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July 2001
San Diego Comicon-tastic
Like the rest of the comic bookreading world, I had been gearing up for the San Diego show allthis month. I did some Thor pages for the Marvel Talent Search.If you're interested in seeing them, they're in July's sciencefair. I'm not too thrilled with them. Somewhere in the middle ofworking on them, I decided I hated Thor. And I mean hate, HATE,hated Thor. He's too much like one of those guys on the cover ofa cheap romance novel. I don't understand it and can't get intoit. So drawing it proved to be a waste of my time. Well, not atotal waste. I did figure out how to make a really cosmic lookingouterspace. I mixed outer space photographs with some pictures Itook of the sunsets out here in Redondo Beach. The end product isvery colorful and swirly. The color work is good on it, butthat's about it.
As for the convention, I had neverbeen to San Deigo, so it was really overwhelming to see that manypeople there with one thing on thier minds: Comics. I had been tothe Pittsburgh Comicon every year except this year, sadly, buteven then the show had to bring in other folks like wrestlers andhalf naked women in order to get people on the floor. But, SanDiego was a much different beast. My only complaint was no oneseemed to know what gum or breathmints were. Or deoderant. Yeesh.it was like crawling around in one giant armpit. I get sick fromsmells and it was an instant headache. Bathe for God's sake, youpeople! I had to drive two and a half hours each day, and Ibrought deodorant in the car just to make sure I wasn't offendingany of the noses around me.
So, I rented a car early Thurdsdaymorning and hit the road. I went to the show Thursday andSaturday. It was a lot of fun, except Thursday I lost a hundreddollars. Yeah, that's right, I had three hundred bucks to my nameand lost a third of it. I put it in that little fifth pocket inmy pants, and I'm guessing it fell out when I was sitting in thestupid Thor Q and A thing. I couldn't get a Marvel portfolioreview, so I figured I'd just hand them to the editor. So, I hadto sit on the floor of this interview conference, because I waslate. Another guy who was later than I was came in and sat downpractically on top of me, so he could see as well. It was soannoying. He kept leaning forward, and I couldn't see anythingother than his big fat head. He smelled and every time I fidgetedto get away from him, he moved closer. It was like 'Look jagoff,you showed up later than me, you shouldn't get to have a betterspot on this coffee stained carpet than me.' As you can tell, Ihave no tolerance for crowds. So, I'm betting that money fell outwith my costant shuffling around, and so some lucky jerk got tohave a nice little shopping frenzy thanks to yours truly. I couldhave thrown up, I was so upset. Fortunately, I left twenty bucksin my car for gas to get back home.
Aside from that horrible twentyminutes or so, I had a really good time. Everyone seemed to likemy work, especially my coloring surprisingly, but no one wantedto give me work. I had people tell me I was really, really closeto something remarkable a bunch of times, which only made me fellworse than I already did. I got to meet a lot of artists andwriters that I've been a fan of, and for the most part, everyonewas very nice and very personable. One publisher blew me off, andit kind of aggravated me. Not that he blew me off, but he actedlike he was the President or something. You publish funny booksjagoff, don't get so into yourself. I remember when that guy usedto attempt making his own comics, and no one bought them. Butthen again, so have I. But, I'm twenty years younger than him.
I did get to meet the mysteriousand elusive Chad Ward, head honcho to the OPI8.com site. It wasreally great to meet him in person, as I've been working with himfor the past seven months. I was never sure if Chad liked me ornot, because we only really talked if there was a problem withthe work I sent him. But, Chad is the man, and we got to sit andtalk for a good hour or so. It was strange because I knew himalready, but I didn't, you know? Oh that magical internet.
I think I came out of the weekendwith a better view of my work and what I need to do. I wasdepressed for an entire week afterwards and couldn't drawanything to save my life. Though now, I am back in the rhytmn andam fixing up some panels and some sequences in the Gypsy Lounge,and basically improving the sections that I'm not happy with. Ilearned that I need to stop putting so much emphasis on meetingdeadlines I make for myself, as much as I should just get thebook done right. It scares me at times, that I've invested twosolid years of my life into this book and it may never amount toanything other than wasting sections of my life where I should begoing out and meeting girls and stuff. But I'm like Max Fisher.I'm a clipper ship captain. I'm married to the sea.