A very Whitney top panel - but look at the figure on the right at he top. That's a total Kirby pose.

It was fun for me to discover this comic in the quarter bin. I’d never seen it. Dan was like, “Oh, yeah, I have some of those. I think that’s some of Whitney’s last professional work.” I was startled at how “3-D” looking the pages are in comparison to Whitney’s “flat” space in most of his ACG work. Whitney is famous for his flat, stage-like compositions in Herbie and in his romance comics work. So, it’s really odd and somehow thrilling to see Whitney’s compositions go “in” to the panel. He seems to be imitating Kirby’s layered approach. Y’know what I mean – when Kirby has a strong foreground, middle ground and background all in one panel. Kirby most famously does this of course in his double-page splash pages but I think you can see this compositional strategy in every one of his pages. Look at the panel below in the gallery with the big laughing heads at the top of the page. That was the panel that really struck me. That panel is so unusual looking for Ogden Whitney. So, then I started looking at the rest of the book more clearly. There are some choice “Whitney moments” (check the guys using a log for a battering ram – that’s ALL Whitney except for the figure on the right of the panel) but it’s mostly a Kirby riff. Check out the hand of our hero when he falls off his horse. That’s a Kirby hand. And more than that, it’s coming towards the reader like most Kirby. But Whitney was so “flat” – for lack of a better term – that it’s weird to see him composing panels that come at, come towards the reader. Whitney, of course, does have depth-of-field type panels in his other work but it’s generally simple and rather elegant. He plays with color and depth like an animated cartoon. Usually his “space” is very clean. Here in this western it’s all layered and messy. I like it. Add the layered compositions to the bulkiness of the figures AND the inking style and it all sort of works. I gotta say – it boggles the mind of a Whitney fan like me.

Anyways, just something to chew on. Just riffing. Please enjoy. ]]> http://comicscomicsmag.com/2011/03/ogden-whitney-goes-kirby.html/feed 7 http://comicscomicsmag.com/2011/03/ink-panther.html http://comicscomicsmag.com/2011/03/ink-panther.html#comments Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:51:38 +0000 Frank Santoro http://comicscomicsmag.com/?p=9014 Mike Dawson called me on the computer and talked with me about comic books and jobs. Lots of rambling color commentary from your friendly neighborhood blabbermouth – little ol’ me, Frankie Dee. Frankie D. Wop. Check it out here.]]> Mike Dawson called me on the computer and talked with me about comic books and jobs. Lots of rambling color commentary from your friendly neighborhood blabbermouth – little ol’ me, Frankie Dee. Frankie D. Wop.

Check it out here.

My list is as follows:

1. Guang Yap – Dragonring, New Mutants

2. The guy who drew a comic from the mid-’90s called Colville. I think that was the title. I sold my copy at a show and I regret it. It was a self contained story. Had a guard tower on the cover. Weird comic.

3. Joel Orff – one of the John Porcellino generation of mail order mini comics guys who makes appearances every few years. Hope he’s making comics. Strum und Drang was one of my favorite zines.

4. The “anonymous” guy who drew the DOG BOOK – better known as the Utility Sketchbook.

5. Alex Nino – ’70s sci-fi guy. Kinda Moebius. Does he still do comics?

Disclaimer: This is not a Five For Friday ripoff. More like an homage. Apologies to T.S.

Jay Oh Bee. Job. Get a job. I can hear my girlfriend say the words. When are you gonna get a job? But, honey, I have a job – I’m a cartoonist. I mean a steady job, Frank.

Yah. Sigh. Time to make the donuts. How the hell am I supposed to be a cartoonist if I’m too tired from my real job?

Has this feeling ever visited you, friend? (Use ’50s TV commercial voice.) Well, you aren’t alone. Here at Comics Comics, we feel your pain. How to manage a career in cartooning and pay the bills? This feeling has baffled generation upon generation of working cartoonists throughout the years. And not just working cartoonists, either. The question has perturbed a vast sea of “Sunday painters” as well. These quasi-professionals know what it means to be consumed by comics. The fire burns long and hot to pursue a career of some kind in the field – but unfortunately the electricity has been turned off in the house. Bills pile up. The dream begins to fade. Young inkstuds slouch their way towards heartache. An unfinished graphic novel gathers dust.

Last week I wrote about comics & jobs, comics job – because I was writing about John Pham. Or, I mean, I was using John Pham as an example of someone who has built up this incredible skill set that is specific to comics and not much else. Like, I mean to be a good cartoonist you have to really work, and even if you become good, or great – you might not make any money at all. The market is so small. There is a limited amount of money going around in comics – meaning who buys what and when. So, fine: John makes awesome comics but not enough to pay the bills. What does he do? He works in animation.

