A Writer In Search of His Artist

Although the masters makes the rules  For the wise men and the fools I got nothing, Ma, to live up to:

To put it bluntly, to be a writer trying to break into comics without an artist sucks.  Trying to break into comics as a writer without an artist is next to impossible.  An editor can look at a portfolio of an artists' work at a convention and make a decision in minutes.  A writer handing the same editor a script is lucky if he takes it with a promise of not throwing it away as soon as the writer's back is turned.  It's not that the editor is being a jerk, it's just a lot harder to evaluate a script and most editors don't have the time to do so from unknowns. 

So if you want to break into comics as a writer it helps to find an artist to work with.  As a team you can create a proposal that an editor will be glad to look at.  As a team you can create a comic book and take the finished project to an editor.

Which all leads to one important question.  Where do you find artists?  Where did I find the artists that I was fortunate to work with?

To discover that answer we'll have to jump into the Way-Back Machine and take a trip back in the past to a time where the internet was just a glint in Al Gore's eye and Diamond was just one of many distributors that delivered your weekly comics to their shops.

I know now it might be hard to believe but once upon a time there actually was more than just one magazine out there about comics.  Wizard's first issue wasn't even being assembled yet.  One of these magazines was Comic Scene, published by the same people that put out the science fiction magazine Starlog.  They ran an article about a group called Interfan.  Interfan was a organization that provided a link between fledging writers and artists.  At this point I was awash with ideas and plots and even scripts, but had no idea what to do with all this outpouring.  Like I mentioned this was before the Internet, as hard as it might be for you to believe such a time existed, so I actually put stamps on an envelope and letter in the envelope and mailed it to InterFan.  (And to farther confuse those that are only conversed in email I included a SASE.  No, this isn't a foreign language, it means Self Addressed Stamped Envelope.  What this was for was so they could mail me back the list without them having to use their money for a stamp or envelope.)

And for what at a time without Instant Messaging seemed quick I received a reply.  I don't remember how long the list was or most of the names on it.  I'm sure that there were more writers than artists.  Everyone thinks writing is easy.  I do remember two names on the list that I was soon to get in contact with.  Both lived in California.  Dave Garcia and Sam Kieth.  Not too bad for a first try.  Dave was even than working on Panda Khan and would later go on to work on the Tick as well as many other comics.  Sam was working on some giant bunny strip and had a character called the Is that he kept trying to work into something.  He later went on to a few memorable characters, including the Maxx and Wolverine, Batman and a host of other books.

After a letter to both artists I was soon opening packages from both of them that included samples of their artwork.  Up to this point you have to realize that all my writing had been done pretty much solo with no real interaction with any of my peers.  I'm sure that I wrote and received some art samples back from artists that I decided not to work with, but today the only ones I remember are Sam and Dave.  To start off with two artists that are so good, even at that time in their career, was inspiring.  I still remember looking at their artwork and just marveling at the fact that these guys wanted to work with me.  Even today I get chills just thinking about it.

A few more letters back and forth, some phone calls and before long we were all working on new creations.  One of these early creations with Sam ended up being a character called Agatha Moore who went on to star in an issue of Amazing Comics Presents.  None of the series that Dave and I created ever made it to the published stage, but we did collaborate on some short comic stories that ended up in such publications as Kitchen Sinks'  Death Rattle and other places.

Even after getting the luck of the draw and working with these two talented artists I was still looking for artists.  Another source of discovering talented artists was the Comic Buyer's Guide.  The Buyer's Guide, or at it was affectionately known as CBG, started life as an ad paper, where fans basically ran ads to sell or trade their comics.  Eventually it morphed into more of a trade paper, where the news of the industry was first published and professionals wrote letters and debated issues.   Before the instant arrival of news with the web today a weekly provided fast service.  In the back they had a classified section where you could advertise for just about anything.  So I did.  I ran a classified looking for  artists.  I ran it for a month, four issues. 

