<\/p>\n
Day One, Continued Yet again April 8, 2006<\/strong><\/p>\n Later in the day, I hear Daniel Clowes has been signing down at the Fantagraphics booth, so I run down to try and bug him for the third year in a row. While I\u2019m waiting in his line, I see Matt Groening, just milling around. Amazing! What\u2019s he doing here? He doesn\u2019t live around here. He and Bongo Comics don\u2019t come to APE. I thought I would never find or see him! I thought I\u2019d never hunt him down. And he\u2019s just hanging out here, by the Fantagraphics booth.<\/p>\n I walk up and get his attention, and he says hello, shakes my hand. I say I\u2019m surprised to see him here, and doesn\u2019t he live in Oregon, or Washington? No, L.A., he says, and starts to turn away. I ask if I can show him something, and he kind of reticently turns back, with an unsure, Okay\u2026<\/p>\n I show him the book, and he\u2019s like, Really?Wow, this is amazing.This is great, and he flips through it.I\u2019m trying to make the pitch, and before he gets to the pin-ups, he begins to close the book and hand it back.I say, And did you see there are pin-ups by Mike Mignola, Sam Kieth, the Hernandez Brothers?And now I fatally realize he\u2019s losing interest fast.He continues to say, Wow, that\u2019s great.It\u2019s really good, but he just doesn\u2019t have the emotion behind his words that he had in the start, and he\u2019s trying to get away now.I\u2019ve run out of time.I\u2019ve lost him.I do ask if he ever has time for commissions of this sort, and now he\u2019s walking away.No, he\u2019s really got way too much on his plate.He hands the book back, and I tell him he could keep it if he would like it, but he replies that he\u2019ll just buy a copy at his local store.I realize later that means that he doesn\u2019t want one, and that he isn\u2019t planning to buy a copy, but it was a polite way to handle the situation.I thank him and get back in line for Daniel Clowes.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve fantasized about getting a pin-up from Matt Groening for a long time.The first time I met him, and showed him copies of my Dick Ayers-inked monster stories (at San Diego), he seemed to think they were really impressive.Now I begin to wonder if he\u2019s just really polite, and when people show him things, this is his way of being supportive.It certainly makes you feel good.<\/p>\n Matt did a Madman pin-up for Mike Allred, and he did a gorgeous cover for DC\u2019s Bizarro World book, which was full of indie artists doing DC superhero stories. So I naively hoped he might be willing to do something like this. At least, now, I know he\u2019s not interested, and I can stop fantasizing about it. That was my best shot. My monster book is the best I can do, to show people what I\u2019m up to. If they\u2019re not interested after seeing that, I\u2019ve got nothing else.<\/p>\n Except, of course, that I\u2019m still going to try to pursue a pin-up from Bill Morrison. And you never know. Maybe if I\u2019m the nicest guy Bill\u2019s ever met, he could put a good word in for me to Matt. Ah, how the brain never stops scheming, even after it\u2019s defeated.<\/p>\n Daniel Clowes acted like he remembered my stuff, the moment I said I\u2019m the guy who does the Kirby-style monsters. He flipped through the book, and said, with a slightly tickled, slightly dumbfounded tone, that it has to be the most eccentric project he\u2019s ever seen. I reminded him I\u2019d love to get a pin-up from him, and he laughed that he\u2019d be sure to put it on the top of his list. His sarcasm wasn\u2019t so caustic that I felt humiliated. He said Fantagraphics forwards any of his emails, and I could contact him through them. He said they write him every day. So I told him, oh, okay, I see, if that\u2019s what you want, then I WILL write everyday. He laughed again, and we parted with him telling me to write him at least every four hours.<\/p>\n We spotted Mario Hernandez, and shouted out his name, and he came over with his daughter, and as usual, hung out for a nice long while. I asked if he would be sitting at the Fantagraphics booth this weekend, and he said probably not. He offered to do it, but Fantagraphics said, I assume kind of unenthusiastically, that they\u2019d be happy to make space, but it wasn\u2019t necessary. We asked if he would be at San Diego, and he said maybe not this year. I told him I hadn\u2019t sent my monster book to his brothers, and he said he was planning to give them copies when he saw them. He said he\u2019s had the book by his bed, and his daughter is starting to notice it and ask him, What\u2019s this? So he showed her, but she hasn\u2019t seen the original Kirby stuff yet. So voila, I pull out the stack of Kirby books I had brought, and she starts flipping through them, and laughing at the names of the monsters, and their tag lines. She really liked, \u201cThe thing from nowhere.\u201d I\u2019ve got to admit, it\u2019s a good one.<\/p>\n Mario had emailed me almost a year ago about a secret project Gilbert was working on, and it was going to be a superhero book. And I was really excited about this at the time, and anxious to see it, so I asked Mario about the status. He said Gilbert has been really busy, because he\u2019s doing a new Palomar book. But what\u2019s interesting is that Jaime did a story for Gilbert\u2019s superhero book, and he got so into it, that he\u2019s put aside all his other work. Love and Rockets is like three months behind schedule, and Jaime can\u2019t stop working on these superhero stories he\u2019s been doing. God, I can\u2019t WAIT to see what comes of this.<\/p>\n Mario noticed my Lump trade is on the way, and he seemed like he thought that was cool. I\u2019ve always felt intimidated by the cool indie guys. Like my borderline-mainstream work isn\u2019t as valid. I told him I\u2019m kind of ashamed that I enjoy the private detective horror stuff, and he thought it was nonsense to feel that way. He said, you gotta do what you love. He didn\u2019t care. He just loves comics. He\u2019s flipping through the Doris Danger book while he\u2019s telling me this, and he tells me he thinks Steve Rude\u2019s pin-up is amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Day One, Continued Yet again April 8, 2006 Later in the day, I hear Daniel Clowes has been signing down at the Fantagraphics booth, so I run down to try and bug him for the third year in a row. While I\u2019m waiting in his line, I see Matt Groening, just milling around. Amazing! What\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary-of-a-struggling-comics-artist"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"cwisnia","author_link":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/archives\/author\/cwisnia"},"uagb_comment_info":353,"uagb_excerpt":"Day One, Continued Yet again April 8, 2006 Later in the day, I hear Daniel Clowes has been signing down at the Fantagraphics booth, so I run down to try and bug him for the third year in a row. While I\u2019m waiting in his line, I see Matt Groening, just milling around. Amazing! What\u2019s…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}