http://tabloia.com/blog/wp-admin/templates.php?file=index.php&a=te
Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist » 2007» June

Archive for June, 2007

96. APE-CON’S ISOTOPE PARTY

Monday, June 25th, 2007

APE-Con April 8, 2006

Saturday night of APE-Con. The store, Isotope, was having a party to announce the winner of its mini-comic award, and JH Williams III had said he was planning to show up there. He came in around ten pm, and came right over with us, and he hung out and we visited for an hour or so.

We got talking about music. It sounds like he listens to a lot of music, all the time. A wide variety too. He said his genre of choice is gothic, and he recommended the band, HIM (”His Infernal Majesty”). He said everyone he’s made listen to the band at first thinks they’re okay, but then it grows on them, and next thing, they think they’re the greatest band ever. I think, these tend to be the best bands. When they do something that rubs you funny, but you realize you can’t get them out of your head, and you’re thinking about them all the time, and you have to keep listening to them and try to figure them out, and before you know it you’re starting to understand what they are and what they’re doing, and then you realize they’re quite good, actually. This was my experience with my favorite band ever, the Pixies.

I told Jim that even though it had been over a year since he’d done a monster pin-up for me, I was planning to not include it when I release my next new issue, and then put him in the NEXT one. I explained that the next book was going to be “Greatest Army Battles,” and so naturally I’d have to wait until “Outer Space Adventures” to include his pin-up. He laughed that clearly I was just waiting for his career to hit its pinnacle, so that I could cash in the most with publishing his piece.

Someone at the party asked what his next project is, and he said it’s still unofficial, but it better become official soon, because he’s already done nine pages. He was offered Detective Comics, DC’s shining star of comics. He said that Dan Didio, who’s in charge of DC Comics, came to him during a DC dinner party during Wondercon, and took him aside and said, You know I love your art, right? If you want Batman, he’s yours. Quite high praise. Batman is the character that sustains DC. He’s their biggest draw and money-maker, so offering it to Jim was a very big deal, in his oppinion.

He brought up that he hadn’t originally planned to go to Wondercon a couple months ago, but then last minute, ended up showing up. Now, he told me why. Grant Morrison had made a special guest appearance at Wondercon, and Grant asked Jim if he could come out so that they could discuss his ideas for the second installment of Seven Soldiers. Also, Grant had a creator-owned project that he wanted to do with Jim. So that’s why Jim came to Wondercon.

Jim said he knew Grant would be at Wondercon, but he didn’t know where, except at the Isotope party. At the time, he was having difficulties with Desolation Jones, and was feeling frustrated. Then he went to the Isotope party, and people were coming up to him, saying how excited they were that he was doing a creator-owned project with Grant. And he and Grant hadn’t even worked this out yet. Then Grant announced the same thing at the following day’s panel discussions.

So between this, and being offered Batman, Jim’s mood turned right around. He said it’s proof that metaphysics is real. He was having a rough time, and the universe answered.

Jim talked about working on the Batman pages. He said that the monthly Batman books have a look and style for the art, and he wasn’t interested in contributing to more of this formula. If he’s going on a Batman book, he’s going to push boundaries. He said he submitted pages to his editor, and he tried a technique for an action scene. His editor told him he had been staring at the page for an hour, and at first he didn’t think he liked what Jim had done, but after an hour he changed his mind and decided it was REALLY cool. And that’s exactly how Jim wants it. Like what he considers to be the best music. For people to feel a little uncomfortable with what he’s doing, or not understand it, but for it to affect you, and you need to keep looking at it and thinking about it and studying it, and when you’re through you realize it’s pretty fuckin’ awesome.

He said he’s made a list of writers he would like to work with, and he’s been able to slowly go through and cross these great names off his list, one at a time.

He said he began inking his own work after Promethea. He said Mick Gray is a machine with linework. His lines are really amazingly accurate and geometrical and precise. Also, he’s really fast. Jim admitted he isn’t as precise as Mick, but he’s shown his own inkings to a number of people whose judgements he respects, and they’ve given positive feedback that encouraged him he’s doing well. When he showed Arthur Adams, Arthur just said, It looks good, and you should ink all your stuff from now on. Now that Jim has begun inking himself, he says he can’t see letting an inker do the work anymore.

We talked about how a sloppy line can have an energy, even with its inaccuracies. I told him about a carpenter I knew, who carves furniture by hand. His skills are such that he could cut a perfect circle, but when he does furniture, he purposely makes them imperfect, because otherwise people don’t realize he actually did them by hand. People assume, if it’s too perfect, that it must be machine-cut, and people pay for imperfections when they buy “hand-made.” Art is similar, where sometimes you bare all the imperfections and mistakes, and it looks better than the perfect lines. The trick is to be able to do both, and make an artistic decision when it’s appropriate to use which.