I was surprised by the reaction.  I started getting replies within the first week.  And every week I got more.  I don't remember how many I ended up receiving, but it was a lot more than I ever expected.  Yes, a lot of them weren't at a professional level yet, but I was still surprised by the amount that were quite good.  Some of these artists I ended up working with and others due to time issues or we just couldn't figure out something we both agreed on I ended up not working with, but still thought the world of their artwork.

One of these artists was a guy named Ron Wilber.  Ron ended up being one of my greatest artist collaborators.  I sent Ron the script for a short story about a future where the main characters were walking talking Lizards.  It actually was a story that Sam Kieth and I had batted around a bit, but never ended up doing anything with.  The story ended up being the series Lizard and we published around a dozen stories in Fantagraphics'  Critters anthology comic and a single stand alone issue of Lizards Summer Fun Special. 

I would duplicate that ad in the back of CBG a few more times.  Another person that wrote into answer my ad was Brian Clifton.  Outside of Ron, Brian became my most constant artist companion.  Brian was one of the most talented artists I have ever had the privilege of working with.  (And after you've seen the names of the artists I've worked with that's pretty impressive.)   With Brian we created Diebold.  With this comic it was a true collaboration from the very get-go.  I didn't just send Brian a script or idea, he sent me sketches and we went from there.  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail over the creation of the comic here, because that's not the point of this week's column and I intend to write about that subject in the future. 

One point I want to mention here is that the art that accompanies this week's column is by Brian Clifton.  The art for the logo for this column is the first issue cover of Diebold by Sam Kieth.

So in today's world with instant communication and messaging just a click away you would think it would be even easier to find artists to work with.  Maybe it is, maybe I just haven't stumbled across the secret yet.  There are some sites where they advertise a section with artists and writers looking for each other, but so far I have had nowhere near the success that I had back in the day pre-Internet.  Now this isn't a rant for a less tech savy world, I love the Internet and my computer. 

One site I had some luck with was Digital Webbing.  I found some really excellent artists, but for one reason or another have had no luck in connecting with a story or character.  And than there are the artists that reply back with samples and a price list for their services.   Whatever I say here is going to come off wrong, like I don't think artists should be paid for their work, and nothing could be farther from the truth.  I believe artists should be paid for their work.  But and this is my big but of the matter, they should be paid from the publisher or even the writer if he's hiring an artist to illustrate his creations to help sell his work as a solo creator.  But if a writer is working with an artist to create something that they can pitch together than I don't see the point of the writer paying the artist.  It's a collaboration.  If the proposal is picked up than the writer and artist are both hired.  And they both get paid.  None of these artists that I worked with and got published with asked for money to illustrate my words.  We were in it together, as a team, to sell our concept. 

There's lot of sites out there that cater to comics.  Comic Space is a My Space like site that acts as portal for writers, artists, letterers, colorists, publishers, fans, anyone that has any interest in comic books.  Deviant Art is another site where artists advertise their talent. 

Somewhere out there is someone that is going to create a site that is made specifically for talent to connect and it's going to be a smash. 

All this has actually been a preamble to the main purpose of this week's column.  The weekend of April  24^th and 25^th NOLA Con comes back to Metairie.  I'll be there, sitting behind one of the tables, hawking my books and talking to anyone that comes by and wants to talk.  And any artists out there that are looking for a writer, come find me and let's talk.  I'm actively looking for artists to work on all sorts of proposals.  I've already have a small black and white publisher interested in a storyline, but I need an artist.  I really want to experiment with web comics, but I need an artist.  I have a couple story lines that I think would really be great, some super heroes, some thrillers, one set in New Orleans that would create a lot of notice, but (you know what I'm going to say) I need an artist.

Like the great piece of art that Brian drew that illustrates this week's column “I Need An Artist.”

So if you're in the area stop by and say hi.

Hanging Out At The Comic Shop

I realized something the other day.  I don't hang out at the comic shop anymore.  I also realized that I don't visit the comic shop at least once a week like I used to.  Heck, I was in such an introspective mood I realized that I don't even have a regular comic shop. 

