Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist

Every now and then, my local Sacramento Comics Convention will have an artist I’m interested in meeting. Sometimes, a local shop, A-1 Comics, will offer to split the bill to get the artist in question to come out, so that Saturday, this person is at A-1, and Sunday they’re at the con.

I met Brent Anderson, Bill Morrison, Darrick Robertson, Trina Robbins, Steve Leialoha, and Mark Waid at these smaller local events. I had the opportunity to meet Paul Smith and James Robinson, because I was at the store on the day they were signing together. But instead of going over to meet them, I just went through bins and bought comics. James Robinson actually noticed me, with my big stack, and commented on my stash. But I still didn’t talk to him. This was years before I planned to self-publish, and at that time I was only interested in buying a bunch of junk on sale.

I think this was around 2002. When I learned Bill Morrison was coming, I went through my Simpsons comics and picked out a couple for him to sign. I thought it might be fun to get a pin-up of Dick Hammer or Dr. DeBunko in the Simpsons style. I had heard that Bill Morrison had also spent some time doing work for Disney, and was the artist who had drawn the infamous Little Mermaid poster. I went to his website and saw he was doing a new comic called Roswell.

He was at A-1, signing and doing sketches. The rule he told everyone was that he could only draw Simpsons characters if we brought in Simpsons merchandise for him to sign it on. So for example, he would draw a Homer sketch inside a Simpson’s book, but he wouldn’t draw that same sketch in someone’s notebook. He said it was a licensing agreement with Fox. If you didn’t have Simpsons merchandise for him to draw on, he would just draw a sketch in his own style. Of his Roswell comic, for example.

He said that when Matt Groening put together his contract for the Simpsons tv show, he was given permission to keep the copyright for all merchandising, and Fox has kicked themselves ever since, because he’s made a fortune off his merchandise, and they haven’t. Now Fox will never offer a deal like that again. They present very different contracts now, and keep their hands tightly entwined in their shows’ merchandising. Bill isn’t involved with the animation of the shows, but in addition to basically being in charge of the Simpsons comics (directly under Matt Groening) he’s done a majority of artwork for all the merchandising, be it toys or games or waffle boxes or whatever.

He was very kind, and drew great sketches in all my comics. I brought a Radioactive Man comic, and he drew a nice little Radioactive Man in it. I brought a Simpsons comic that was styled after the cover of Fantastic Four #1, and he drew the Thing in Simpsons style inside that one.

I asked him, So tell me about the Little Mermaid poster. He looked at me without a readable expression or tone in his voice, and he said, “What about it?” For those of you who don’t know or remember, there was a huge controversy about his picture, because it’s a family Disney poster, and the sand castles in the background looked like rock-hard, shining, erect golden penises jutting majestically into the air. Of course I’d heard rumors that whoever the artist was, he’d been upset with Disney for whatever reason, and this was going to be his last job for them, so he covered the picture with penes (that’s the plural of penis. Look it up in the dictionary) as a final fuck-you-farewell.

The way Bill described it, Disney had released The Little Mermaid, and had had a poster with NO multiple hard-ons in the background – for the movie release. But for the video release, if I understood correctly, it would be cheaper for them to hire a commission redrawing of the poster than to pay for the re-use of the original. Or maybe they just needed a different piece of artwork for formatting and size or whatever. So they contacted Bill, and basically asked if he could do something really fast. Like maybe in a day or something. And if I remember, he might have even said he was really sick. And he’s whipping out this poster as fast as he can, and abbreviating shapes and forms just to try and get the piece done in time. And so, simplifying the forms of the towering castles, he somehow gave them shafts, bulbous tips and even a hole that looks like it’s made for peeing out of. Uncanny and disgusting coincidence, but that’s what he said: that it was a complete accident that he was entirely unaware of. He said, after he turned the project in, someone called and told him to look at the background. Okay. Look at the castles. Okay…wow! When he realized, of course there was a big uproar from Disney, who was furious, and he had to have a number of his business acquaintances vouch for him, that he wasn’t that kind of guy.

Next day I saw him at the Sac Con and asked about possibly commissioning him for a pin-up. He said he’s allowed to draw in his own style, but not in the Simpsons style. Naturally a let-down, but still I liked the idea of getting a pin-up from him. He’s one of those names I don’t get the feeling many fans know, but within the industry I think he must be well-respected, if nothing else for running the Simpsons books. I got his contact info.

I felt bad, because he gave a really interesting talk on doing Simpsons animation. He brought and handed out character reference sheets, showing the specific proportions and details of all the Simpsons characters. He said these were copies of the actual sheets all the Simpsons animators used, to insure accuracy and continuity from artist to artist. The reason I felt bad is that I had to cut out early from the talk, because earlier, I’d found a comics dealer who was representing the Kirby foundation and selling Jack Kirby original art. I didn’t have enough money on me, and had to run home (a half hour away) to get my checkbook, and get back before the con ended, so I could buy a couple of very affordable pages from Justice Inc, which I don’t think many comics collectors, or even Kirby fans, particularly appreciate, but that I love, since they’re pure pulp. I explained to Bill afterward, and even showed him the pages I bought. But I always wondered if he just thought, Yeah, whatever, jerk.

I emailed him at least once, and maybe twice, and never heard from him. I did bump into him at some other conventions though, and continue asking him about the possibility of getting a pin-up whenever I see him. Whenever I do see him, he seems open to the possibility.

After San Diego 2002, I began to realize, this is a whole industry that’s very available to its public. You can go to cons and meet all your favorite artists. They’re all there, at the cons. And they’re all just sitting around, with nothing to do. You can just walk right up to them, and tell them how much you admire their work. And if you treat them like professionals and ask about hiring them to do work, even if you’re as yet unpublished like I was, and they have time in their schedule and are interested in what you have in mind, a lot of them will give you their emails to discuss possibilities. I was going home from San Diego with a few of my favorite artists’ emails. A bunch of them said they were willing to draw pin-ups that I could publish in my books. That’s pretty damn exciting.

I was new to the internet and computers, but going home I started fantasizing about all the artists I thought it would be just impossibly cool to get pin-ups from. Of course my two favorites are Mike Allred and Mike Mignola. I was beginning to think Mike Mignola was untouchable (which it turns out was not true), but I’d met Mike Allred both the years I’d gone down to San Diego. Even though, talking with him, it didn’t sound like I would be able to convince him if I tried, I still dreamed about getting a pin-up from him.

I think the whole thing that got my juices flowing about pin-ups was Mike Allred’s Madman book. I had noticed pretty early that he had at least one pin-up by a cool artist, every issue. I thought, That’s kind of neat. It shows he’s enjoyed by cool people in the industry, enough that they’re willing to draw pictures of his character that he can publish in his book. Sure, I’d seen pin-up books like Sandman, or an anniversary issue of Batman with a bunch of cool drawings, or Sin City, or a pin-up by a cool artist on the back cover of every issue of Wolverine. But Madman did it for me. He had so many GREAT artists, one after the other. He even put out sets of trading cards of all these great artists. But what really made me take note is when he started putting out a four-issue run of just Madman pin-ups. Every issue, I’d go, Holy Shit! He got THIS artist to do a pin-up! He got THIS artist too? It was overwhelming, all the great artists he got, and I thought that was so cool. I wanted my comic to be that cool.

At this time, I had asked Dick Ayers if he might do a pin-up of my character, Dick Hammer. In pictured Dick in military get-up — khakis and helmet — wielding a machine gun in one hand and a grenade in another, explosions and rubble and carnage all around him, that kind of thing. And I’d asked Dean Ormston about a pin-up of Dr. DeBunko, just standing and saying, “Of course there’s no such thing as monsters,” and behind him, and unbeknownst to him, a bunch of monsters creeping and slithering his way. But once I got home from my trip, and in a flash of dazzling clarity, I had this crazy idea.

Being so in love with Jack Kirby’s giant monster stories, and knowing Dick inked all of them, I imagined doing my own Kirby-style giant-monster story, and Dick inking them.

By “Jack Kirby monster story,” I’m talking about the late 1950’s to early 1960’s, right before the superhero craze hit, in books like “Tales to Astonish”, “Amazing Fantasy,” and “Tales of Suspense.” Comics were pumping out all kinds of genres at this time, trying to find something whatever would sell. So there were war, western, horror, romance books. “Kirby giant monster” was a sub-genre of horror. Stan Lee plotted, his brother Larry Lieber scripted, and Kirby or Steve Ditko pencilled a good chunk of the work. And then these books segued (I’m proudly snooty to have figured out the spelling of this word – pronounced “seg-waid”) into the Marvel boom of superhero comics. (You’ll recall that Fantastic Four number one has a giant monster bursting from the earth, and that characters like Captain America and Iron Man began in Tales of Suspense, while Hulk and Sub-Mariner and Giant Man began in Tales to Astonish, etc etc.)