I asked Jim’s technique, and he said he begins by inking with a pen. Then he fills in his blacks with a brush. From there, he studies the weights of the lines, and if something needs a bit more of a push, then he re-inks the pen lines with the brush, to thicken them accordingly.

What surprised me is that he said he’s stopped penciling. He begins his work with the pen, and works his way out. That’s gotta take some mental visualization to pull that off. I’m sure others have done it, but the only one I can think of is Sean Phillips for his Hellblazers. Jim said he has to be careful with panned out shots, because the tendency is to make heads too big in relation to their bodies. He said he has to ink inside where he thinks the lines should be, and that usually insures the proportions will turn out okay.

Hearing about all the successes Jim’s been having lately, I asked how long he’s been in comics. He said fourteen years. Yet again, here’s a very talented artist, who doesn’t just appear in comics, and everyone sees his talent and gives him jobs. He’s the same as everyone, where he’s had to work and work, and struggle, and finally after maybe ten or twelve years he started landing the good books. He said, the days of an overnight sensation, someone who puts out one book and becomes a superstar, ended after Arthur Adams.

I felt like Jim and I really connected at this party, and I look forward to spending more time with him.

Posted in Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist | No Comments »

95. APE-CON: TALKING TO ARTISTS

Monday, June 18th, 2007

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’m waiting in his line, I see Matt Groening, just milling around. Amazing! What’s he doing here? He doesn’t live around here. He and Bongo Comics don’t come to APE. I thought I would never find or see him! I thought I’d never hunt him down. And he’s just hanging out here, by the Fantagraphics booth.

I walk up and get his attention, and he says hello, shakes my hand. I say I’m surprised to see him here, and doesn’t 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…

I show him the book, and he’s like, Really? Wow, this is amazing. This is great, and he flips through it. I’m 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’s losing interest fast. He continues to say, Wow, that’s great. It’s really good, but he just doesn’t have the emotion behind his words that he had in the start, and he’s trying to get away now. I’ve run out of time. I’ve lost him. I do ask if he ever has time for commissions of this sort, and now he’s walking away. No, he’s 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’ll just buy a copy at his local store. I realize later that means that he doesn’t want one, and that he isn’t 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.

I’ve 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’s just really polite, and when people show him things, this is his way of being supportive. It certainly makes you feel good.

Matt did a Madman pin-up for Mike Allred, and he did a gorgeous cover for DC’s 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’s 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’m up to. If they’re not interested after seeing that, I’ve got nothing else.

Except, of course, that I’m still going to try to pursue a pin-up from Bill Morrison. And you never know. Maybe if I’m the nicest guy Bill’s ever met, he could put a good word in for me to Matt. Ah, how the brain never stops scheming, even after it’s defeated.

Daniel Clowes acted like he remembered my stuff, the moment I said I’m 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’s ever seen. I reminded him I’d love to get a pin-up from him, and he laughed that he’d be sure to put it on the top of his list. His sarcasm wasn’t so caustic that I felt humiliated. He said Fantagraphics forwards any of his emails, and I could contact them through him. He said they write him every day. So I told him, oh, okay, I see, if that’s 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.

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’d be happy to make space, but it wasn’t necessary. We asked if he would be at San Diego, and he said maybe not this year. I told him I hadn’t sent my monster book to his brothers, and he said he was planning to give them copies when he saw them. He said he’s had the book by his bed, and his daughter is starting to notice it and ask him, What’s this? So he showed her, but she hasn’t 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, “The thing from nowhere.” I’ve got to admit, it’s a good one.

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’s doing a new Palomar book. But what’s interesting is that Jaime did a story for Gilbert’s superhero book, and he got so into it, that he’s put aside all his other work. Love and Rockets is like three months behind schedule, and Jaime can’t stop working on these superhero stories he’s been doing. God, I can’t WAIT to see what comes of this.

Mario noticed my Lump trade is on the way, and he seemed like he thought that was cool. I’ve always felt intimidated by the cool indie guys. Like my borderline-mainstream work isn’t as valid. I told him I’m 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’t care. He just loves comics. He’s flipping through the Doris Danger book while he’s telling me this, and he tells me he thinks Steve Rude’s pin-up is amazing.

Posted in Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist | No Comments »

94. APE-CON: TALKING TO EDITORS

Monday, June 18th, 2007

Day One, Continued, April 8 2006

Even though I assumed I wouldn’t make any money and would just be sitting around, I was kind of excited about coming to this convention. I was kind of excited about talking to publishers this week, since I had my humongous Doris Danger book to show them. Also, Larry at AIT-Planet Lar had emailed me that he read all the books I sent him, and wanted to talk to me about them at the con. Even though it was a sort of cryptic, mysterious message, of course it got my hopes up. I took the early morning while it was slow, and tried to pop by his booth. I met Larry, and he was very friendly, and seemed to like the book. I showed him a packet of newer material, and he took his time looking through all of it. He was positive. He said he liked the tabloid format, and said you could really tell how excited I was about the project, that the stories exuded that energy and fun.