The first person that says something about growing up gets smacked.  Upside the head with a wet fish.

I still buy comics, or writing this column wouldn't make a lot of sense.  I just don't have to buy them as soon as they come out.  In the day I would make a trip after work, tired and hungry and just wanting to get home and kick back and relax with food and drink, to the comic book store on that fabled Wednesday when new comics arrived.  Except if I do believe so, at one time new comic book day was Tuesday.  It's like if I waited even a day, reading those new comics might not mean as much to me.  And this was before the internet, so it wasn't like I might accidentally come across a spoiler and have the big surprise ruined for me.  If a couple days, heck even a week, went by it wasn't like I still wouldn't be able to pick up those comics and be as surprised as I was going to be.  But I had to have those comics right away.  It was a compulsion.  It's not like I have to explain it most of you out there reading this.  I'm preaching to the choir. 

Half the fun was hanging out at the comic shop.  If I had to make one of those late night drives to get my comics before the shop closed I would still find myself back at the store later in the week, before the next arrival of new comics.  I'd go and look at comics I might have missed the first time, but more importantly I'd go to stand around and talk comics with whoever was there.   Reading may be a solitary endeavor but reading comics was a group affair.  You had to discuss what had happened in the latest issue of what you had just read, what was coming up in future issues, what series your favorite writer or artist was leaving and which series they were taking over, which was better – DC or Marvel?   Now it's usually in and out, pick up whatever comics I'm buying and maybe a little small talk but than I'm on my way.

And of course you had your favorite comic shop.  The metro New Orleans area didn't have an abundance of comic shops, but there were a few.  New Orleans had a few, there was even one out in New Orleans East that I knew of, but I didn't have a vehicle at the time and getting around the Westbank and Metairie was hard enough, much less driving into the city or to the East.  Now I just decide which store by where ever I'm closest to at the time I want to pick up some comics.

I found my first comic shop because Marvel decided to sell three of their titles only through the than infant Direct Market, which meant they would only be available to people who frequented comic shops.  Up to that time I found my comics at the newstands.  Than you could pretty much find all your comics in such a fashion.  Sometimes you had to check out more than one place to get all the series you collected, but I managed without too much effort to get whatever comics I needed.  Drug stores, Time Savers, Mini Marts, there were quite a few places that had the circular rack with the Hey Kids! Comics sign atop.

Until the day that Marvel decided to pull three of their titles from such establishments.  Comics shops existed before that day, but they were carrying the same comics I could find at my local 7-11 and the 7-11 was closer.  They were good for back issues, but I don't really remember buying new comics from them at the time.  But Ka-zar, Micronauts and a title that escapes me were going to be sold only through the Direct Market now.  (I could also be wrong about Mirconauts being one of the titles, but I know Ka-zar was one.)  Now the problem was that Ka-zar was one of my favorite comics at the time.  Written by Bruce Jones and drawn by Brent Anderson this comic was unlike any version of Ka-zar every published.  So if I wanted my fix of Ka-zar and Shannon I was going to have to go to a comic shop. 

If memory serves me right (and what a fickle beast my memory seems to be) the first comic shop I started going to on a regular basis was Family Books in Metairie.  But it was in Metairie and I lived on the Westbank and man, I hated driving over the bridge at that time.  Still there were no comic shops on the Westbank.  Or at least that's what I thought.  I found one, in Westwego, in one of those little strip malls right off the Expressway.  For the life of me I can't remember the name of that shop and it's a shame, I spent a lot of my money and time there.  What was weird was that the store had started out as a water bed store and somehow morphed into a comic book store.  Eventually their main source of income came from the comics and they might sell a water bed every blue moon.  I don't remember the name of the store but I do remember the name of the people that ran it, John and Minnie.  The were an older couple, well to me every adult was older. 