I didn’t really know any of this at the time. I only knew that in the 1970’s, Marvel was reprinting these stories in books entitled “Where Monsters Dwell,” “Where Creatures Roam,” or “Creatures on the Loose.” I knew they were reprints, because the title pages usually had the footnote, “Originally appeared in _______” and maybe a date.

So back to the present. I was on vacation in Las Vegas, and I started to brainstorm these crazy plots for a Kirby-style giant monster story. I imagined all these different factions. Monster lovers, monster haters, hippies who believe peace includes monsters, Christian Fundamentalists who think monsters go against creationism, government G-Men trying to prevent the populace from believing in monsters, greedy journalists who create fake giant monster evidence for catchy headlines, scientists who try to make the public believe in giant monsters as a hobby, robots, armies out to destroy monsters, underground movements to protect them.

My original idea was for the lead to be “Dirk Danger,” but I decided later on that a woman lead would be better. I’m sure my wife, Elizabeth, must have come up with the name, “Doris Danger.” She’s great with those kinds of bad puns.

A lot of my early ideas stemmed from the “Men in Black” approach. I’d never seen the films or read the comics, but I was moderately familiar with UFO lore, and liked the idea of government boys hiding evidence and bullying or brainwashing the public so that they were afraid to speak out or didn’t remember what incriminating or dangerous sights they’d seen. Pretty soon (specifically, when I realized it was the premise of the movie – because I wasn’t familiar with the comic), I ignored or distanced myself from those kinds of stories.

I knew I wanted to have each episode begin by getting out of a cliffhanger, and end getting into a different cliffhanger. And I knew I would never resolve how the cliffhanger was escaped. Throwing continuity out the window was a part of the structure from the very beginning. Because when you watch episodic television, not on a full-season dvd package, but just on tv, there are always reruns interspersed and no particular order. And there’s always a week you just aren’t able to catch, for whatever reason. That’s just how it plays. You see an episode and don’t know what the hell’s going on, but you know that guy’s a good guy, and that guy’s bad, and you know the good guy will survive, and get in more trouble soon enough. And after you see a few episodes, then you realize, Oh, that’s why that guy did this in the first episode I saw. And that’s why they’re looking for this person. Now I get it. You piece it together as you go, and the longer you stick with it, the better you’re able to put the big picture together, and the more enjoyable it is. So my monster stories would be an exercise to see if you can do this with complete nonsense as its basis. With a complete lack of continuity.

So I sent Dick Ayers an email, and it was WAY too long, because I hadn’t sent emails before, and there was so much I wanted to ask and explain, and I talk way too much as it is when it’s about myself. So I brought all these ideas up, and he wrote back in like two sentences, saying he’d ink my monster stories. Wow!

This got me so excited, I whipped out the first five-page Doris Danger story within a couple weeks, and then I began hunting down other artists to see if they would draw a giant monster as a pin-up, that I could publish in my upcoming comic. I approached anyone I admired that I could find, at every convention I went to, and I began hunting them down online too. I was new to the internet. I was shocked. It’s amazing. Everyone had websites, and you could just email their sites, and a lot of these idols of mine would even write me back. Not all of them, but a lot of them. And a lot of them weren’t interested in doing pin-ups, but some of them were. And once I’d hunted down a dozen or so to contact, I was slowly starting to get pin-ups from a few of them.

Of course, once they saw Dick Ayers was inking my stories, that was a big incentive for them to join in. I felt like it really gave me validation. And the more artists I’ve gotten, the more other artists have been willing to contribute. It’s almost like a peer pressure thing now.

I would put out emails fairly regularly, either cold or to the people I’d met at conventions. Often, they wouldn’t write back, even if we’d made contact and they’d given me their info. Or sometimes, I would have to write a few times before they would write back.

I’ve learned now that it’s not necessarily anything personal when they don’t write back. They’re just busy. Or they have other priorities. I think a lot of the time, they keep my email in their inbox, and they’re thinking about it in the back of their head, but they’re so busy with other things, and then my email gets bumped lower and lower onto their list and eventually gets lost. And if I write and remind them, then they realize they forgot to get back to me, and that’s when they’ll write back.

I would always spend so much time trying to phrase my letters just so. I would write these way-too-lengthy letters out, and then read and re-read them, over and over. And I always said basically the same things to everyone, but still personally wrote each letter. It was such a careful, slow, exciting process for me. And then came the dreadful and nerve-racking wait for their reply.

If an artist took over a few days, I would start to have bouts of anxiety that maybe I said something that offended them, or bothered them. I would try to analyze what I’d said, and figure out if there were some way it could be read differently than my intent, since you can’t intone your sarcasm or humor. Unless you use emoticons, which I avoid. I would voice my concerns to my wife, and she’d always, say, “Would you relax. Wait for them to get back to you before you sweat it. They might not check their emails every week. They might be busy.” And sure enough, they usually wrote back shortly after, and I’d realize it was all in my mind. To this day, I still find myself suffering from this emailing paranoia, every letter I send out that I don’t hear from someone.

Lucky for me, I’ve been able to do pretty well financially as a guitar instructor. It’s a decent per lesson fee I charge, and since Elizabeth works for the State, we get all our benefits from her. So I’ve managed to have money to offer to all these professionals, to pay them for their pin-ups. A lot of people ask me my secret for getting pin-ups: That’s the secret. Money, and a lot of time hunting down and bugging way more artists than you get pin-ups from, over and over again. Being persistent, but hopefully not being harassing.

But Jesus it’s been expensive. It’s been so expensive, I’ve had to plan and think about who’s most important or cheapest or most convenient. I’ve had to pace who I approach, and when I contact them. And then I have to wait for a reply and a schedule before I dare try to contact another batch. But like I say, I feel really lucky that I’ve got a job that allows me to afford to do this. And of course, it’s all a tax-write-off, as long as I’m professionally publishing the artwork. And of course, if I can include keeping the art with the payment, it’s also an investment.

As a self-publisher, I have yet to make back even my printing costs for each book. And then on top of that, I’m completely out for the thousands of dollars I’ve shelled out for the pin-ups, which obviously haven’t yet paid off their own costs. And I haven’t even made a cent for myself. So I guess I could say my payment for self-publishing is knowing I’ll lose thousands of dollars an issue, but own some great original art. I’dstart learning all this when I began self-publishing.

Some of my dreams of comics artists I’d like to contribute to my book, besides Mike Mignola and Mike Allred: Bruce Timm, the king of Kirby style comics, in my opinion. I fantasized about him not just doing a pin-up, but an entire story. Steve Rude, who also does a fantastic Kirby. I fantasize about getting an entire story from Gilbert Hernandez or Mike Allred. I don’t bother to fantasize about getting a full story from Mignola, because I just assume it could never possibly happen.

Then I started fantasizing about getting a Dick Hammer or Dr. DeBunko story written by Alan Moore or Grant Morrison or Neil Gaiman, or an introduction to my stories written by them. Or getting a sketch of a giant monster from them — they’ve been known to do some drawings.

Other fantasies: Getting pin-ups from Kevin Nowlan, Brian Bolland, Tim Bradstreet, Al Feldstein, Bill Sienkiewicz, Frank Miller, Matt Groening, Michael Kaluta, all three of the Hernandez Brothers, Joe Kubert, Dave Sim, Barry Windsor Smith, Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, Shag, Mike Ploog, Daniel Clowes, Neal Adams, Johnny Craig, Bernie Wrightson, Adam Hughes, Steve Ditko, Will Eisner. There are so many great artists out there. And so many who’ve passed away, who I missed…

This year, there weren’t any hotel problems.

Here’s what I was beginning to realize by now about portfolio reviews. These editors were there as a courtesy to the industry, but not really to try and find new talent. They all knew and had worked with a stable of known, successful, talented, professional artists, and they knew these artists’ strengths and weaknesses. They knew they could depend on them to do a job, on a deadline, and they knew the quality they could expect of the job, because these people did it for a living. If they didn’t personally know the artists, they knew their work, and they could get them for a job if they wanted to. Why would any editor want to take a chance on an unknown who had no experience. Maybe the sample page looked good, but how consistent would twenty-four pages look, and how would this newbie do on a deadline? Too many unknowns and risky chances in giving a schmuck like me a shot at professional work. I don’t blame them. When I waited in a review line, each editor tended to tell me I needed to work on a completely different thing, and some of them might even like the things that other editors thought needed work. Any little thing they could find, they would use as an excuse to send me away, and of course every one of them would find some little thing, because then they could send me away. I totally understand and sympathize with their position. Now I had done it all enough, and I wasn’t interested in doing it any more.