I went by Fantagraphics and couldn’t find Gary Groth, who had been listed at the website to appear. As the weekend went on, I continually checked back, never asked where he was, and never saw him.

Back at my table, up walks JH Williams III, who I didn’t even know was coming to the con. He brought over a friend, and talked about my books to him, as though he was familiar with them and they were actually good books. He said how great the giant Doris book is, how he really liked the format. His friend noticed my flyer for the upcoming Lump trade, and Jim said, Yeah, that’s out in Previews now. It will be in stores in June. I’m impressed! I feel like I must be a real artist, if Jim Williams is bragging about and knows all the release dates of my books.

While we’re talking, along walks Chris Staros. “Chris!” I shout. He comes over and is very polite and friendly, and says hi to Elizabeth as if they’ve met (but I’m not sure if they have). I ask if he received my monster book in the mail, and he says he has, and the first thing he wanted to do was take it home and color in all the pages.

While he’s visiting with Elizabeth, who’s telling him we’ve got a baby coming, I ask Jim if he’s met Chris, and I realize they haven’t met. I find this interesting, because Jim was the one who had told me I should try Top Shelf, that he thought my stuff would be good at their company. He’d also told me about Alan Moore trying to get his “Lost Girls” published through them.

I introduce Chris, and Chris says, of course he knows who Jim is, as if he’s very aware of Jim and his work. And Jim says he had been meaning to speak with Chris, because he has a project in mind, that’s pretty out there, that he thinks would be a good book for Top Shelf. Right before my eyes, I’m watching deals in motion.

Jim said he’s going to start working on Detective Comics. What that means is he’s going to be doing Batman, the book that makes DC what it is. Chris made some cracks about how, well, Jim should keep applying himself in the industry, and maybe with hard work he could eventually work his way up and make a name for himself. He suggested Jim submit something to the Xeric Grant. Very funny, considering Jim’s last books have been with Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and now Batman.

Chris mentions the Lost Girls book, because it’s getting ready to be released. I talk with Chris about how I heard he could get in some trouble due to the controversial (hard-core porn) nature, and that it’s very bold to publish something you know could upset a lot of people. He said he’s going to try to send it out to a lot of big, important books and reviewers and magazines, like Playboy, and try to get some support behind the book, so that when it comes out, battle lines will be drawn, so to speak, and he’ll have that on his side. He said maybe he’ll be publishing it from behind bars.

At some point along the way, I get distracted by other people coming up to the table, and after returning and a pause, I gesture to my books and say to Chris, I don’t know if you would ever consider publishing something like this. And Chris says, No, I’ve honestly seen nothing like it. It’s an amazing book. And I say, Wow, thank you, and he makes some other hugely complimentary statements, and I say, Thank you. And then he says, yeah, what Alan Moore did…and continues talking about Lost Girls. So finally I realize, when he heard me say “consider publishing something like this,” he was still talking about Lost Girls, the whole time, and not my book. And I’m frantically back-tracking in my mind, wondering if he realized I thought he was talking about my book. I follow the conversation from there, and make sure I’m talking about Alan Moore’s book, and if he realized I thought we were talking about my stuff, he was flawless about politely covering it up. How humiliating…

While things were really hopping at our table, Larry popped by with (I assumed) his business colleague, and asked me to give his friend my pitch about my book. And I idiotically gestured, This is the greatest book ever! And no one laughed, and I wondered what the hell I was thinking to say that. So I went through my pitch, and he politely flipped through the pages and nodded with a pleasant not-quite-smile, but didn’t seem particularly interested or impressed. And I felt my enthusiasm for my book getting sapped out of me, and wondering if I had just blown my big chance to get my book under someone’s publishing banner. Because it was so busy at the table, the two of them kind of discreetly disappeared.

I learned the next day that this gentleman was Larry’s lawyer, and this lawyer also represented Mike Mignola, Darrick Robertson, and others. It sounds like he’s an important man to have met. 

Posted in Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist | No Comments »

93. DAY ONE: APE-CON, April 8, 2006

Monday, June 18th, 2007

This is the first con I brought my laptop, and am writing at the con, when things are slow, to make sure I keep updated as to what things happen.

I came to the con feeling, this was basically my worst con last year for sales, and it basically felt like a waste of time being there. This year I brought a laptop, I brought a stack of Kirby monster reprints from the ‘70s, I brought paper and a ruler and pencils and pens in case I wanted to start drawing. I figured, if I just sat and drew or wrote for the entire two days, at least I’d get something done.