John said this about the comics skill set: “I actually think comics gives us a pretty real-world workable skill set that can sort of translate into other fields, strangely enough. As opposed to, say, a poet. Or a professional poker player. Being able to draw or paint gives peeps like you or me opportunities to do gallery, illustration, or even animation work. All of which could supplement any income generated from comics. I think I know what you mean though; the very specific skill of making comics, telling a story through a sequence of pictures, may not translate to much else. Except maybe storyboarding!”

John also said, “I wonder if this is essentially every non-mainstream cartoonist’s (not named Ware, Clowes, etc) way of keeping afloat. We do our comics, but also do the other shit that pays the bills. Sometimes it’s the comics work that brings in the other work. And there are the cartoonists who have real day jobs, a whole ‘nother discussion!”

I am aware that a mainstream comic book is very different than an alternative art comic. I mean like how it is produced. What economic factors shaped its production and presentation. But I fear that there is a strange blindness in the reading public to this difference. To them it’s just another comic. The independents are put on the same field with the pros. Especially on blogs about comics, the dreaded link-blogging kind – there will be an item about an obscure mini-comic published by a guy in Cleveland then a post about a mega-crossover event comic book published by a corporation with offices on both coasts. It’s all just comics, right? Wrong. There are very specific class lines. There are those who get paid and those who do not.

But to the reader, consumer, blogger, these differences seem to be noticed in passing. I’m so tired of hearing speculation as to why indy titles are published so sporadically – it’s because there’s no fucking money around you dumbasses! The market is small. That guy who buys all the marquee indy titles doesn’t have enough money to buy all the obscure mini-comics. He’s choosing whom to support. See, if you work for a big comics publisher that pays a page rate, this guy not buying your comic makes no difference to you. You get paid. But the self-published artist and even the artist who works for a small company – that artist doesn’t get paid. So what that reader/consumer does buy does make a difference to you. It’s all connected, duh. The stores are only going to order so many inexpensive hand-made mini-comic editions. And only so many expensive hand-made editions. Better to stick with books that have shelf life like comics with spines that look like books. The old serial sporadically published comic book or even mini-comic is at least an affordable way to publishing comics (especially when you aren’t getting paid). Oh, but guess what? small press comics are shut out of the market that serves comic books stores. So small press alternative comics adhere to their own system of production and distribution. Wednesday comics day or the direct market at large is a different class system entirely.

Obviously. But what irks me is reading blogs that jumble it all together and really never address this wide chasm between the two. Rarely ever do I get a sense that the guy drawing this here comic for a big corporation got paid – where as this gal drawing this comic over here worked a day job for two years, drew this comic on the side, and then gave it to an indy publishers for free, on spec, and once the printing costs were recouped a few years later there was a profit of twenty-five dollars which was split between the publisher and the maker. It’s all comics, sure. To you, the reader, fan, blogger – it’s all about the comics – they all wind up in the discount bin eventually – but it’s not all about the comics to the independent makers. It’s all about the money. It’s about realizing that the making of comics is often divorced from working. Because that word – working – is reserved for having a real job that pays. How many “working cartoonists” do you know? Folks that actually make a living drawing comics?

I know a few guys who draw for page rates but most cartoonists I know generally draw “on spec” and maaaaybe get drawing gigs that pay here and there. The guys who can get page rates are mostly working for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and a few other “mainstream” publishers. Those guys can “get work” in comics because they have the specific skill set for drawing mainstream comics. There’s plenty of art in what they do but, really, it’s mostly commerce. It’s getting paid to draw advertisements for corporations, period. There’s money in advertising I hear. And hey! that’s fine. I wish I could do it but I can’t. I really don’t have the skill set to be a working mainstream cartoonist. I’m the kind of cartoonist who doesn’t use a computer. So I’m like a musician who plays a horn instead of a keyboard and a sampler. And because of it I get different gigs, different work because of how I play. But its a different reality. It’s like pop music and classical music (jazz is classical music at this point). Different audiences.