This became the first comic shop that I can consider “my” comic shop.  The Direct Market was causing an explosion in the comic book publishing field.  Fantagraphics, Eclipse, Pacific, First and a thousand and one other companies sprang up publishing comics.  Cerebus, created and published by Dave Sim wasn't the first black and white comic, but he and his aardvark creation soon became the vanguard for a new movement of self publishing. 

I found myself spending too much money and probably too much time at their store.  They went to Houson for a comic book convention and I went with them.  (That story and other convention memories will be a future column.)  Though them I ended up meeting Carl and venturing into his store, BSI Comics.  This was at least three moves before he ended up at the store he retired at. 

I still shopped with John and Minnie but found myself driving over to Metairie more often to Carl's shop.  I'd also still manage to stop at Family Comics now and than.  Somewhere in all this John and Minnie closed their store, so my comic book fix was being supplied by Carl on a more regular basis now.  BSI became “my” comic book store.  Anyone that knows Carl knows what a unique person he is.  I could spend hours in his store and I did quite regularly.

I have to mention one thing that I thought very strange when I first started buying my comics from these comic shops.  They didn't put their new comics out on a rack where you could just go in and pick them up and pay for them.  No, all new comics were bagged and hung from the wall, usually behind the counter.  You couldn't pick up a copy of the newest issue of Daredevil and flip through it or see who was writing the newest issue of Spider-man before deciding if you wanted to buy it.  To get your new comics you had to look at the comics hanging on the wall and tell whoever was behind the counter what comics you wanted and they would pull them from boxes they had back there.  All the comic shops sold new comics this way.  The older back issues were out to be browsed and touched and pawed over, but the new comics were untouchable.  I don't know if this was how new comics were sold all over the country or just in the New Orleans market.  Were they afraid of theft if the new comics were within reach or that customers would read them all and not buy the issue?  I have no idea and no one ever really could give me a good answer.  Than one day they all went to racking the new comics on the floor so you could just pick them up.  Very strange.

Around this time I was engaged in a small side business.  I ended up stripping and waxing the floors of BSI on more than one occasion.  I'd met Carl after hours with the stripper and buffer and spend the next few hours re-doing his floors.

Though Carl I met the owners of what would become my next shop and become the shop that I look back on today as my one really true comic shop.   Carl was always helping other shop owners out, offering advice, providing them with a way to get their comics through his ordering with the distributors.  On one of my trips to BSI (and can anyone out there tell me what BSI stands for?  I know, but I used to wonder about that until I found out) Carl introduced me to a man and his teen-age son and told me they were opening a store up on the Westbank.  That was Ron and his son Ronnie and they were opening Paper Gold in Woodmere. 

Before long Paper Gold became “my” comic shop.  I still visited BSI and shopped there, there was no way I could stop seeing Carl, but my weekly trips were to Woodmere.  Paper Gold was a family affair, Ron and his wife Pat and son Ronnie owned and operated the store.  I think Ronnie might have been 15 or 16 at the time.  I won't say I was their first customer, but I know I was one of their first.  I was their from day one and until their last day.  Ron used to be in the oil business in Houston, but after the oil boom went bust he and family moved back home to New Orleans and opened Paper Gold. 

Paper Gold became a home away from home for me.  I can't even guess the amount of time I spent at that store.  Ron, Pat and Ronnie became friends, my comic book family.  From the start Paper Gold catered to more than just superheroes, they stocked all the latest Marvel and DC and whatever company  was publishing four color adventures featuring such heroes, but they also stocked so much more.  Ronnie introduced me to Bone.  I was able to continue my purchases of Love and Rockets with no problem.  Cerebus was always on the rack. 

There were more trips to conventions in Houston.  This time with Ron and Ronnie.  I remember new comics coming in the night before, I don't know if that was just something that happened for a little while or what, but Ron would let me in the store at night when they were all there separating the shipments and working the pull lists for their customers.  They'd let me shop what I needed and I'd hang around talking, probably distracting them from their work.