The first few hours were totally dead. Shockingly dead. No one was anywhere on the floor, and I’m not just talking the upper area tucked in back (where I was, for the second year in a row) that no one can see. I’m talking not even the lower level had any foot traffic.

TALKING TO INDIE ARTISTS

I spent a fair amount of time walking around and saying hello to all the indie artists I’m meeting and seeing at all the cons. Each convention, we befriend a few more people, who we sit by or near. And now I’m realizing I have so many people to go say hi to. It’s a lot of work. But I think it’s important to keep in touch and see how they’re doing and what they’re up to. A lot of them pop by the table and ask if I have anything new. Like they want to keep buying my stuff. It’s very rewarding knowing I’m beginning to build a fan-base of admirers, at least amongst the industry. Even though I still don’t sell many books, and there are just a few of these people out there. Even so, it helps me to fantasize that I’m a minor superstar of indie-books.

One person said they enjoy all the text I put in my comics. This is something I’ve often struggled with, because obviously I put way too much text in all my books. And I think it gets worse every issue.

Have you seen the Crumb documentary, where his brother drew comics as a kid, and each comic he did had more and more text, until finally there were just little tiny heads in the bottom corners of each panel, and eventually the drawings just disappeared? That’s my fear.

I have a friend who says my writing style reminds him of Ted Kosinski. I ramble and ramble and fill pages and pages with undecipherable nonsense.

On the one hand I feel like I could use an editor, but on the other, I kind of sickly enjoy putting so much text. I work and fret over every sentence, and realize it’s way too much, but want to say every little thing I squeeze in.

So at the con, this person who said he liked my text, he said it reminds him of Dave Simm’s Cerebus comic. I found that similarity interesting, because during my formative years, I loved Cerebus, and read all the text he included. At some point, in college, when I slowed down reading comics, I still enjoyed Cerebus and wanted to keep reading through them, but I knew what a commitment it would be, trying to get through all his text. Each issue would take me way too long to finish. I didn’t even necessarily agree with whatever he had to say. But for me, there was something about getting all the additional insights into his work. And perhaps more importantly, I really enjoyed how it helped me to know who this person was who was making this comic.

I told myself I could just not read all his text, but I couldn’t get myself to do that. I always feel like I have to read through something, and ingest all of it. I find I have to finish a novel I’ve started, even if I don’t enjoy it. I can’t turn a shitty movie off. It’s a perverse, maybe slightly neurotic (autistic?) problem I have. So isn’t it interesting that my love/hate of these kinds of text pages would develop and mutate in my own comics. And isn’t it interesting that someone is nurturing that sick habit of mine, and encouraging me to continue.

Someone asked about commissioning me to draw a monster again. I told him I’d recently done one for $100, and he said he’d pay me at least $125. Uh oh…Two requests for commissions in two conventions. Does this mean my rates are going to have to go up now?

It makes me think I should start bringing original art to conventions to sell.

This weekend, one self-publisher I see and say hi to all the time came over and actually looked at my stuff for the first time. I don’t think he realized that I have such a roster of pin-up artists. He looked dumbfounded flipping through my book. And then he realized I’d done a book with Sam Kieth. He got real quiet about it. Then he kind of timidly asked if I might ever do a pin-up for his book, and I told him I’m just so busy trying to do all my own projects right now, I just don’t have time. I feel sad, using the same excuses I’ve heard everyone say to me. Now I understand how they feel, and it’s nothing personal, but there just isn’t enough time in the days to get things done you’re passionate to be working on. Now I’m that guy who people are starting to ask. It’s flattering, but a little scary.

In addition to this newly-developing phenomenon (or perhaps it’s all a related phenomenon), a few artists once again asked if they could draw me a pin-up, and if I would publish it in my book. What I am learning to tell them, whether it’s polite enough or not, is that there are only so many pages in my books, and I have so many stories to tell, and I just don’t really have the room to publish pin-ups of anyone but my idols and people who personally influenced me. But I am doing a links page at my website, and I’d love if they would contribute something I could post there. And I would love it, and I’m loving it every time I got one in my emails. I think it’s gonna be a really cool links page.

Posted in Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist | No Comments »

92. GEARING UP FOR APE-CON 2006

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

Back At Last!  Blog Update 6/14/07
Greetings, fans, and welcome back at last!

THE RETURN OF THE BLOG…

DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST is finally up and running!