Most independent comics makers “get work” in different places than mainstream comics makers. It’s a different system. I admire Jim Rugg because he “gets work,” paying work, as a cartoonist. He can hone his craft at his lousy day job. He might hate it at times but he doesn’t have to leave the mindset of being an “in the zone” cartoonist when he goes to work. Jim’s not going to flip burgers and leaving “the zone” of drawing. Comics makers all know how long it takes to get in the zone and staying there is often harder than getting there. It’s a TIME thing. We spend so much time just getting good at the craft that the real world becomes a distant point on the horizon. The real world of rent and bills becomes bigger and more menacing than ever. No wonder cartoonists suffer from depression. This shit is depressing!

The silver lining of it all is that comics can be a passport into other jobs – to making a living. It sucks not to be a working cartoonist sometimes but it’s cool to be hired for an animation project. So I’m not complaining. I have a job. But I’m jealous of cartoonists who work in the real world. I guess I mean like commercial comics – but I’m thinking more of someone like Gil Kane or even Patrick McConnell.

It’s hard knowing that your chosen profession is an art form that will someday be supported by foundations and grants – like opera or something. Like jazz. Think about all the specialized schools that teach opera or jazz. D’ja ever think about how many out-of-work opera singers and jazz musicians there are in the world?

—–
We want to hear from you! (Use ’50s TV commercial voice again.) What’s the weirdest job you’ve had to endure while you secretly burned inside to just go home and draw comics?

Frank: “Okay, I’ll go first. I was the worst bike messenger of all time – flat tires, lost packages, head on collisions with pedestrians – and then I would try to go home and work on my comic. I was exhausted and pretty banged up. My roommate – who was a really good messenger – took pity on me and said that if I did the dishes for a month he would reduce my rent. I had enough money to pay for a month’s rent at the reduced rate and quit my messenger job. I spent the month finishing my comic. I sent that comic to Spin magazine and got a job doing spot illustrations for Michael O’Donoghue’s column. I was fired after three months and replaced by Gary Panter. True story.”

—–
Postscript: I think Tom Scioli drew Godland for a few years whole working a full-time job at the library.

As John Pham said, “That’s a whole ‘nother discussion!”

John Pham - handmade edition

It was nice to see John Pham in his element. I’ve usually hung out with him in the cold of winter & that seems all wrong for him. He’s from L.A. so he looked relaxed and right at home.

But somehow he had never been to the Santa Monica Pier. So he was happy to indulge the tourist in me. The four of us hung out in the arcade for a bit. Highlights included Pham on one of those dance machine stomp video games – and also me and Regé playing two player on the Terminator game. We both had laser rifles.

I had asked John to bring me a stack of his old comics. Bill Boichel is always after John for more copies of John’s famous sketchbook comic edition of Sublife. It has an incredible comic in it called something something John Cassavetes and Chris Ware diary. It more or less is a comic about processing art and life and the mirrored edge between the two – but specifically through reading Ware’s comics and watching Cassavetes’ movies. It’s truly great and something worth reprinting somewhere, someday. (Pham emailed me to say the Ware / Cassavetes diary was called “Substitute Life”. He told me he’s “not too proud of that one” and I told him he was crazy. To me, it’s a friggin masterpiece.)

Anyways, isn’t this another discographical thing? Like how many of you out there knew that John had this amazing comic before Sublife called Epoxy? He published three issues before he got a cease and desist order from the real Epoxy – the glue people. You know Epoxy the company, the people that made up the word, I guess. So he had to come up with a new title. And then he seems kind of shy about even talking about it, let alone talking about reprinting all that great early material.

And it is great early material. Somewhere Joe posted an image and wrote about Epoxy #1. John was doing this Otomo/Akira thing and it was pretty rad. This one dude in the comic could fuck you up with a handful of pennies. It was like a totally different drawing style than you would normally associate with John Pham. It shows a wide range of influence and ability. But it was also super labor intensive. You can see John’s style simplify over the run of the issues and in his sketchbook.

I like thinking about my friends like John as cartoonists who will have long, varied careers and who will have great early work that will someday be reprinted. As a fan, you can check in at any point in time – at any of the in print offerings that will provide a door, an “in” to a deeper appreciation of an artist’s whose work you admire. You might find all of the artist’s work you like, you might track it all down or you might not. I know friends who fight, for real, ha, over their comics and will not lend out rare copies of particular titles. (Dan’s ears are burning) But, for the most part if you wanna find some weird, obscure shit, you can track it down. And since most cartoonists have weird, obscure and shitty publishing histories it can be a fun game. Discographically speaking, I mean.