It was a rare week that I didn't make a couple stops at the store.  A good portion of at least one day off would be spent at the store, talking comics or whatever.  Ronnie was the comic fan in the family, so we could talk comics or I could talk with Ron or Pat about whatever else came up. 

During this time Brian Clifton and I decided to self publish Diebold.  (The long strange trip to such a decision is definitely fuel for a future column.)  We by passed Diamond as a distributor and went after it ourselves.  Not the brightest of moves perhaps, but we ended up selling a few thousand copies through word of mouth and mail order.  I had a list of comic shops throughout the country and I worked that list.  We did use distributors like Cold Cut and smaller ones.  Like I said for the time we sold a respectable amount, for today's time we sold what would be considered a lot for a black and white comic.  Do I need to say who bought the largest amount of issues from us?  Of course not, it was Ron, Ronnie and Pat.  I don't know how many copies they ended up stuck with, but they made us happy with their purchase.  My only regret is that for some reason I was never able to do a signing at Paper Gold for the series.  We talked about it, but something always seemed to come up. 

They closed up and moved back to Houston right around the time I ended up moving to Florida briefly.  They closed up before I moved and I remember when I'd drive over that way how weird it was not to be able to stop at the store.  Not long afterwards I ended up moving to Florida.

I shop most of the comic shops in metro New Orleans and Northshore and I enjoy them all.  There's some of them that I can hang around with for a little while and we'll talk comics and the industry, but it's not the same.  And that's a shame.  I think a lot of the enjoyment I got from comics was the relationships I developed from the comic stores. 

Still I'm hopeful.  Since I've discovered Ronnie is back in town with his new store Media Underground I'm hoping that it'll become “my” comic store.  I can't visit it as often as I did Paper Gold, it's in Metairie and I live on the Northshore, but when I do visit it I find myself standing around talking to Ronnie about comics and creators and conventions and whatever and it feels like back in the days of Paper Gold.  Though it is a little strange not to see Ron and Pat around. 

So do you have a comic shop that your consider “yours”?  Do you like to hang out and talk comics or are you just in and out?  Drop over at Lifein4colors.blogspot.com and tell me what your favorite comic shop is and what you like about it.

Wizard World New Orleans: Day One

(This post and the following post originally appeared on the site Bleeding Cool.)

It’s 9:30 and the room is filling up with dealers and artists.  We’re only 30 minutes from opening.  I’ve heard that anywhere from 4,000 to 8,000 tickets have been pre-sold.  Either amount would be a good showing.  Aside from some smaller shows New Orleans hasn’t had a convention in over a decade and that one didn’t turn out so well.  So here’s hoping this one will be a success.

For me this convention means something different than it does for a lot of people attending it.  Years ago, ok a lot of years ago, I’m an old fart, I used to write comic books.  Nothing fancy, just for a lot of the independent companies, at that time there were a lot more independent companies around.  I’ve been published by Fantagraphics, Kitchen Sink, Malibu, Innovation and at the end I even went the self published route and did two issues of Diebold with the artist Brian Clifton.  What writing I’ve been doing has been more towards musical subjects, with my online site Voices to hear (www.avoicetohear.com).  But I want to write comics again, so I’m looking at this convention twofold; get myself back out there and hopefully network with some artists.  A writer in the comic industry without an artist is a lonely person.  End of aside and back to the convention.

As always I’m early.  (I can’t help it, I have a anal fixation of always being early for any event I attend.)  I live about an hour outside New Orleans so I left at seven and was in the Hall a little after eight, and that’s even after turning down the wrong street and having to come back around.  Once inside I find my table has been moved from where it was listed online.  It looks like everyone that was on the row I was on has been flipped to the other side of the area.  The table across from me is for James O’Barr, the creator of The Crow, but we won’t see him the whole day, he stays at the booth of the publisher of his newest comic.

It looks like a pretty good selection of dealers.  I see comics, card, statues, fan clubs, a litle of everything it looks like.  And of course the Boba Fetts and Storm Troopers.   I haven’t been to a convention in a long time so I’m not sure which to compare it to.

