also wondered if he would make me cry.
There’s the experience of trying to get Russ Heath to commit to a pin-up. After pestering him for a year, I finally got him to agree to a commission and a price. I sent him a check he never cashed, and then after months more, he told me he’d been hired for a prestige-format limited series for DC, and said he’d be busy for another year. From when he first agreed and told me to contact him by phone to work out details, it took three years to finally get something in my hands from him.

There’s sitting next to Simon “The Walking Party” Bisley at a convention and wondering if I’d survive his chair-tossing and shouting and stomping and pencil-and-notebook-throwing, and a few months later, having dinner with him and growing to be so fond of him.

There’s all the experiences of meeting or emailing all my heroes in the industry, and sometimes, every now and then, not only getting some really fucking amazing artwork by them to publish in my books, but just pinching myself at how welcoming this comics community can be.

I’m beginning this blog after seriously trying to put a book together and going to conventions to shop my project for seven years, and then self-publishing for a year and a half. I’m still a nobody. I still lose money, usually thousands of dollars, every issue I put out. So I’m still just another one of you, out there. Some of us have gotten our work published, or published it ourselves. And it’s becoming apparent to me, that even if we do, we continue to struggle, and to work our goddamn asses off and love this goddamn industry (and despise it) more intensely than ever.

So I’m still a nobody, after all these years. But after all these years, I’m a nobody who my idols are beginning to know. And they know my name now, and hang out with me at the cons. And a couple editors are beginning to know me too. I’m like the ultimate tag-along-er. And you never know what’s gonna happen from here… But every convention, I’m having more and more fun, and collecting more and more fun stories to share.

May 2005, my wife started emailing her friends some of our comics experiences, after we went to England, to the Bristol convention. I realized I wanted to do it too, and better start before I forgot everything.