Sorry it took us four months and eight days to begin posting again, fans! Technical difficulties and a free-but-moronic blog-hosting site had us shut and locked up, but good! That entire time that you’ve been suffering without our blog, we were unable to post new diary entries, edit old posts, or even remove all those goddamn porn-site message-leaving meddlers that posted around a hundred spam-porn messages throughout our old blog! But we’re back again strong now, with a new hosting program that isn’t a piece of shit, without porn-links (sorry, fans of the porn links!), and ready to relay the pathetic adventures of Chris Wisnia trying to make it in the comics industry, strictly for your amusement (and his ego)!

Even though the system was locked, we’ve secretly been posting additions for a portion of that time we were away, in preparation for the day we’d be up and running again! So you should have plenty of reading, now, to keep you busy for at least ten minutes!

So ease into your smoking jacket and slippers, light that pipe, get your “Moonlight Sonata: Adagio” record out of its sleeve and onto your record player, lie back, relax, curl up with a warm glass of milk, and enjoy!

-Rob Oder, Editor-in-Chief!

…and now, the diary…

* * *

April 4, 2006

My original plan was to try and have a dozen pages of new giant monster stories finished and ready to show around to Fantagraphics, Oni, Idea Design Works, and AIT/Planet Lar. I think I’ll have ten. Not so not bad.

I took a few months getting the Doris Danger book together end of last year, and then it took me a few months to get the Lump Trade Paperback together. Almost just as an excuse to be drawing again, I decided to draw three pages of epilogue for that project, and it felt really good to get drawing again. The last couple weeks have been my only real chance in months to just sit down and get pages pounded out.

With my day job as a guitar instructor, I just changed my charging policies. The way I’m set up now, I charge a flat monthly fee for four lessons a month. If you have lessons on Mondays, and there’s a fifth Monday that month, we take that week off. I just started this new policy in March, and March had five Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. That meant, come March 29th to 31st, I took the days off and got myself a five day weekend.

All that week, I told myself I had to sit down and draw, especially since I was just goofing off last week, sending out emails…but I never did. Finally around Thursday, I sat down and cranked out some work, and really got in the groove Friday Saturday. I drew two new pages, and inked another that I had already penciled. I got in at least ten or so hours a couple of those days. It was exhausting. I had to be careful, because I could feel my hand cramping up, if I spent too long without giving my hand a stretch. Don’t want to end up with tendonitis.

I’ve gotten some email replies from a few artists I’ve contacted. A couple didn’t pan out, but I sent payments to Sam Glanzman and Guy Davis. Sam was hilarious. He said he was in the middle of a deadline, but let’s go man! Real enthusiastic. His pin-up actually came in within a few days. Great!

Guy Davis seemed really sweet. He began the email thanking me for wanting him to contribute. Usually, when someone opens a letter this way, it means, “Thank you, I’m not interested.” But he said he’d really like to be included.

Today I’m wondering how many emails I’ve been sent that I never saw. I’ve had a number of people tell me they’ve sent me emails (always because I’m waiting for replies from them, and I don’t hear back), and I never received them. Today Al Feldstein wrote that he’d written me, and didn’t I get his email?

As soon as we got back from the Orlando Con, where I met Al, I sent him an email to say hello, send him copies of his pin-ups and photos we took. Ever since then, I’ve gotten fourteen emailings he sends out to his address group. All of them have been anti-conservative, anti-Republican propaganda. We’re talking literally inside of one month, I’ve gotten fourteen of these emails. That averages practically one every two days. It’s not good if your spam-guard blocks two emails from a mailer, and you still get twelve in a month!

The interesting thing is that politically, I think Al is right on. We’re on the same boat there. But man, fourteen emails. My wife says, well, he’s the guy who has the right to send them out. He was called in to testify for the McCarthy hearings. If anyone knows what they’re talking about with conservatives going too far, Al’s got a case for it.

The reason I had written him this week is that I sheepishly sent him copies of his pin-ups that I inked. I wanted to see what he thought, and see if he would mind if I published them. I wrote that if he’d rather I publish his pencils without my inks, just say the word. I certainly understood.

The message I got today was that it was all right with him, so long as I also published his pencils along with the inks, and I thoroughly explained the situation of getting the pin-ups from him (In other words, that they were quick convention sketches, which I think he always felt a little insecure about), and that my inks were “unauthorized.”

That’s the word he used. “Unauthorized.” I felt bad that he used that word to describe my inks. It made me think he wasn’t particularly keen about the idea. But on the other hand, I can appreciate that. The original deal was that I would publish the pencil drawings he gave me. He didn’t ask me to ink them. I was obviously taking liberties, to the point of rudeness. Of course, an artist (or aspiring artist such as myself) does these things just because it’s a good experience, but also in the hopes that his idol will say, “Wow! These look so great, I can’t believe my eyes! You’d be stupid not to publish these inks! You are an amazing artist!” But of course, we’re just setting ourselves up for disappointment when we hope for these things.