Jon Vermilyea, for example, already has a long and somewhat obscure publishing history. Let’s see if I can remember Jon’s “discography” off the top of my head. There was Critical Citadel, an anthology Jon appeared in with Ray Sohn and Panayiotis Terzis amongst others. He had a strip called Princes of Time. Then there was an entire Princes of Time newsprint edition. Around the same time he made this awesome silkscreen book of He-Man that was the hit of San Diego 2007. Then he did the first Cold Heat Special. Then he made a shit ton of silkscreen prints. Then started doing things for Mome. More Cold Heat Specials. A Simpsons comic. A Strange Tales volume two appearance. See? That’s already a lot and I’m sure I’m missing stuff. Why not go to Jon’s website and see how close to got to his actual publication history. I swear I didn’t look yet.

Me and Jon V at APE a couple of years ago

But wait, I forgot to tell you why Jon V was in California at all. He got a job working at Cartoon Network. And he had just arrived the week before I was visiting. So we were both surprised to see each other. Jon V and I go way back to the early days of Picturebox when Jon was working for Dan and I was sharing a studio with the Picturebox offices. I would drive Jon insane. He had the unlucky job of assembling my hand separated Cold Heat color separations on the computer. It was grueling work yet it somehow brought us closer together. We became pals cuz we got to hang out everyday in “the bullpen”. So I was thrilled to learn that Jon V had “loaded up the truck and moved from Tennessee” as the theme song goes.

He looked a little pale. It’s that New York winter. Drains all the life outta ya. But there Jon was, wading ankle deep in the Pacific – staring at the sunset. It’s nice to feel happy for your friends. And I was happy to see Jon in this new landscape. He’ll get a tan and all will be right in the world.

Hanging out with Jon V and John Pham made me think a little bit about how serialization is good for them – a way of building material for a collection. A way to build some stories and try some new shit out. They both work meticuluously and so I think the approach is really the only way they can work. Or else it’s gonna be years before they ever put books out. I wish there was an “online Mome” – an “online Kramers” – just some kind of an online anthology that paid. Instead it feels like we just give it away for free.

But now look at them, both working as animators in the big leagues. Real deadlines and real pressure – none of this it’s done when it’s done comic book type rules. They were talking about meetings and lunches. Serious stuff. I laughed because it made me think, “are any of us ever gonna make any money for just drawing comics? Are our comics just passports to working in tv or film?”

Not that there isn’t anything wrong with that. I am in no way begrudging them for working in animation. I’m extremely happy for them. Hell, I occasionally work in animation to pay the bills. But wouldn’t it be awesome if we, uh, indy guys could actually make some money by selling our own comics? I love all the doors that have been opened to me by comics, but it seems like there is just no money around. So the brain trust gets sucked away to bigger and better things – and Hey! that’s fine, I’m just saying wouldn’t it be cool if there were more comic book venues, more places “to play” as they say.

And what am I prepared to do about it you ask? Nothing. Just trying to rile you up a little. I’m the old man who just wants to complain that shit still ain’t changed really in twenty years. Comics aren’t for kids anymore! And whoa, didja maybe think that could be why we’re all outta work cuz maybe our industry caters to aging tastes and really ain’t keepin up wit da kids? None of us can just go draw for Richie Rich comics like Peter Kuper did when his avant garde indy comics weren’t paying the bills (true story – Peter Kuper’s used to ink Richie Rich). There aren’t jobs like that these days. That’s all I’m prepared to do – complain that there ain’t no paying jobs in this racket no more. At least in the old days, I coulda been an inker! (say it with a Marlon Brando accent – it’s funnier that way)

Sorry. Just trying to make you laugh. Anyways. John and Jon. I hears that at the Cartoon Network offices they were debating on how to address that there are two Johns working in the same department. Since John Pham has seniority, Jon Vermilyea was being referred to as “Jay Vee” – which is pretty funny. I wonder if it’ll stick.

King City collection cover idea

“I think it’ll be real basic with what was just what was in the issues with some of the layouts and pages I’d cut from the issues in there,” sayeth Brandon. And then he said it would hopefully be out by the end of the year. He added that he’d like to see it be an affordable edition but added to his additional amendment that he understands that publishing is a tough racket all around. “I just want to see it in print”.

The idea that something as popular as KC might not see print made me think of THB not seeing print either, when it was in demand in the ’90s. Like the rarity of the comics so early so fast. And then P.P. doing work for Dark Horse and DC and those works being the first things that people read cuz that is what’s available. And Hey! That’s OK! I’m just speaking in like, DISCOGRAPHICAL terms. Like I enjoy seeing an artist’s progression through his/her own obsessions and how that all plays out. Like I hope KC sees print immediately because it would be really too bad for the readers who wanna read this now to somehow be denied. I know I say this all the time but: KC is a perfect comic book for right now, for today. And plus, I want all my friends to read it and I’m sick of lending out my run of the issues.

