March 27, 2006<\/p>\n
After the Orlando Con, I started getting really excited about the monster comics again. <\/span>A large part of this was hooking up pin-ups from Al Feldstein, Sal Buscema, Nick Cardy, and possibly Mart Nodell. <\/span>I started thinking, if I put out another monster book, I should be able to complete it within a few months and have it out before the year is up. <\/span>Whereas if I try and pound through my 175-page Limbo Caf\u00e9 project, it would be a lot longer wait. <\/span>Add to that it would be less confusing for fans, if I put out a few books of the same type, rather than jumping so spasmotically from genre to genre. <\/span>And then of course there\u2019s the fact that the monster books are so fun to do. <\/span>And I\u2019ve already got pin-ups that haven\u2019t seen print yet, from JH Williams III, Dick Ayers, Peter Bagge, Peter Kuper, Herb Trimpe, and one from Simon Bisley (theoretically, although it\u2019s been eight months since I paid him, and he hasn\u2019t returned my emails). <\/span>So I\u2019ve switched plans. <\/span>Put Limbo Caf\u00e9 aside. <\/span>It\u2019s gonna be the monster book. <\/span>I\u2019d better get cracking.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now this year, same as last year, I got a huge\u2026HUGE\u2026tax return. <\/span>Partly because I lose so much money trying to be a professional at doing comics, but also because my wife got a raise last year, and that bumped up how much money was pulled from her paycheck. <\/span>Also, we\u2019ve got a kid coming, and that means we\u2019re going to need to move from our two-bedroom apartment to a three bedroom. <\/span>But right now, with our return, we were able to finally pay off our credit card debts, and pay for my 2006 ROTH IRA contribution, and still have some money left over, and soon (as soon as we have a baby and move into a more expensive place) that money is just going to go and go. <\/span>So I discussed things with my wife, and told her I want to just really punch to get as many pin-ups of monsters as I can right now, while we can afford it, and get up enough for two more monster books. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So on March 27th<\/sup>, I sat down in front of the computer for over three hours and wrote out personal emails to thirty-five people. <\/span>Some of them, I\u2019ve written to before, some of them I\u2019ve at least met at conventions, or had some kind of contact with, and some of them I just sent out cold, unsolicited emails.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here\u2019s who I tried to contact:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n People I\u2019ve been in touch with, who have continued to write me back that they\u2019re really busy:<\/p>\n Mart Nodell\u2019s son, Spencer, who\u2019s always really kind and seems interested at conventions, but has never written me an email<\/p>\n Michael Kaluta, Tim Bradstreet, and Tim Sale, who used to write back regularly, but I haven\u2019t heard from any of them in a long time<\/p>\n Matt Wagner<\/p>\n Michael Lark<\/p>\n John Romita<\/p>\n Mark Chiarello<\/p>\n The MegaCon convention, who is helping to get me in touch with George Tuska<\/p>\n Mike Zeck<\/p>\n <\/p>\n People I\u2019ve met, who only wrote back once or twice, a long time ago, but I haven\u2019t heard from for a long time:<\/p>\n Simon Bisley<\/p>\n Brian Bolland<\/p>\n <\/p>\n People who have never written me back, even though they gave me their emails at some point:<\/p>\n Adam Hughes, who was real friendly at Orlando, but I haven’t heard back yet.\u00a0 I sent some photos, gave news we\u2019re having a boy\u2026but I know how busy they are<\/p>\n Howard Chaykin<\/p>\n Scott Shaw<\/p>\n Sam Glanzman<\/p>\n Walter Simonson<\/p>\n Tim Truman<\/p>\n Paul Grist<\/p>\n Bill Morrison<\/p>\n William Stout<\/p>\n Michael Avon Oeming<\/p>\n I also wrote comics companies, to let them know I\u2019m looking forward to seeing them at APE:<\/p>\n Top Shelf<\/p>\n AIT-Planet Lar<\/p>\n Oni<\/p>\n I also wrote to a couple distributors who have been very generous to buy some of my books in the past, but haven\u2019t returned my emails for months:<\/p>\n Mile High Comics<\/p>\n Coldcut Comics Distributors<\/p>\n The Kirby Collector, to see about potential write-ups of my monster book<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lastly, since I was on such a kick, I figured, what the hell do I have to lose, and I sent out comics to these idols of mine who I\u2019ve never met, and who I assume are mostly untouchable, just to see if for some reason any of them might write back:<\/p>\n Guy Davis<\/p>\n Kevin Nowlan<\/p>\n Frank Frazetta!<\/p>\n Shag!<\/p>\n Then I found Geof Darrow\u2019s mailing address but no email, so I sent him a letter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We\u2019ll see who writes back. <\/span>You\u2019d think that would generate some responses, if you send out 35 emails, wouldn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 27, 2006 After the Orlando Con, I started getting really excited about the monster comics again. A large part of this was hooking up pin-ups from Al Feldstein, Sal Buscema, Nick Cardy, and possibly Mart Nodell. I started thinking, if I put out another monster book, I should be able to complete it within […]<\/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-95","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":124,"uagb_excerpt":"March 27, 2006 After the Orlando Con, I started getting really excited about the monster comics again. A large part of this was hooking up pin-ups from Al Feldstein, Sal Buscema, Nick Cardy, and possibly Mart Nodell. I started thinking, if I put out another monster book, I should be able to complete it within…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","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=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}