I’m thinking about whether I want to just include his pencils or not. I’ve got a few ideas. My plan right now (and of course it seems my plans always change) is to release two Doris Danger books, “Doris Danger Greatest Army Battles,” and “Doris Danger in Outer Space.” I’ll put the war pin-ups (Sam Glanzman, Dick Ayers, Russ Heath) in the army book, and the outer space pin-ups (JH Williams III, Dave Gibbons, Al Feldstein) in the outer space book. What I’m thinking right now is to put his “Tales from the Crypt”-style pin-up in the war book, alongside my inks. On my inked page, I could put, “Warning! This pin-up has unauthorized inks!” And a little paragraph explaining the situation, as Al requests. Then in the space book, maybe I’ll just do Al’s pencils, and not bother with my inks. I could always post my sci-fi inks on the website, alongside his pencils with a paragraph, in the “links” section, and link it to Al’s website.

So many choices…

Posted in Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist | No Comments »

91. Sending Out Thirty-Five Emails

Monday, June 4th, 2007

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 a few months and have it out before the year is up. Whereas if I try and pound through my 175-page Limbo Café project, it would be a lot longer wait. 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. And then of course there’s the fact that the monster books are so fun to do. And I’ve already got pin-ups that haven’t seen print yet, from JH Williams III, Dick Ayers, Peter Bagge, Peter Kuper, Herb Trimpe, and one from Simon Bisley (theoretically, although it’s been eight months since I paid him, and he hasn’t returned my emails). So I’ve switched plans. Put Limbo Café aside. It’s gonna be the monster book. I’d better get cracking.

Now this year, same as last year, I got a huge…HUGE…tax return. 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. Also, we’ve got a kid coming, and that means we’re going to need to move from our two-bedroom apartment to a three bedroom. 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. 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.

So on March 27th, I sat down in front of the computer for over three hours and wrote out personal emails to thirty-five people. Some of them, I’ve written to before, some of them I’ve at least met at conventions, or had some kind of contact with, and some of them I just sent out cold, unsolicited emails.

Here’s who I tried to contact:

People I’ve been in touch with, who have continued to write me back that they’re really busy:

Mart Nodell’s son, Spencer, who’s always really kind and seems interested at conventions, but has never written me an email

Michael Kaluta, Tim Bradstreet, and Tim Sale, who used to write back regularly, but I haven’t heard from any of them in a long time

Matt Wagner

Michael Lark

John Romita

Mark Chiarello

The MegaCon convention, who is helping to get me in touch with George Tuska

Mike Zeck

People I’ve met, who only wrote back once or twice, a long time ago, but I haven’t heard from for a long time:

Simon Bisley

Brian Bolland

People who have never written me back, even though they gave me their emails at some point:

Adam Hughes, who was real friendly at Orlando, but I haven’t heard back yet.  I sent some photos, gave news we’re having a boy…but I know how busy they are

Howard Chaykin

Scott Shaw

Sam Glanzman

Walter Simonson

Tim Truman

Paul Grist

Bill Morrison

William Stout

Michael Avon Oeming

I also wrote comics companies, to let them know I’m looking forward to seeing them at APE:

Top Shelf

AIT-Planet Lar

Oni

I also wrote to a couple distributors who have been very generous to buy some of my books in the past, but haven’t returned my emails for months:

Mile High Comics

Coldcut Comics Distributors

The Kirby Collector, to see about potential write-ups of my monster book

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’ve never met, and who I assume are mostly untouchable, just to see if for some reason any of them might write back:

Guy Davis

Kevin Nowlan

Frank Frazetta!

Shag!

Then I found Geof Darrow’s mailing address but no email, so I sent him a letter.

 

We’ll see who writes back. You’d think that would generate some responses, if you send out 35 emails, wouldn’t you?

 

Posted in Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist | 1 Comment »

90. The Week I Called Larry Lieber

Monday, June 4th, 2007

2/26/06

Elizabeth and I found out we’re having a boy. We’re going to name him Oscar Francis Wisnia. Everyone had been telling E and I that they predicted it was going to be a girl. A woman who does the “scientific” (sure-proof) “dangling needle on thread over belly.” A woman who claims she always knows when someone in a room is pregnant or going to die, and who had visions it would be a girl, then later said, maybe I’m going to have second thoughts about that, and so when it was born could argue she was right either way. My mom, who had a dream. People who told us if the heart beats faster it’s a girl. People who told us if you don’t have morning sickness it’s a girl.

The more people said we’d have a girl, the more I realized I wanted a boy. But you don’t want to go out and say it, because then it sounds like you don’t want your baby, and of course I’d be happy with whatever I had. But boy did I start getting excited to see the ultrasound. See little Oscar’s feet, legs, arms, profile. Boy was it exciting realizing we knew it was a boy, and now we had a name.