Comic Book Heaven. Been catching up on some different comic book series in the last month since X-mas. Here’s a little rant on comic books – the old fashioned kind. Here’s the list:

Crickets #3
Uptight #4
The Bulletproof Coffin #6
King City #12
Neonomicon #3
Deadpool MAX #3

I finally read The Bulletproof Coffin #6. The finale. I gotta say that I liked it. But I’m such a fan of this series that I don’t expect you to believe me. Is this propaganda? Did Kane and Hine pay me to write a five-star review? Something to be Google searched and referenced in some futurepast?

I’m incapable of writing anything critical about The Bulletproof Coffin. And I mean about its context in 2010/2011. I wish I had a grad student’s tenacity to explain how I think this comic is “just right” for this Comic Book Golden Age that we are living in these days.

I think the book’s power is drawn from using the language of comics itself – a self referenced set of symbols. And they are Pop symbols—Jungle Girl, Noir Men in Hats, Zombies, Costumed Heroes, Comics—which all sort of write themselves & propel themselves forward. So the “comics-within comics” bends the straightforward whodunit/time-machine storyline like a House of Mirrors. So at the end the entire bejeweled reflection of BC’s comic book universe spins away into the pure white of the last issue’s glossy back cover in a Mylar bag. Finished. The End. The end of the series and the end of Comics. That’s the “just right” feeling for me. It comes from believing that comics as we know them are changing faster than we care to admit. We’re in denial that comic books are not going the way of the dodo. Pamphlets and Wednesday afternoons at the shop, I mean. The end of The Bulletproof Coffin seems to say it better than I can. It’s Over! The times they are a’ changin’. So track down those back issues, True Believers, don’t wait for the trade.

Beyond “The End of Comics,” the end of The Bulletproof Coffin makes me think about how a couple of my favorite series of last year have ended. King City ended. Batman and Robin basically ended now that Morrison left the book. (Big Questions ended but somehow that doesn’t count in this round-up.) Alan Moore’s new series is almost over and he was thrown under the bus for real for the first time in memory. Something is happening. The end of The Bulletproof Coffin also makes me think about this Golden Age and how we the fans are in on most of the gags – are so informed about what is going on. It’s weird.

But is this a resurgence of the comic book serial or a death rattle? I was trying to imagine what a King City collection is going to look like. It’s gonna be huge and prolly expensive. I can’t even imagine what a Big Questions collection is gonna cost. So even though there are all these pamphlet series I love – the reality is that most of my friends haven’t read them because they are hard to track down. Shit, King City was hard to keep up with and I worked in a comics shop for most of last year. Just making sure the shop would “put one in my bag behind the counter” wasn’t guaranteed.

So, when the collections of King City and The Bulletproof Coffin come out is everyone gonna go bananas? Is anyone going to be able to afford Big Questions? It reminds me of when Dash’s Bodyworld was fist released. Everyone was blogging about waiting for the book to come out to read it – that they didn’t wanna read it online – and then when it did it was like everybody just griped about the format and/or the price. It was easier when everything just existed as comic books and only blockbuster hits got “collected” in a trade. The game was to collect the comics. That’s what the stores and knowledgeable schmoes like me were for. Now stores are mostly just middlemen for Amazon. I ask Bill at Copacetic to order me things just to throw him the business even if I can do it easier myself. Sux.

I know, I know, I’m going on a buncha different tangents. It’s just that I was thinking, “Wow, look at all these comic books. I like reading serials.” And then I was realizing that most of my stack was “over.” One more issue of Neonomicon. And it’ll be years before another Crickets or Uptight comes out. So really my big stack of serials was stalled and I just didn’t know it. What? You think Kyle Baker will stay on Deadpool indefinitely? I doubt it. What else is there to read? I mean, I read mainstream stuff a lot just to have something to read. I haven’t gotten hooked on any webcomics yet. I’m okay with going down with the Wednesday afternoon ship. (I made a bet with Jordan Crane that DC will stop publishing serial comic books within two years.)

This is when I think putting out – or trying to put out – a 48-page “album” or “annual” every year is best. Something like Prison Pit or Powr Mastrs. CF has almost managed to put out one a year since 2007. Johnny Ryan is on schedule – one a year. Going to Angouleme last year made me realize that the annual “album” is best. And that self-contained works sell better than a serialized works. I also noticed that most popular North American cartoonists who trucked in short stories were not very popular in France. But cartoonists who do long-form self-contained works were popular. Maybe they know better.