Sure, some artists are discovered that way. I’ve heard of a couple artists whose artwork blew away the editors, and they gave them work. This is Simon Bisley or Adam Hughes. These are the people who you don’t see every day. They come around a few times a lifetime. But for the rest of us, I”ll tell you how the portfolio review can work, and land you a job. If you keep spending hours in line, over and over and year after year, and if your art is decent, the editor will keep seeing you, and if you’re lucky, maybe they’ll eventually recognize you. Especially if you’re pounding them and sending new samples, every time they return the previous set. Then you’ve got their notice. Then they’re more willing to give you decent advice, or look at your art differently, and maybe help to shape you in a way they want their artists to be. I know people who’ve gotten in this way. It seems to take usually about three years.

But I wasn’t interested in doing this again this year. I decided, I’m going to get advice from artists. From people who draw for a living. And then I won’t have to wait in line for over an hour. I can just walk up to them and show them my stuff. And I’ll be able to take their advice more seriously, because they don’t have any motive to do anything except just tell me what they think.

I wasn’t looking for work. I was just looking to meet some people whose art I admired, and get their takes on my artwork. Because if I like their art, they should have the best advice for what to do with my own work to make it good, in both our eyes. And in addition, then I could meet and spend some time with all these artists I admired!

Even so, I still got different advice from everybody. And for a while I would just try and sort out what advice was helpful to me, and just not pay much attention to any advice I didn’t think would necessarily make my art better. And then I’d just try and make my art better.

Eventually, after this con, I finally decided I wasn’t interested in hearing people’s advice any more, and I stopped going to artists or editors for their opinions and suggestions, unless I was having trouble with something specific, and couldn’t figure out how to handle it. From this con onward, I pretty much just tried to look at my work and figure out for myself what was working, and do what I could to make it better. I knew my strengths more or less, and my weaknesses. When I went to cons, I just showed artists what I’m doing, and either they liked it or they didn’t. But I stopped showing them to get advice on my work. I showed them, to see if they would do a pin-up for my book that I was going to self-publish. More on that later.

GRANT MORRISON

Grant Morrison was supposed to do a signing the first day of San Diego, but he never showed up. We heard rumors that there had been a car accident on the local freeway, and anyone coming by car was stuck in unmoving traffic.

Next day we waited in line and got to Grant. His line was pretty long, and it moved slowly. We realized as we got closer, he really took his time with everyone who came up, and gave them each a chance to really visit with him. What a kind guy in this industry. So approachable. Makes you feel so special.

His right arm was sunburned, as if it had been hanging out of a car door (stuck in traffic?) the day before. I forgot to ask.

I had brought a Doom Patrol issue for him to sign. It’s probably my favorite of his run on the series, because it made me laugh harder than perhaps any other comic I’ve read. Number 34, about the evil Brain in the jar falling in love with his gorilla henchman. Grant said he’d like to do more light, fun stories, like that, but that his stories have been more serious lately. I showed him some copies of my drawings, and he asked if he could keep them. That’s a really thoughtful way to handle fans, I thought, even if he never looks at them. I’d watched him say the exact same thing with the person in line in front of us.

MIKE ALLRED

Went to an X-Panel, which was less entertaining than the previous year. We milled about after, and watched Mike Allred leave with his editor, Axel Alonso. Elizabeth asked what I wanted to do next, and I said, “Sh!”, and I followed them like a stalker. They got to the floor area and parted ways, and I boldly called Mike’s name. I told him what a huge fan I was, but that I thought the coloring wasn’t very good in his issues of Marvel Team-Up. I said I thought all the air-brush effects completely wiped out his line-work. He aggressively asserted his agreement, and we got talking a little. He said he was looking at artists he admired who’d built up such a huge body of work. His Madmans had come out so infrequently, he was making a conscious effort this year to find ways to work quicker, and put more books out for his fans to enjoy. I asked him if he ever does commissions. No, he’s too busy. I asked if he ever has original art to sell, and he said he likes it too much to sell it, and laughed. I felt fucking fantastic to be talking with my idol Mike Allred about his art.

Elizabeth wanted to be more and more helpful. She continued waiting in lines, while I did other things or tried to meet other people. She would encourage me to run off and do something, and she would just sit and wait for me to get back. Every time I got back, she had befriended all the people in line around her. She’s so damn cute and friendly and likable! And a new bonus to having a cute wife: if I took her with me when I tried to meet people, she made the people much more willing to open up and not think I was the complete nerdy comic freak that I actually am.

TIM BRADSTREET

Seeing Tim Bradstreet’s art, I had felt he would be really intimidating. I assumed he’d be hard to get to as well. I just happened to walk by while he was there, and found him amazingly approachable and friendly. He told me about when he tried to get into the comics industry. He loved Tim Truman, and shyly went to him at a comics convention. Truman had critiqued his work, and Bradstreet went back to him again at the next con, over and over. Then one convention, Truman said, “This looks really good, Do you want to do some inking work for me?” That was Tim’s shining moment, landing work from his idol like that. Another kid came up to Tim to show his work, and Tim was really kind about giving support. What a nice guy!

A WRITER WHO I WON’T NAME

I found one of my favorite writers from my formative years, sitting at the DC booth. I had brought one of his comics to the con for him to sign, not knowing he would be there, but assuming everyone came to San Diego, in case I found him. I told him how important his stories were to me as a kid. He kind of glared at me and said, “Well I’m still making comics now, you know.” I replied, “I know, I think it’s great.” He settled down, but it was too late. His comment rubbed me the wrong way. You know, I thought, I understand that you were really a sensation in your younger years, and that you probably just don’t get the same attention you do now that you used to. Fame is a fickle, delicate thing, and it eventually tends to die out for a lot of people, because as you get older, the younger have different interests, not to mention the young just don’t take the time to learn their history. But in addition to all that, my tastes, and other peoples’ tastes, change as we get older, and as we change. I loved Star Wars when I was seven. But I’m not seven any more, and I have a hell of a time trying to sit through those movies now. I don’t really like science fiction at all, as a matter of fact. Maybe I’m interested in what you’re still doing, and maybe I’m not. We’re both different people now, and the whole world is different now. This is bullshit for you to snap at me just because you’re unhappy with your current readership in comparison to your former super-stardom, when I came here to tell you that you were important to me. I thanked him for the autograph.

DEAN ORMSTON, AND MY FIRST ATTEMPTS AT GETTING A PIN-UP FROM AN ARTIST

When I spoke with Mike Allred, I was building to try and ask him about getting a pin-up for my book. But when he said he doesn’t do commissions or sell his art, I abandoned my plan. Too bad I won’t be able to get a pin-up from one of my favorite artists, I thought. But there are plenty of other artists out there.

Walking around, I stumbled onto a booth where Dean Ormston was sitting at his art dealer, and he was very quiet and friendly. I timidly showed him my stuff. He had little to offer in terms of critique, but kindly said it looked good. I timidly asked if he might let me pay him for a drawing of one of my characters, that I could publish with my stories, and he said he might be willing. I thought he could do something with Dr. DeBunko, like with a bunch of scary monsters behind him, and him saying, “Of course there’s no evidence to suggest that there is such thing as monsters.” He was the first artist I asked about a pin-up, and I was really nervous to ask, but he gave me his email. When I got home, I had to email him twice before I got a reply. He said how busy he was, but to check back. I made a few check-backs, but never heard from him after that.

SCOTT McCLOUD

Building up confidence, I showed my copies to Scott McCloud and asked about him doing a pin-up. He said he has to be careful, because his computer art takes a long time to produce. And since he of course has projects of his own to work on, he can only afford to do pin-ups where he’ll get the most bang for his buck. Meaning, of course, to my delicate ego, that my book has no potential for visibility or career-bolstering, and he’s not really interested.

STAN LEE

Elizabeth and I went to go hear a Stan Lee talk. Amazingly, while waiting, up walks Stan Lee, practically right next to us, so we turned and gasped and said hello. We told him what an honor it was, and he said it what an honor it was for him. I wish I had been more on the ball and tried to get a quick photo with him. We never had such a close-contact opportunity as this one, accidental, fly-by-the-pants encounter.

At his panel, I loved all his stories. When we got home, I would get a DVD of Kevin Smith interviewing him, and I realized it had a bunch of the same stories. Then Elizabeth read his autobiography, and she said it had more of the same stories. I would begin to learn he always told all the same entertaining stories, as I heard them again and again, with each interview or tv appearance or magazine article I would subsequently catch.

We waited in line for hours for his autograph, and got a signature for my Fantastic Four Masterworks hardcover. There was someone in line with us who drew a lot of fairly crude, simplistic drawings, but I loved this sequence he did of a Karate Jimmy Carter in action. Who comes up with that kind of stuff? This guy was going to have Stan sign a drawing of Spider-Man he’d done himself, but finally opted to have him sign the program book instead.

LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ AND DICK AYERS

Lew Sayre Schwartz and Dick Ayers sat next to each other in artists alley, and both of them and their wives were very friendly. Elizabeth and I found ourselves hanging out with these guys a fair amount, and really enjoyed them all, and got their contact info. Both of them looked separately at my pages, and were very kind. Lew’s wife told Elizabeth that when they were at the Eisner Awards, Lew was looking at the slides of all the “best promising newcomer” awards and whispering, “Chris’s art is better than all these guys.” Well, it’s certainly a nice sentiment, and it made me feel proud.

After spending way too much time with these guys, I nervously asked Dick about doing a pin-up for me. He said he’d be up for it, and gave me his business card! I asked Lew, but he said he isn’t drawing anymore.

EDDIE CAMPBELL

Eddie Campbell told me about doing his basically self-published EgoMania book. He said there were loose stories, interviews, and things he wanted to do, and so he decided, he made a big wad of extra cash for the “From Hell” movie, and he’d just take that money to publish this book, the way he wants to do it, and see how far it goes, and just keep publishing it until the money runs out. I later learned he was only able to get it to run for two issues, and this after issue two had an Alan Moore interview. What a goddamn industry…

He looked at my Dick Hammer pages, and pointed out the panels he liked better, which tended to be the photo-referenced ones. He pointed out the ones he felt weren’t as strong, which tended not to be photo-referenced. He said when he did “Snakes and Ladders” for Alan Moore, he knew he would need a model for the snake dancer, so he hired one, and was very pleased with how his art for that sequence turned out. He said he didn’t think he could have done the sequence without a model. I told him I would see him again next year, and he said he’d definitely remember my work, because it was unique. Now that I’d had a couple successes asking other artists about pin-ups, I asked Eddie. He just kind of smiled and shook his head like he was busy and not really interested. I really enjoyed spending time with him, and read his current comic while we were still at the convention. I actually emailed him when we got home to tell him about it, and he printed my letter in his next issue, which featured an extensive interview of Alan Moore. For you Chris Wisnia completists out there, the issue was EgoMania #2.

MORE LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ

We sat in on Eddie Campbell’s interview of Lew Sayre Schwartz, and there were only maybe a dozen or less of us listening in there. It was awful. Lew had really interesting stories to tell, though, about how Bob Kane was so popular, he had DC paying him to produce more stories than he was able to produce on his own. So he hired artists like Lew, and paid them himself, out of the money he got from DC. But the catch was, they had to agree that Bob would get to sign his own name to their work. That way, DC still thought it was Bob’s art, and Bob still got credit. The artists didn’t care because they were happy to be making money. But that’s why we don’t realize who all these classic artists are or what they contributed to our medium.

After the talk, Lew drew a quick sketch of Batman for a very small child. Later, back in artists alley, I asked if I could pay him to do a sketch for me. He agreed, and I ended up paying for him to send me a Golden-Age Batman AND a Golden-Age Joker color sketch. When they arrived in the mail, I found myself sucking my breath in, because it was so great to see a Golden-Age drawing of Batman by one of Batman’s Golden-Age artists. I thought it was beautiful!

LOS BROS HERNANDEZ

All three Hernandez brothers were in artists alley, sitting together. The first day, Gilbert wasn’t there, and I had really enjoyed his “Grip” for Vertigo. Jaime was friendly, but quiet and didn’t really have any advice to offer about my work. Mario seemed friendlier and more outgoing.

Next day, I found Gilbert, but Mario and Jaime weren’t there. Gilbert looked at my stuff and recommended I put more space around the voice bubbles. He said things are too cramped otherwise, and it’s amazing how much less professional bubbles look when they’re cramped. To show me an example, he pointed out some of his “Grip” pages, and realized they looked pretty cramped, and didn’t think they were a good example.

WILL EISNER/SCOTT McCLOUD DEBATE

I listened to a bit of a Will Eisner panel, with Scott McCloud. Scott was arguing that the medium of comics has to be updated to computers, both in execution and in the experience of reading them. Eisner was arguing there’s something magical about making the product by hand, as well as having a comic in your hands to read. Sorry, Scott, but I’m in the Eisner school of thought on this one. Perhaps to the detriment of my work. I love drawing by hand, lettering by hand, leaving sloppy, choppy, imperfect lines that look like mistakes that you can’t really do with crisp computer work.

After the talk, we were one of the many who ran up and swamped Will. I held out one of his archives and a sharpie. He grabbed it and signed it for me. I used the same technique bumping into Brian Azarello. I pictured bringing a new Archive book for Will to sign every year, although they’re so heavy and burdensome, I never managed to do it beyond that first one before he passed away.

MIKE MIGNOLA

I went and listened to a Mike Mignola, Guillermo del Toro, Ron Perlman talk, about the upcoming Hellboy film. I was impressed by Guillermo, who swore like a goddamn sailor and said his goal with the movie was to make a Kirby-style, giant-monster ass-kicking fight movie. If that’s your goal, then Hallelujah, I say! The place was packed, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get to Mike in there.

Later I found him signing at the Darkhorse booth, but of course, his line was swamped. He was continuing to hype the film, and Ron Perlman was there with him. I tried to go toward the end of the signing, and that’s when I learned lines get capped off, where you’re not allowed to wait any more. You’re too late. You’re out of luck.

As I went by a little later, I realized he was still there, standing around and talking with people. I quickly ran up, pulled some Hellboy books out of my bag, and asked if he could give me a quick signature. He just said no, that he’d been signing all day. I couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t give me a quick signature. He was just standing there. All right, I packed back up. I was frustrated how inaccessible he was. It made me appreciate Mike Allred that much more, that he didn’t mind if you just walked up to him and visited with him. His lines weren’t as crowded. Little did I know just how friendly and sweet Mike Mignola actually is. But I wouldn’t realize until the following year.

CARMINE INFANTINO

Carmine Infantino was tucked away at some hidden booth. I went and tried to show him my monster drawings, and he wasn’t particularly interested. I asked about a pin-up, and then he became very uninterested. Although, looking back, I think it may not be so much a rudeness thing as an East Coast way of speaking, which we on the West Coast sometimes misinterpret as anger toward us. As I was winding down from my failure at trying to get a pin-up from him, up walks Julie Schwartz, and he sits down with Carmine. I didn’t know what to say, and didn’t want to bother these two living legends who began a conversation as if I weren’t there, so I left.

MURPHY ANDERSON

Managed to hunt down Murphy Anderson. He and his wife were at a booth, and his wife said how much she liked my tie. I showed my monster drawings, and he said, it looks like stories out of Strange Adventures! I said, exactly, and asked about a pin-up. He and his wife kind of looked at each other. He said he doesn’t really draw any more. But just the same, they gave me their mailing address. I wrote them a couple times, but never heard back from them.

STEVE RUDE

I found Steve Rude and really wanted to show him my work. At one point, I got to him, and he said it was bad timing, but why don’t I come back the next day.

The next day, I found him with just one gentleman there, and no one in line. I waited to speak with him while this strange guy was talking about some kind of Eastern meditation technique where you attune yourself to the air currents. And he suddenly closed his eyes and started swaying and jerking around like some drugged-out rag doll freak. Then after what seemed like an eternity of him flopping back and forth and nearly bumping me a couple times, he opened his eyes and said, Like that. Steve spoke with him for a LONG time.

It was a long wait, but finally I had a chance to show him my pages. He picked out one of my Dick Hammer pages, and gave me one of the most in-depth, helpful critiques I’ve gotten. Much of his advice was how he would do his own art, which wasn’t necessarily the look I wanted, but he re-sketched some of my panels to show me what his thoughts, and even let me keep his sketches. I thought he was really sweet to take so much time with my work. Although I didn’t get up the nerve to ask him about doing a pin-up, I left with one of his flyers for his website, and also with his contact info.

Elizabeth and I were exhausted once again, but we survived our second con, and I had just as great a time as our first year. All the great artists I’d met! Unbelievable! All these great artists just hanging out, and there for you to approach and visit with! All the email addresses I’d received of my favorite artists! What a goddamn industry! Even if I didn’t ask all these artists about pin-ups, I could get in touch with them now, and ask about pin-ups when I got up the courage.

I had told Sam Kieth about my positive experiences with Idea Design Works at APE-CON, and he said, Oh, I know the President, Ted. I’ll drop your name to him. The next time I spoke with Sam, he told me, I told Ted about you, and he said he’ll be at Wondercon, and you should stop by his booth and show him your samples. Sam also told me to talk to Chris Staros at Top Shelf, who Sam was considering doing an indie project with (He wound up going with Oni, and the project was “Ojo,” which I ended up helping him draw.) He would also drop my name to them next time they spoke, he said.