The doors open and there’s a small crowed trickling in.  By 10:30 the crowd has grown from a trickle to more of a rush as I see more people walking around.  Larry Guidry stopped by the table to show me the page of a comic proposal that we are working on.  It looks great and I’m excited.  This is what I’m coming to the con for, to meet artists and hook up for work.  There’s a couple artists that I’ve been talking to that I want to meet with and I want to try and meet some new artists this weekend.   And it’d be nice to make a few sales, but so far I’m not having much luck on that front.

On the table to my left is a giant head of Galactus that everyone is stopping to take a picture of.  The creator told me that the head is make of Styrofoam.  

It’s 10:50 and I just made my first sale.  Someone bought the second issue of Diebold.  Not that they had the first issue, they just liked the look of the second issue.  I’m not going to argue, a sale is a sale.

There’s a young man standing in front of my table looking at my sign that reads “Writer In Search of An Artist.”  He tells me he’s an artist, unfortunately he doesn’t have any samples of his work with him.  (Just a tip: always bring something to show if you want to talk about your work.)  I give him a card and tell him to send me something.

Note to self:  Always make sure you have enough change.  I’ve started selling more comics now and someone just handed me a twenty and I don’t have change.  He tells me he’ll come back later.   He never makes it back.

Lots of Green Lantern shirts.  If it’s any indication the movie should be a smash hit.  Larry watches my table for me to give me a chance to take a stroll around.  As I move from the back of the Artist’s Alley I discover that there is a lot more people here.   And I mean a lot more.  The aisles are full, some artists have lines.  The photo ops are doing extremely well, I see long lines there.

I talk to a few dealers and they all tell me that they are doing very good.  One dealer says he’s so busy he recruited some friends that were visiting to help him sell.

Back to my table.  Someone from the Con comes by and asks if I need one of them to watch my table so I can take a bathroom break.  They see I’m sitting by myself so they want to make sure I get a chance to take care of business.  Now maybe this is something that Cons do nowdays, but I don’t remember any of the Cons doing that back in my day.  I just thought that was a nice thing to do.

One guy comes up and buys seven books.  I’m usually lucky to sell two or three at a time, so selling seven at once is pretty cool.  By the end of the day I’ve sold a few books and made some money.   I’m working with a double handicap since all the comics I’m selling are more than a few years old and none of them feature a character from the Big Two.  Heck, I thought having a cover by Sam Kieth and Mike Zeck would help, but it’s almost funny to realize how quickly fan favorites become fan whos?   When I mentioned to one person that the cover was by Mike Zeck I could see the question marks in his eyes.

More importantly I’ve talked to some artists and exchanged cards and hopefully made the start of a beautiful working relationship.  I’ve also managed to talk to one artist that I felt like I had screwed up with, but he felt like he had did the same, so we both laughed about it and agreed to give it another try.

To sum it up I have to give a thumps up to the Wizard World staff for putting on a fun show.  Everyone looked like they were having a good time I didn’t’ see any problems or hear any people grumbling about what went wrong.  Everything seemed to go right and hopefully tomorrow will be just as much fun.

RIP: Brian Clifton

Sometimes it seems the universe takes a perverse pleasure in balancing the bad with the good.  I just came home tonight from the Wizard World New Orleans Con and sat down at my computer to see an email from Mike Zeck.  Mike and Brian Clifton are old friends from the days before either of them were in comics.  He was writing to tell me that Brian had died this past Friday.  Brian had a rare form of thyroid cancer called medullary thyroid cancer and has been battling if for the past few years.  As Mike said it in his email
“a good man died young, and that always seems somehow unfair.”