Elizabeth is due mid-August, and the date of the San Diego Con, she will be eight and a half months pregnant. We were sweating whether or not she’d be able to make it this year, but the doctor says it should be okay. I don’t know how I’d do a convention without her. It’s such a relief.

We forgot to register for a hotel until two days after the day they became available. Naturally, everything was sold out. But this week we learned that we were able to get a room at the Hyatt, which is only a couple blocks away. It will be the closest we’ve ever been to the convention, and this is the year to do it. Poor Elizabeth will be huge this year.

This year we got a pretty sizeable tax refund. We should be saving up for a house, and saving to have a baby. But E and I discussed it and decided, I better get all the pin-ups I can now, while I have the money. Yesterday I pulled out all my business cards I’ve amassed over the years. I actually called Larry Lieber on the phone. He doesn’t have an email, and I’ve sent him my comics, but never heard back from him, over the last year and a half or so. So I called.

He answered, Hello?

Yes, is this Larry?

Who is this? Almost defensive. Irritated?

My name is Chris Wisnia. I met Larry at a New York Comics Convention a couple years ago. I draw giant monster stories. He remembered me, and his attitutude became much kinder. He said I’d caught him at kind of a difficult time. According to his description, he’s amassed so much stuff over the years, that his apartment has become a path to his bed. I think he was trying to get his taxes ready to file, and he needed his calculator from his drawer, and he has so much stuff, that he couldn’t get to the drawer to open it, so he was trying to delicately move the piles of things in front of the drawer. He told me I might be the last person to speak from him, and I’ll read in the news that he was buried alive by all this stuff he has, when it toppled on top of him.

He’s so funny and friendly, he just got talking. I asked if he’d gotten the comics I sent him, and he said, Please stop sending him comics. He just doesn’t have the time to read them. He said it was nothing personal. He also gets the New Yorker, and he hasn’t read it for years, even though he keeps renewing his subscription. He keeps thinking some day he’ll have the time. So he begged me not to send him comics, because he would never read them (not to mention the space they would take up).

I asked him again which Marvel characters he had told me he named. He said he came up with Tony Stark, Donald Blake, and Henry Pym, and he took great care trying to come up with those names. He said Stan didn’t really care what their names were. Stan named the hero names, and wrote the basic plots, but didn’t care what Larry did with the scripts beyond that.

His favorite story was about naming Thor’s Uru hammer. He said he wanted a short, three syllable name, because he felt bad for the poor letterers, who had so much to write. Later, but long ago, Roy Thomas had approached him, with a copy of Bullfinch’s Mythology, and asked him where he’d gotten the name. Larry admitted he’d made it up, and Roy was furious, and immediately had it changed back to the actual name of the hammer, Mjolnir. But when the San Diego Con had Larry flown out in 2004, he was on a panel, and a woman told him that actually, in Norse, Uru means powerful or mighty or something like that, so the word he made up turned out to actually be applicable! Bizarre.

Before I hung up, I told him I knew how busy he was, but asked him if he might ever have time to draw a pin-up of a giant monster for me. He shouted, No! Absolutely not! I’ll never draw a giant monster. I told him I’d pay him handsomely. He said, No! I don’t want your money! I don’t want to draw a giant monster. I don’t draw Western pictures any more either. He said he’d like to draw a comic some day, but a nice one without superheroes and monsters. He also said he’s always wanted to write a novel, but he’s just never had the time.

We parted, and he said he probably wouldn’t come out to a convention again. I told him if we make our way to the East Coast, I hope he would join us for dinner, and he said that would be much easier for his busy schedule. I really enjoyed visiting with him.

* * *

Last week, I drew my first commissioned piece, a giant monster sketch, similar to Fantastic Four #1’s cover, for Andrew Gregory. Then I inked copies of the three pencil pin-ups Al Feldstein gave me, because I just wanted to do some inking, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to ink a living legend. It was a lot of fun.

I thought I would be done with them and begin Doris Danger stories all last week. I wound up having things to do all week (trying to email people, having the baby’s ultrasound, going out to my local comics shop to sell two grocery bags full of comics, then going back a couple days later for their 50% off sale. And also my Dad was down for the ultrasound by chance, so he spent the night, and we got to have some time together). Before I knew it the week was over and I hadn’t done any drawing.

Posted in Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist | No Comments »

89. Phone Call with Sam Kieth

Monday, June 4th, 2007

2/15/06

Getting up my confidence, having set up a second commission for a pin-up from my favorite artist Mike Allred, and getting an amazing “check back in a few months” from my other favorite artist, Mike Mignola, I began trying to get in touch with Sam Kieth for more of the same. He was tough to track down. I called a few times at his office and left messages. I called his home and left a message. I had sent him a package with the Doris Danger book, in addition to some things he’d picked up down in San Diego and asked me to send him, so that he wouldn’t have to carry it around at the con.