So I did what he asked, and it felt pretty cool to have this high-profile excuse to talk with these companies. I immediately name-dropped Sam’s name for my introduction at Idea Design Works. Ted Adams was very friendly, but when I asked about showing him my work, he gave me the impression he hadn’t planned to look at portfolios. He glanced through the pages and didn’t have much to comment. Finally he concluded something along the lines of, “Unfortunately, I don’t really have the authority/availability of projects to offer you any kind of work.” I left a sample package, but realized my in with Sam wasn’t going to help much in this case. Either he really didn’t have much authority/availability, or he wasn’t interested and was being polite. Either way, I was out of luck.

At Top Shelf, Chris Staros hadn’t come to the con this year. So it felt like another dead end. But I name-dropped Sam to the man working the booth. I assumed it was an assistant, but it was actually Chris’s co-publisher, Brett Warnock. I left a package with him, and I really liked him. I thought he was really friendly, and he visited with me in a way that put me at ease.

Top Shelf was kind enough to send me a rejection letter in the mail as well, although it wasn’t as encouraging as my first Fantagraphics rejection letter. It was more encouraging than my second, which was just a form letter.

I walked by the DC booth with my samples in my bag, and just kind of thought, Why bother. I looked to see what editors I recognized, but just couldn’t get up the courage to talk to anyone. I visualized myself getting the same hackneyed (but true) advice, and I just didn’t want to have to live through that torture again. I didn’t end up showing them anything.

John Romita Sr. and Jr. were billed to sign together at this con. I remember I stumbled onto them early, and started to walk right up to them, because there was a big gap in front of them. Then I realized that beyond the big gap, there was actually a huge line. I wound up not bothering to try and get in line to meet them. Another dream shattered. Because of course I had fantasized about getting a sort of tag-team sketch of Spider-Man by each of them on the same piece of paper.

I ended up just falling back into my usual comics convention routine, ditching the attempts to become a comics professional, and just going through bins and looking for back issues of comics.

So when the APE Con came around this year in the Bay Area, I had three Dr. DeBunko and three Dick Hammer stories to shop to publishers, but I didn’t really know who to approach, or how. I thought I might again approach Slave Labor and Fantagraphics. I thought I might try to approach Drawn and Quarterly and Top Shelf. I didn’t know how many other possibilities would be open.

I’d spoken with Fantagraphics at the previous year’s con, and they had kindly taken a package, and even sent me a reply email with a handwritten note of rejection, which I thought was nice for them to take the time. I found the same guy from the previous year, Eric Reynolds (whose name I still didn’t know). I asked if I could leave another package. He started to begin basically the same pitch, that he can’t really look at it at the con, but that they look at everything, and would send me a response, all of which I already knew. So that was one publisher down. On to the next.

I nervously went to Slave Labor. I didn’t find the same guy from the previous year (Dan Vado), or when I did, he looked busy, and I was too intimidated to get another review from him. I finally asked an underling about getting portfolio reviews, assuming I could send a package in, or maybe drop one off, if my package met with their requirements. This guy didn’t ever really smile, although he was friendly enough. He gave me the general submission guidelines I’d been getting at every review I went to. He insinuated the difficulties of getting results, etc. etc. I asked if he had a moment to look at my stuff, and when I showed him, I had the impression he was impressed. I had the impression he had assumed that I would be some talentless but nice enough schmuck, and when he saw my art, he changed his mind. Because he was an underling, he told me he didn’t really make the decisions, but that he thought the work looked good. He gave me his card, and I think I left a package with him, and I felt pretty good about it.

I paced around Top Shelf and Drawn and Quarterly, trying to blend in and not be too conspicuous, but they always seemed either too busy or too cool for me to make an attempt to go up and try to show them my work.

Meanwhile, I stumbled onto a company I hadn’t heard of before, called Idea Design Works. I thought their books looked like I might be able to fit with their style and genre. I kept walking by and trying to get a better look at things. I made eye contact with the gentleman manning the desk, and exchanged some pleasantries. I thought he was really friendly.

So this went on for the rest of the day, where I procrastinated and scoped things out, and felt too intimidated to just go up and talk to anyone. Finally, when the con was almost ready to close, I asked if I could show Idea Design Works my samples. Robbie Robertson was very encouraging of my work. I had the impression he thought my stuff looked really good, and he said he would get it on the desk of the man in charge. This made me thrilled.

I was so excited, I was ready to pass more packages out with confidence to the other publishers. But by then, I had been procrastinating too long, and now they were all breaking down their booths and packing up. It was too late to give something to Drawn and Quarterly or Top Shelf. I’d blown it for this year. But I could always send them something.

So I left the con with a bit of a high over the potential attention of Robbie at Idea Design Works. And not feeling bad about the interaction with Slave Labor either. But looking back in retrospect, nothing really panned out. I never heard from Slave Labor. I emailed my contact once, and never got a reply, and I don’t think I tried to write them again after that. I eventually just sort of forgot about them.

Fantagraphics sent me another form rejection letter, but this time I guess they didn’t think the work was good enough to bother with any personalized comments. Naturally that was a bit of a disappointment. It felt like I was going backwards instead of forwards. Shouldn’t I have gotten an even nicer, more detailed rejection letter the second time around?

I emailed Idea Design Works a few times, and Robbie replied to my letters, saying he remembered me and had put the samples on the President’s desk. He finally said that he asked the President, and the pages had somehow disappeared. I sent another copy, at their request, but nothing ever came of any of my inquiries after that.

So overall, with this con, there wasn’t too much to share, except that I was too nervous and shy, and nothing much happened, and I didn’t try hard enough with getting my work into the hands of publishers, or with following up afterward, and naturally, that led to not finding anyone interested in what I was doing.

I knew what I was doing, though. I was going to keep drawing Dr. DeBunko and Dick Hammer, but before that, I wanted to redraw “The Lump” in a more photo-realistic style.

Around San Diego 2001, I had begun, thanks to my now-fiance, Elizabeth, learning how much information you can get online. I was completely new to this phenomenon. I had a computer that was probably ten years old, and all I had used it for until then was as a data processor for writing scripts. I had no other reason to use a computer that I knew of.

But Elizabeth showed me how much information, and how many people, can be accessed through the internet. I started looking around online, and finding that a lot of my favorite artists had their own websites, or at the very least, had places where their comics or original art were sold, or their representatives could be contacted.

Early on, I found a site dedicated to inkers, that had interviewed tons and tons of great artists, many of them pencillers who inked their own work. The site asked questions about the tools they used for inking, how long it took them to ink a page. Technical questions. I found the questions moderately interesting, but the site was amazing, because it listed most of these artists’ websites and often their emails!

This began my fanboy letter-writing phase.

I fantasized about all my favorite artists, and made lists and lists of everyone I could think of that I might like to write to, and included their websites or emails if I could find them. I started sending out letters to a number of artists I admired, or even to artists I just admired a little. For some reason, I thought it was okay, if I liked one thing about an artist, but wasn’t keen about other things, to let them know both of those things. I would let them know what I liked and didn’t like. Pretty much, whenever I wrote these kinds of letters, I wouldn’t hear back from the artists. If I were one of those artists, I would have been pretty pissed to get a letter like that, I think.

But if I wrote nice letters of adoration, I still sometimes wouldn’t hear back from the artists…but sometimes I would. It seemed I would hear from artists with more regularity if I mentioned having an interest in buying some of their original artwork, in which case they would write back and tell me where online their art was for sale.

I remember getting a nice letter from Michael Lark. I had told him how great I thought “Batman Nine Lives” was. What can I say? I loved how noir it was. I imagined that he was maybe some hard-boiled fifty-or-so-year old, who slaved away at his art board, and didn’t have much understanding of technical advances like computers. I imagined he watched old movies and read old novels and had very little contact with the outside world, let alone computer access.

He wrote a kind note about some of his favorite film noirs, and I was surprised to see Joan Crawford’s “Sudden Fear” on the list. I wrote back that I hadn’t had him pegged for a noir melodrama type.

I wrote a letter to Brian Michael Bendis about how great I thought his Daredevils were, firing up the story arc with the Kingpin getting hit. I wrote my personal feelings that character-driven stories are overrated and got on my nerves, because now no one cares about a good, rippin’ story about events, because they’re so busy exploring how their character feels, and what s/he’s gone or going through, and all that bullshit that doesn’t interest me. He of course never wrote back.

I was learning that if you want your idols to respect you, you should show them respect and appreciation, and not be a little twit who’s so eager to tell them all the things you don’t like about their art or stories. I was realizing there’s no need to tell artists what you don’t like, because they have to worry about that enough, every panel they draw, without all the little twits reminding them of their shortcomings.

But also, I was learning that this industry is very accessible, and you can hunt a lot of people down quite easily, and write to them and say hello, and if you’re nice about it and they aren’t too busy and have a moment, they’ll even write you back. Wow!