I met Brian back in the nineties when I put an ad in the classified section of the than weekly Comic Buyers Guide.  I was looking for artists to collaborate with and Brian was looking for writers.  It was a great match.  We hit it off immediately.  Brian sent me pages and pages from his sketch book and from that Diebold grew.  The stories I could tell about what we went through getting this comic out would curl your hair.  We went through three different publishers before we decided to self publish it ourself.   We met up at conventions in Florida, Philadelphia and even San Diego.  Thanks to the wonderful folks at Einstein’s Comics we were part of their independent comic booth in San Diego.  I’m terrible with years, so I’m not going to try and pinpoint the exact ones.

Brian was a few years older than I was.  I would show up at these Cons in a t shirt, sandals and that was when I was sporting a small pony tail.  Brian would always be so much better dressed than I was, always in a sports coat.  Another constant with Brian was his wonderful wife Barbara.  If Brian was there she was too.  She traveled to all the Cons with him.  Getting to know Brian I got to know Barbara also and she was a special person.

We had such hopes for the future of Diebold.  Sam Kieth and Mike Zeck provided us covers.  Drew Hayes promised us one in the future.  After the first issue came out all the comic magazines at the time, and this was when there were quite a few, gave us good reviews.  Hero Illustrated did a page on it.  Even Wizard plugged it with praise.

When we decided to self publish Diebold we both knew we were going to need a source of money, neither of us had money laying around gathering dust.  Brian came up with an inventive way to raise the money.  He pre-sold the pages of artwork from the first issue.  The buyer had their name put in the comic under the artwork that they had purchased as well as the original page of artwork.  It worked.  He sold out of all the artwork and we were able to publish the comic.

Somehow we only ended up doing only two issues of Diebold.  I think if we had stuck with it we could have made a go of it, but for both of us other concerns of life interfered with our plans for the book and we never made it to a third issue.  And as we didn’t have the comic to keep us connected we started to lose touch with each other.  We’d manage an email and than forget for awhile.  About a year back I emailed him and we’ve been corresponding on a somewhat regular basis.  My last email to him was in November of the past year and he told me had just gotten back from the hospital and a new round of medical tests.

There’s a lot more I could say about Brian.  He was an avid EC Comics fan.  In one of his emails he mentioned that he had a drawing of his in the old EC comic Creepy and that it had been reprinted in Volume 5 of the reprint series.  As Brian got sick he found it difficult to hold a pencil to draw with.  Some of the medicine he was taking made his hands and feet swell up and he had trouble holding a pen.  But when he could he would still doodle.  And he would send me some of those doodles.  Brian was an amazing artist and to the end he lost none of that talent.  The picture with this post is of one of his last doodles to me.  I love it.

Brian and Barbara were able to go to DragonCon in Atlanta this past year.  They asked me if I could make it, but I wasn’t able to.  I wish I had been able to now.  Like I said I could say a lot about Brian.  But mostly I want to say he was a wonderful husband and father and a great friend.  He will be missed.



RIP: Carl Tupper

On a night like this
I can’t get any sleep,
The air is so cold outside
And the snow’s so deep.
Build a fire, throw on logs
And listen to its hiss.

Of course we’ve all read the old Chinese proverb “May you live in interesting time.”  If I never read those word again it’ll be too soon.  It’s become something of a cliché.  Or perhaps a lazy way for a writer to try to get the point across.  But saying all that I want to say that I hope this year will prove less interesting than the last one.

An aside that unfortunately finds itself in this column even though I wish it didn’t.  Three days into the new year and things became “interesting.”  Making a left turn I didn’t realize that I had a green light but not a green arrow.  The two cars in front of me just kept going through the turn without slowing down and I followed behind them.  The truck coming towards me through the light didn’t need an arrow, just the green light he had.

I didn’t see it until I heard the horn and looked up and literally the truck was within inches of me.  Suddenly I heard the sound of the impact and felt the car being pushed to the side and out of the traffic lane.  Basically I bounced off the front bumper of the truck and continued to the side of the lane I had hoped to turn into and pulled off onto the grass.

I have a Camry and the other vehicle was an Avalanche.