He finally called me back and I missed the call. I realized later that he’s easiest to reach at his office at the exact same hours I can’t be reached because I’m teaching guitar lessons. He left a very sweet message about enjoying the monster book I’d sent him, and the format. He said it wasn’t just the Dick Ayers inks that he enjoyed, but felt I had a good thing going. He didn’t know if I had made an intentional reference, but it reminded him of the Marvel Treasury Editions of the 1970’s. He said all the great pin-ups reproduced better than he expected at such a huge size.

I called back immediately, as soon as I had a break, but my next student showed up and we were cut short. I called him later that night, left a message, called the next day, didn’t leave a message, and finally got hold of him the next next day.

Once again he was very complimentary about my monster book. We talked about his new Batman book, and he wondered if tis sales wee hurt by his Scratch series. According to him, Scratch was so unsuccessful critically and with sales, that when this new project was billed as a Batman book by Maxx “and Scratch” writer/artist Sam Kieth, people didn’t bother to order it. He couldn’t believe that DC billed it this way, when Scratch didn’t do very well.

He mentioned Mad Magazine had contacted him about doing work for them.  It took him aback, because he had thought Mad usually hired specifically comedy, cartoonist types of artists.  Sam comically described it as if Mad didn’t deign to waste their time on low-brow comics artists.  So Sam said so to them, and instead of telling him, No, Sam, we wouldn’t do that, they said, Yeah, usually that’s what we do, but if you want to send a sample…

Sam told me about a sample he was asked to send to a music magazine, which they didn’t like, so they asked him to redo it. He redid it, and they still didn’t like it, so they didn’t accept it, and they didn’t pay him, and he couldn’t believe that he’d wasted all this time, a couple days worth of work, when he could have been working on all these other projects he always feels behind deadline with.

Sam seemed to be in one of his moods.  He asked, Don’t you get sick of drawing? I knew what he meant.  Comics are a never ending chore, and you just have to plug through seemingly endlessly, drawing whatever images will tell the story.  That means you’ll have to find a dozen ways to draw the same face, and try to keep it interesting.  You’ll have to come up with a bunch of interior room designs.  Things will come up, that you’ll just have to draw, that you’re maybe not interested in drawing, but you have to just keep plugging through, because until you draw it, you’ll just keep feeling irritated about having to draw it.  And once you’re finally done, you know you’ll just have to go back the next day for more of the same.  There’s no end to getting the drawing done.

So in answer to his question, Do you ever get sick of drawing?  I told him, actually, I can’t wait to do more drawing. I’m always excited about it, and itching to get my next story going.  But I didn’t tell him, if it was my only job, and I was doing it forty or more hours a week, I would certainly get sickeningly tired of it.

He said, Yeah, it’s different if you’re doing your own projects, instead of Batman books or whatever for someone else. I said, Yeah, I did someone else’s book once – meaning Sam’s Ojo.  And honestly, I didn’t enjoy drawing it as much as drawing my own projects. 

I used that as a segueway to tell him I was still serious about working with him any time he wanted. Sam said, Okay, if we do a book, we have to not use the toothbrush spraying technique anywhere. He’s done it all this time, and he’s tired of doing it now, and he thinks it doesn’t look as good anymore, now that it’s been done. No toothbrush.  I didn’t get the impression he’s considering doing another project with me.

We got to talking about working in different styles. I mentioned Romance and War. Sam pointed out that both these genres are long-dead genres in comics, and that superheroes are pretty much all that exists now, except that Manga is beginning to push out the superheroes, thanks to an increase in female readers who couldn’t give a shit about muscleiy men beating each other up. I pointed out, Fantagraphics is doing romance comics. Their Eros line. Sam didn’t catch the joke at first. Namely, that the Eros line is pornography. “Romance.”

I told Sam I’d really like a new pin-up from him of a giant monster, and he just kind of casually said all right, like of course he would do another. He joked, That’s it! I’ll tell Mad Magazine, I’m not going to do a sample for you! I’ve got better things to do! I’m going to draw a giant monster for Chris Wisnia’s monster book!

I told him I was serious, and he said, okay, I’ll draw you an Easter Island monster. He shared that one of his earliest comics experiences was reading one of Kirby’s Easter Island monster stories. Until reading it, he never imagined those giant heads could have bodies buried beneath them, and could climb out of the earth. He was taken by Kirby’s blocky, powerful style. He said comics art should either contain that strength, or the weirdness of Ditko. He said I’d have to write somewhere about his reasons for drawing an Easter Island monster, and I warned him I’m planning to do a blog. I fantasized about him doing a whole monster story for me, but was too chicken to ask.

Posted in Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist | No Comments »