Following San Diego 2001, I found myself constantly falling back on the advice Alex Sinclair had given me during my portfolio review. It influenced my ideas for what projects I wanted to work on next, and eventually caused me to put “The Lump” on hold.

Alex recommended doing four page comics stories, rather than spend months on pages and pages of one story that a company may not be interested in. He said four pages is a commitment, but not one you have to worry about if no one likes it. However, he also pointed out that it’s enough to show editors what you’re capable of, what the character is capable of, and that you understand how to tell stories, with a beginning, middle, and end, in a sequential narrative.

THE CREATION OF DR. DeBUNKO

Early in my attempts to break into the comics market, I had brainstormed characters in the DC Universe that I might like to revamp. Maybe this will give you an idea how long ago it was: It was back when they were revamping all their old, lesser known characters into the Vertigo line (Swamp Thing, Sandman, Shade, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Black Orchid). For some reason, Dr. 13 stuck with me most, because I’d been reading a lot of Skeptical material on vampires, witches, werewolves, and the Devil and demons. In comics, the Skeptic usually only has one of two roles. The Skeptic can be a lunatic (because the basis of most comics characters is some form of supernatural origin or ability or whatever). Or, in Scooby Doo fashion, the Skeptic has to debunk evil people posing as a supernatural force. For example, a greedy uncle might want to scare the kids from inheriting the family estate, so he makes up this elaborate, completely unrealistic and idiotic scheme involving sheets hanging from wires and flashlights, and he tries to convince those dumb kids the place is haunted, so that the mansion’s possession will fall into his hands.

Dr. 13’s adventures fell into this latter category, and I liked the idea of pushing the Skeptical nature of the character.

I did a four page Dr. DeBunko story, and really enjoyed doing it. The premise was based on a book I had recently read about the stages of decay of the human body after death, and how these natural stages have historically tended to excite people’s beliefs in vampires. For example, people assume that the fingernails and hair of the dead continue to grow, which naturally might lead people to assume that the body isn’t actually dead. In fact, these things don’t grow. The skin recedes, and more of the nails and hair show as a result. The book is called, “Vampires, Burial, and Death,” by Paul Barber, and I found it absolutely fascinating. I also had a book called “The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology,” by Hope Rossell Robbins, which was packed full of equally fascinating historical tidbits on peoples beliefs in the occult, often with horrifying results to their fellow man.

It was nice to work on something new and different from “The Lump.” I was anxious to do some more of these four page exercises. And while working on it, I came up with another character that I thought would fit the format nicely.

THE CREATION OF DICK HAMMER: CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

I had been really enjoying film noir for some years at this point, to the extent that I eventually began reading books ABOUT film noir. These of course often spoke of the books the movies were based on, and I eventually meandered in that direction as well. I’d gotten through some Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. I read some Jim Thompson and Cornell Woolrich and David Goodis and James Cain and Ross MacDonald. Of course I’d heard of Mickey Spillane, but whenever I read about him, it sounded like so many people hated his books and refused to include him amongst the classic hardboiled writers. And this despite his record sales numbers of all time. Finally, I picked up a half dozen of his Mike Hammer novels, which I found collected in two volumes.

I was hooked at once. They were so kitschy and melodramatic, violent, crude, predictable, action-packed, corny, politically incorrect, and outrageous in their xenophobia, sexism, racism, and right-wing conservatism. I laughed out loud throughout them. I loved them. I knew I had to write my own stories like this. I wanted to parody the attitude, but they felt like parodies of the attitude all by themselves. They were ripe for comics. And that’s how I created Dick Hammer: Conservative Republican Private Investigator. I basically just tried to do “straight” stories of Mike Hammer.

I drew a four-page story with fairly cartoony periphery characters. But it wasn’t long before I decided that I wanted less cartoony, and more photo-referenced of noir films. When I redrew the story, it expanded to six pages.

After redrawing Dick Hammer, I decided the character of Dr. DeBunko should be more photo-referenced as well. Originally, he was a kooky, mad-scientist-looking fellow with a bowtie and pipe and glasses. I wanted him to play more the straight man in the crazy universe, but I didn’t think I needed to redraw everything. I ended up redrawing Dr. DeBunko in each panel, and leaving the rest basically untouched.

CREATING TABLOIA WEEKLY MAGAZINE

Soon I had done three stories each of Dr. DeBunko and Dick Hammer, at which point I created the Jack Kirby-style Doris Danger Giant Monster Adventures. This was the stage I began to visualize all these tabloid-type stories inside one book that I would self-publish, called “Tabloia.”

The name Tabloia, came from combining “Tabloid” and “paranoia,” and I liked that it sounded reminiscent of old horror magazines like “Creepy” and “Fangoria.” After hearing the Hernandez Brothers speak about an umbrella title working well for them, I wanted a title that I thought would encompass not only these stories I was currently working on, but any story I might tell in the future. I realized that I have a real fascination with the vaguely tabloid types of stories. Not the tabloid love stories of speculating on actors who are dating, but more the predictions of Notradamus, prophecies of the Bible that must be coming true, lurid murder and violence cases, freaks of nature born with two heads or two brains, UFOs and loch ness monsters. The more macabre side of tabloids. I fumbled in my head for a dozen stories I had envisioned making into comics, and they could all fit into this “tabloia” theme.

Once I created a title, I began to envision this “Tabloia” as an actual magazine that is published within the worlds I was creating. I imagined it had been running for thirty or forty or fifty years, and that its staff could make appearances in the stories. I imagined letters pages written by imaginary fans, writing in relentlessly to voice their hatred and contempt for the magazine. I imagined smaller features in the magazine, like “Dr. Cleanie Santini Sanitation tips” and “Professor Pardi’s Science Sex Facts.” I imagined a new company president getting replaced every issue for incompetence. I imagined a whole world to enrich the stories even more.

I decided I wanted to begin my “Tabloia” comic on issue number 572, because that way it would be like it’s been running for a long time. Also, I was born in May 1972 (5-72), and I thought, if that was a good birth for me, it’s a good birth for my comic.

But if I took this tabloid magazine all the way, I would want to have distinct artistic styles with each story inside, like Daniel Clowes’ Eightball. Sometimes with brush, sometimes with pen, and so on. That’s the stage when I edited the Dr. DeBunko look for a third time, by going back over the pages, adding different textures, cross-hatches, and splotches. And now I had three different tabloid worlds in three different artistic styles, inside my upcoming self-published book. And if I redrew “The Lump,” it would make the perfect feature story.

I’m getting ahead of myself…

Once home from my first big convention, I soon went over to my friend Tim Foster’s house, to show him my latest work and tell him about my adventures in San Diego. I especially wanted to tell him about my time with Sam Kieth, since he and Sam were friends, and he basically gave me an in for an introduction.

While we’re visiting, his phone rings. He answers it and says, “Oh hi, Sam. Chris Wisnia’s here, and we were just talking about you.” Tim hands me the phone and says Sam wants to talk to me. Naturally this really excites me.

Sam opens up the conversation telling me he doesn’t really have any clout with publishers or editors, but if there was ever anything he could do to help me, he’d be happy to do it. And he gave me his work and home phone numbers, and that’s how my relationship with Sam began.

Over the next year or so, I would occasionally call and see how he was doing, and this usually resulted in hour-long phone calls. He was always real sociable and friendly, whenever I caught him on the phone.

He talked about how unhappy he was with his Sandman comics, even though in a lot of ways, those are the books he’s known for and got him going. When he drew them, he was a huge Berni Wrightson fan, and was going for a Berni Wrightson look. But his inker, Mike Dringenberg, a very talented artist, had an apparently different vision, and the work ended up looking different than Sam had envisioned. Sam felt he didn’t belong on a fantasy book anyways.

As time passed on, during our phone calls, he would be working on different projects. We would talk about his art in the Hulk and Wolverine mini-series. He would tell me story ideas he was putting into the sequel of Zero Girl, or the big plot twists in it or Four Women or Hulk/Wolverine. But I would read his comics, and I’d realize that often the things he would bring up seemed so incidental or peripheral to me. The concerns he felt strongly about, at least strongly enough to talk about, I may not have noticed in his stories, if he hadn’t mentioned them to me. I don’t know if it was just because he didn’t want to spoil the main ideas, or if he was so advanced beyond thinking about them that he wasn’t interested in them anymore.

He would talk about how every artist comes up with styles and shortcuts for drawings, and Sam has his own techniques for drawing his art, and it’s not necessarily better or worse, it’s just what we learn works. It can be a curse according to him, because you have trouble getting out of what you know, and your art becomes stylized.