Both my passenger doors were crushed inward and the panel above my back tire was bent down and dangerously close to the tire itself.   The Avalanche had a scratched front bumper and the plastic beneath the bumper on the left side was loose.  No one was hurt, which looking back on it was the important thing.  The driver in the Avalanche had passengers, but no one was injured.  We did the insurance thing and waited for the police to come give me a ticket and than went on our way.

Much worse was parts of 2010.  The year was bracketed by deaths.

My 2010 started out badly.  The start of February I was in my car on my lunch hour checking my email.  That’s how I learned the son of two of my best friends had been killed in Afghanistan.  He was a Marine and was proudly serving his country.  I remember his birth, I remember watching him grow as a boy into a young man.

That was the start of the year.

At the end of the year I was on Facebook and saw that Carl Tupper had died.  Carl was the owner and founder of BSI Comics.  Carl retired after Katrina and except for a brief appearance at the first NOLA Con I haven’t seen him.  But there are some people that you can never forget and make a lifelong impression on you.  Carl was one of them.

Reading the comments online about Carl I was struck by how many lives he touched.  I didn’t have the opportunity to know Carl as a young boy growing up.   I first met him after I moved to the New Orleans area from Atlanta.  I was already out of school and working, but still collecting comics.  It was shortly after the birth of the direct sales market.   Comic book shops were just starting to come into their own.  Before most shops dealt with mainly back issues and all but ignored the new comics.  Once the direct sales market started comic shops started dealing with the new comics and comic book day took on a new meaning as fans would arrive at their shop on the day the comics were shipped to get their newest issue as soon as possible.  Shops started doing pull lists and holding comics for their customers so you no long had to travel all over the city when you missed the newest issue at your local 7-11.   (When I was growing up I remember having to visit multiple convenience stores to make sure I found all my comics.)

Carl was there at the start.  I remember when I visited his shop he had all the new comics on the wall in bags behind his counter.  You had to ask him for what comic you wanted and than he pulled it from the longbox and sold it to you.   But half the fun of going to the shop was Carl himself.

Carl always acted the tough guy, making a snide comment, but he had a heart of gold.  Carl ruled his shop from his wheelchair.   I’m not really sure how much a fan of the comics Carl was, I never really talked the particulars of an issue with him.  But he knew what was going on and who the creators were and the business side and I would talk that with him for hours sometimes.  I don’t know how many days off I would blow in his shop, just standing around looking at comics and talking with Carl.  It was a great way to spend time.

When I self published Diebold Carl purchased copies and helped to push it in his shop.  When I was inbetween jobs and doing some cleaning work Carl hired me to strip and wax the floors of his shop.  I think I did the floors in his new shop and his old shop before he moved.  I remember visiting Carl at his new shop not long after he opened.  And after he had to fix the front of the shop because one of his customers missed to brakes and kept going forward in the parking lot till he went through the front of Carl’s new shop.

I remember talking to Carl about my Dad not long after he first was diagnosed with cancer.  And no matter how many years later, whenever I’d walk into Carl’s shop, it didn’t matter how long inbetween my visits Carl would always ask about my Dad.

When I was working for Service Merchandise and getting promoted and moving around I would talk to Carl about what was expected of me and what I wanted.  He always had time to listen and comment and offer advice.

You read about all the bad shops and the horror stories of some of the people that run some of these comic shops, but Carl gave exception to those stories.   It didn’t matter who you were.  When you walked into Carl’s shop you were going to be insulted and than made to feel at home.
At the first NOLA Con Ronnie presented Carl with the first New Orlean’s Comic Shop Retailer Award, or something along those words, I’m not really sure what it was called.  But what it stood for was the feelings that so many people had for Carl and the store he ran for so many years.  Just about every local person that was working in the industry or trying to that was there had stories of how Carl had helped or encouraged them.  It was a great way to express how much he meant to so many people and I’m glad that Ronnie did it.

So I hope Ronnie doesn’t mind me borrowing this picture from him from the con.  That’s Ronnie and his Dad (who I could write a page just like this about) and Carl.