When I was sending out invitations to my wedding, I went over to Tim’s house again. And Sam was there to take photos of Tim, which he planned to use as reference for his Hulk/Wolverine book. He had photocopies of Four Women that he showed us, and he hadn’t decided on the order of pages yet. Tim made some suggestions for narrative, and Sam wound up mixing up the order of the pages for the final draft. I remember thinking how foreign this style of writing was to me, that Sam could change the order of events, and the story would still work. With my own work, I thoroughly wrote out my scripts, panel for panel, usually completely in order, from start to finish, without jumping around. I completed the script before even considering drawing any lines to paper.

Sam wrote in images, not words. He knows these two people are going to see each other in this place, and then get in an argument, and this person will be upset and go do this. But what they actually say, maybe it’s not as important to Sam as what they do. Once the images are finished, he puts conversations into the mouths of the images.

He talked about working for DC’s Wildstorm imprint (with Zero Girl and Four Women), but getting a couple other companies interested in doing a more artsy, independent book he had in mind. And he was shopping it around a little, primarily to Top Shelf, and the companies wanted a proposal, an outline, a script. But Sam was telling them, look, I’ve done that my whole career, and I’m not interested in that anymore. If you want to work with me, this time we’ll work how I want to work. And that means, I’m going to do my book the way I want to do it. I’m not going to give you a script, or a plot, for us to discuss before continuing on. I’m going to start drawing and you can see the pages as I go, and I’ll do the script last of all, and you can publish it or not publish it. And the smaller companies just wanted to work with him, and he was trying to decide which company would be best for his book.

Sam talked about how personal a lot of events in his stories are. How artists have to come up with their stories somewhere, and eventually we all steal from people we know, their experiences, their stories. And at one point his wife told him, Look, I understand that that’s how an artist works, and you have to tell your stories. But with this particular story he was putting together, Sam was invading into her stories. It went beyond telling his own stories. He was taking stories that were so personal, they weren’t his to tell. They finally decided, he was allowed to tell stories that he was a part of, but not stories that she told him, from when he wasn’t around. In other words, if she’s part of his story, then that justifies it being his story too. It’s a fine line, finding stories. Woody Allen makes films about this very subject, of pissing all your friends and family off, estranging yourself from them, because you’re stealing their lives from them to tell a story. But what a story!

While Sam was struggling trying to get his movies put together, he talked a little about Neil Gaiman. Neil wanted to get into literature, so he started writing books, and he became really successful at that, and then he decided he wanted to do films, and now he’s getting into that. And Neil gets all this critical attention, whatever he does, in whatever field. And Sam’s and Neil’s careers both kind of kicked in with Sandman, but even though Sam is popular and successful, he never really got awards or recognition for his work, except for early early in his career, when he inked Matt Wagner’s Mage comics. He was nominated best inker, or best new inker, something like that. But ever since then, he hasn’t been honored with any nominations or awards, and now he’s been going for twenty years, and he thinks, it would be nice to get some recognition sometime. I assume all artists feel this way, because we all work awfully hard, and it would be nice if all that hard work could be acknowledged in some way.

Once we talked about how fans sometimes take liberties and act like they know you, but it can be a little frightening. They’re so intimately familiar with your work, that in a way, they do kind of know you. I think about this when I read someone’s autobiography, or listen for long periods to their radio show. You get to know them, and they become a part of your everyday life. But they don’t know you at all. You’re a stranger, and they probably have very little interest in getting to know you, or seeing who you are. Sam has to worry about people like this if they get too close. If they get hold of his phone number or address, for example. Probably nothing would ever come of it, but you just don’t know people, and you don’t know what crazy fan with a gun will think of you the way they thought of John Lennon. It’s really a strange dynamic.

I think what we tended to talk about most, though, is the frustrations Sam experiences, being pegged as a mainstream comics artist, when he isn’t that interested in doing mainstream work. He’s known for his superhero work, and got his reputation and fan base from his superhero work, but he really just wants to do his personal, psychological, relationship-issue stories. Even his famous books, the art was always on the fringe side of mainstream, where people were telling him he was too weird, and he had to be more mainstream. So on the mainstream side, people don’t feel his stories really belong. But now he’s trying to get out of the mainstream, and all the indie publishers are telling him, “Look, you’re a mainstream artist. You do Wolverine and Spider-Man.” Sam said it almost felt like they wouldn’t give him indie credibility. How dare he try and pretend he’s cool and hip and indie. He’s a superhero artist. So Sam felt like he was having trouble on either side of the fence. And in that respect, I think he could relate to what I was trying to do as an artist, and I suspect that’s why he didn’t mind me calling him like a fanboy and bugging him every now and then.

I had an in for meeting Sam Kieth. He lived in Sacramento, where I lived at the time, and I had gotten to know a very close, long-time friend of his, Tim Foster. I knew Tim had a love of comics, just like I did. When I started working on “The Lump” pages, I was eager to get advice from anyone who read comics, so I hunted him down to see what he thought. He was impressed that I had pounded out so many pages in the amount of time most aspiring comic artists would do one page, if they were lucky to finish it. So I got mentioned next time he spoke with Sam. Sam told him, “I can see we’re going to have to kill this guy.” Which I assume meant they were both impressed that I kept plugging along and getting work done. Tim told me Sam would be at the convention, and I looked forward to trying to find him.

At San Diego, my fiance, Elizabeth (I proposed at that very con) and I found him in the schedule listings, and sat in the front row of a packed “Interviewing Sam Kieth” panel discussion.

In the panel, he talked about how no one liked the look of his work when he was just getting started. People didn’t think he could draw. Everyone would say, “You draw feet way too big,” or whatever. But now, everyone says, “I love how you draw feet so big.” Interesting how people’s perceptions change over time.

He talked about the Maxx cartoon, and how he had nothing to do with it, but that the creators were real fans, and wanted to make the cartoon absolutely true to the comic. Sam actually felt that this was a bit of a detriment, how accurately they copied it. In comics, you have a full page, and one panel will be small because it’s incidental, and then the next panel will be huge, because it’s important and has to pack a punch. But you can’t convey that in cartoons, and they would blow up the incidental, small panel, and it would feel different. And it would look sloppier than other images, because it wasn’t meant to be seen with such emphasis. Interesting. You don’t really think about stuff like that until people say it.

The interviewer would ask him a question, and he’d have really long, interesting answers, and then the interviewer would have to keep saying, “I’m sorry, but I have to cut you off, because we haven’t gotten very far, and we only have an hour, and there were some other things I wanted to talk about.”

Afterward, we followed Sam out with a mob of other fans. People were asking him to sign things, or telling him what a fan they were and how much his work meant to them. He walked really slowly while he visited. Elizabeth and I eventually worked our way to the front of the mob, and I introduced myself and told him, “We have a mutual friend. He told me you said you’re going to have to kill me.” He didn’t realize I was joking. He was apologetic and embarrassed, even though I was just making an excuse to begin a conversation. He visited with us for awhile as we walked to his next event. I told him it would be great if he might ever have a chance to look at my stuff. I told him I assumed he would be busy during the con, but maybe back home. He wanted to see what I was doing, said he would be signing the next day, and that maybe we could plan to hook up once he was finished.

The next day, we popped over now and then to see how he was doing for his signing. There was a huge line, and it just never stopped the entire time. Sam was giving free sketches to everyone who waited in line. We could hear him saying things like, “Don’t be ridiculous, you waited in line all this time, you get a sketch. Who do you want?” When his allotted time had run out, the DC booth-runners went up to the next person in line, and basically just said, Sorry, everyone from here back, but we need to make room for the next autographer, so all of you beat it. Sorry, you’re out of luck.

Sam said the woman who had been cut off, who had obviously been waiting in line an hour or two, had such a look of despair and anguish, Sam immediately jumped up and told everyone in line, “No, no, everybody stay put. When they kick us out, we’ll all go over to the food court. Everyone’s getting a sketch.” And sure enough, they kicked him out, and he rounded up the line, and marched them over to the food court, and he sat there and sketched for everyone for an additional hour, until everyone had their chance to meet him and get a sketch.

At this point he was running out of time. He quickly looked over my stuff. He said he thought it looked good, and he didn’t have much advice except that I should think about self-publishing. Other people had given me this same advice, but it finally hit home now and began to plant a seed in my mind, here at the San Diego Con, after spending so much time waiting in portfolio review lines. He said, if you self-publish, then you have a finished, printed product, and that puts you head and shoulders above all these little punks (“little punks” is my phrase, not his) waiting in line at these cons. Then editors will take you more seriously. Then people are more willing to publish your stuff, or even just look at it. He told me, back when he was doing the portfolio review thing, an editor once said, “Well you have to work on this and this and this,” and tried to shrug him off. Sam told him he’d done those things in the comics he’d had published, and here they were. The editor flipped through them, and said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were published. Give me your card, and disregard all that stuff I was saying about your work earlier.”

It was after this trip that I began seriously visualizing self-publishing, and piecing together the stories and structure of what would become my self-published “Tabloia Weekly Magazine.”

Sam said he had to run, and we were soon leaving ourselves to catch a plane home, so we parted, packed and went to the airport. We assumed Sam had to go to another panel discussion or con-related event. But when we got to the airport, there was Sam, ready to board the same plane! So we sat together and visited some more for the flight back. I was nervous that sitting with him the whole trip, we would wear out our welcome, or run out of things to say. But Sam is such a sweet, friendly, approachable, and easy-to-talk-with guy, we had a blast. We learned his wife had a psychology background, just like my wife. Sam actually knows a lot about psychology as a result, and that got Elizabeth and him talking for the entire trip home. I would learn how heavily psychological his comics were, but not until later, because believe it or not, I hadn’t read a Sam Kieth comic yet.

Everyone told me San Diego was amazing, and that everyone would be there. I just shrugged it off. “Yeah yeah, I’m sure you’re right. I don’t really care. I just want to show my portfolio to people.” But I quickly found myself awe-stricken by so many great artists, just around everywhere. They’re all doing signings. They’re all hanging out at booths. They’re all giving talks at panel discussions. They’re all making sketches. They’re all visiting. You just stumble onto them, wherever you go. I found myself getting really into hunting down particular people. What was craziest, you get the program, and it lists where a few people are and you get so excited to see they’re all around somewhere, but it can’t possibly list everyone and where they all are, so you wind up finding people in places you didn’t even expect. Because everyone is just there, if not at a particular table, at a particular booth, then somewhere, just hanging out with someone.

We found a Sam Kieth panel listed in the program book. We wanted to meet him, because he was a friend of a friend of mine, and I figured that would get me an in. We sat in the very front, and then followed him afterwards, among a mob of fans, and met him. My relationship with Sam has developed too much to get into here, climaxing with him asking me to do the art for his “Ojo” book. I’ll write about my experiences with him later, when I can really go into detail.

Stumbled onto a Mike Allred signing at the Marvel booth. Waited in a very short line. The little boy in line in front of me handed Mike an X-Men book, and Mike was trying to explain to him, “I’ll sign this if you want, but I didn’t draw any of the art in it.” The poor, cute little guy didn’t seem to understand. Finally it was my turn, and I shook the hand of one of my favorite artists, Mike Allred, and told him I didn’t bring anything for him to sign, but just wanted to let him know how much I loved his work. He said he didn’t want me to leave empty-handed, grabbed a brochure advertising upcoming Marvel projects, including his X-Force book with Wolverine, and signed it for me. I couldn’t read him very well. He had a look like maybe I said something that annoyed him, but I couldn’t tell. I thought later, maybe it was just such a surreal, senses-assaulting environment, he just was getting frazzled. I still thought the experience was really special, not only that he was at this convention and available to his fans, but that he made sure I had something to take with me.

Went to an X-panel, which was hilarious. Joe Quesada had just started putting all these amazing indie artists on all Marvel’s books, and it was really shaking things up, and I thought the results were magnificent. So this panel had Mike Allred, Grant Morrison, and Joe Casey from the “indie” school, and Chris Claremont and others from the mainstream, classic school. It was a peculiar audience, because half were hip, cool-looking college kids dressed like hip, cool-looking college kids (which is what I wished I was), and half were freaky nerd kids in Punisher costumes and other comic-nerdy get-up, with lacking social skills (which I was and certainly would have been at a con like this, if I’d only known of such a mecca). The cool kids were asking questions about indie guys on mainstream books. The geeks were asking specific questions about X-continuity and X-believability.

Chris was brand new getting back onto the X-books, and I think this was pretty exciting for everyone who grew up with him, including me. He was constantly making interjections and cornball cracks to be funny, which I didn’t enjoy as much. I love, LOVE his books, and admire his career and what he’s done for comics very much. I grew up with all his eighties stories, and revered all the seventies issues, which were too hot and popular and expensive for me to ever find or afford. What I appreciated most about him was when he talked about his career. That was great to hear. He acknowledged that in the early eighties, there were a lot of great comics coming out. He said when Frank Miller was on Daredevil, and Walt Simonson was on Thor, those great books were really putting the pressure on him to create the best work he could produce as well.

Grant said that superhero costumes originally stemmed, way back in the late ’30s-early ’40s, from entertainment, specifically circus acts and strongmen. In today’s society, that flashy, showy attitude isn’t quite so practical. However, a costume can still have a function, if it’s worn as a uniform. A symbol of recognition, like a police officer, or garbage man. Brilliant, I thought. And that’s what he did with his X-books. He ditched the corny, bright-colored spandex, and gave the X-Men uniforms.

Some nerds in the con started asking questions about X-continuity and character development. The “indie” panelists would answer these questions by saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Finally, one nerd asked, “How do you expect us to take your treatments of the X-Men seriously when you break all these rules?” Joe Casey masterfully replied, “How do you expect us to take ANY of it seriously?” The implication being, it’s all just comics. It’s all fun. The idea that people are running around in costumes and masks, doing good, and fighting each other, kind of throws the issue of “seriously” out the window. You know, like, there’s a man flying through the air in his underpants, and beating up someone who must have the ultimate insecurity complex, because he won’t rest until everyone on earth or in the galaxy will bow down to him, even though he’s also in his underpants. As if that abstract concept – “ruler of the galaxy” – would be good for anything.

Mike Allred spoke a little about how his first X-issue caused the Comics Code support banner to be removed from the book, because the story ended with a disturbing, violent image. Mike said he thought it was great. They were afraid it would affect sales, but the book was so hot it sold out fast and went immediately into a second printing. Hurray for the indie-guys shaking up the system, and making work that angers, frustrates, and confuses people!

In the panel, a few nerds wanted to know why these indie artists couldn’t just follow a little continuity, and be true to the characters of the stories. New X-Editor Axel Alonso spoke out that there are half a dozen X-books that already do that. If that’s what you want, the indie guys aren’t taking that away from you. They’re just trying to offer an alternative. Bravo, I say!

After the panel, all the artists dispersed, and I was surprised to see Grant Morrison was hanging out in the hall, visiting with anyone who came over to talk to him. I thought that was so great, and he was so friendly and appreciative of his fans. I waited patiently in his huddle, got to the front, and told him I don’t always agree with his politics (Why do I say things like that?), but I think it’s a blast that he’s shaking things up with mainstream comics. He said, “Yeah, you take the children sweetly by the hand, and lead them into a dark, scary place.” He was really excited about doing the X-Men. He said, “Yeah, it’s the X-Men, man!” as if he couldn’t believe he’d landed the best Marvel gig of them all. He was such a treat to visit with. He’s so friendly, and seems to genuinely love just taking as much time as is needed, being there for his fans, and visiting with his fans.

Found Tim Sale in artists alley, and was nervous to approach him again, after our first meeting (at Wondercon), when I suspected he thought I was accusing him of being a Frank Miller hack.

I opened by asking him what his favorite film noir was, and that got him talking. He said he was a Burt Lancaster fan and loved “The Killers”. He said he also really liked Barbara Stanwyck. He recommended watching “Sorry, Wrong Number,” which I hadn’t yet seen. This noir angle gave me an in. It was an in I continued using whenever I saw him. A couple years later, I was able to tell him that a two disc “Killers” set was just released on DVD, a Criterion double-feature disc with the Ronald Reagan/Lee Marvin film as well as the original Burt Lancaster film.

He said of the Long Halloween sequel that he never had much interest in doing a gangster comic, and didn’t even want to do a Long Halloween sequel, but that Jeph Loeb came up with a story, more character-driven, that surprised him, because it interested him in doing a sequel. And then up walked Jeph, so I was able to get them both to sign my Long Halloween issue I’d brought.

Man, by the end of the con, my feet were killing me. We must have walked miles and miles during the course of the convention, back and forth, and back and forth, and back. Over and over. I was paying for it within a few days. I learned the advantage of insoles, and that helped, but so much damage had already been done. Also luckily, our hotel had a hot tub, and we spent our nights soaking and rubbing our feet.

I’ll tell you what I think is so amazing about the comics industry. In Hollywood, how likely is it that you can go to annual conventions and meet all your idols, and it may be a long wait in line, but you can just walk right up to them and shake their hands, and tell them how much you appreciate them?

This convention, I began to realize how, even though they’re superstars to me, in the real world, they still have their civilian lives. Their “secret identitiies”. They can go to the grocery store and no one will recognize them or care who they are. They probably appreciate getting a little praise and recognition at conventions, but then being able to go home and live normal lives. They don’t mind being so accessible, because it’s not an imposition to them. What a great industry, that fans have that access to their idols.