At least Lose #3 will be out at TCAF.

left to right: Johhny Ryan, Jaime Hernandez, Ron Regé Jr, Jordan Crane, Sammy Harkham, Frank Santoro

Back in August of last year, my friend Sebastian Demain sent me an email that said he was opening a gallery in Los Angeles. He and his business partner Ethan had rented a multi-use space where they could have art shows, performances, happenings, whatever. It’s a long corridor of a space in a basement – perfect for a gallery.

So I was lucky enough to be invited to have a show there. Sebastian asked if I had any paintings that looked like my comic Chimera. He said he liked my “classical” style. The inaugural show of the gallery was a Lee “Scratch” Perry painting exhibition in November and then there was a Nazi Knife group show in December. I was to be the third show. Felt like good company.

Dem Passwords, the name of the gallery is derived from a Lee Perry prose poem (a 3000 page Word document) where Lee writes about “dem passwords” one needs to know to get into places of power – of Black power. It’s pretty heavy and reflects the gallery’s many faces. CF played a show there. Coppertone. Pink Dollaz. It’s already become quite a scene. I mean Jerry Heller was at my opening so that should give you an idea of how strikingly L.A. this spot is. But more on that later. Lemme get back to my story.

Anyways, back in August I realized that it would be super expensive to send my largish oil paintings on canvas to L.A. From Pittsburgh, PA where they’re stashed. Plus I knew I was moving to New Mexico with the girl in October – I figured I’d need to make work that was portable. So I decided to start making large drawings that were mostly just exercises in geometry – in composition. Just trying to scale up and find a comfort zone working my arm in large gestures again. Very different than the comics I’d been making earlier in the summer. I leaned a big board up against the mantle and drew vertically on large sheets of paper – never resting my hand like I do when making comics – resting on the desk. A very different line is formed. Long continuous arcs are easier to make this way. Plus you can step back and see it. Room size.

Soon I was coloring some of these large drawings with an airbrush. And then I was just “drawing” with the airbrush with no sketch underneath. It’s really freeing to have one tool that can make fine lines and large flat areas of color. It felt very direct. And the colors were vibrant – not muddy like oil paint can be. Or plastic-y like acrylic paint on canvas can be. And since I was working on paper they were less precious than paintings but more “worked up” than most of my drawings. I was enjoying the process, the discovery.

I made over 100 of them over a few months and in early January I FedEx’d them all to the gallery. (Even though I’d only end up showing 19 of them, I was happy with the process. A lesson in editing on site, on deadline) I flew to L.A. a week before the show. Rented a car. Saw the sights. I came to L.A. early so I could see my friends who I never get to see: Sammy Harkham, Ron Regé Jr, Jordan Crane and a gang of others. The idea was to round everyone up for dinner one night. Sammy and Regé both had said that they never see the other cartoonists in town unless someone they all knew was visiting. “Good, I’ll be that someone”, I said, ” Do you think Jaime will come out to dinner with us if we ask him?”

Sammy had a plan. I dunno what strings he pulled but soon it was a Monday night and there was a dinner with Jaime, Sammy, Regé, Johnny Ryan, Jordan, and myself. This never happens they all said. We ate pizza & pasta. Drank a bit. Talked about where the freeways meet.

Had I ever seen Jaime this relaxed and talkative? At shows he’s usually got his Sue Storm invisible bubble head shield on. He’s totally listening but he’s on guard for crazy comics fans – people who, like, come up to him & just talk at him, rant at him about comics – people like… me.

But I can’t help it! It’s Jaime! When I’m around him I just have to excitedly ask dumb questions – I tried the silent, “oh shit, its Jaime, act cool, don’t say anything” approach but that doesn’t work too well for me. I just try & make him laugh & do my best Jerry Lewis routine. Sammy will be like talking shop with him & and I’m like “Hey! Have you seen that Jim Starlin comic…?!” – and then I’ll describe panels that I think Gilbert swiped from Starlin. I know it Beto! I got the proof! And Jaime just laughs. He won’t rat out his brother.

Oh, but does he ever remember who’s talked shit on him. That was some refreshing non- con talk. Like who said something somewhere years ago – like someone saying “Love and Rockets is this or that”. He remembers. Like elephant size memory. I think he has a book. A little black book. In his brain. A bucket list for the future. It made me think of Kirby. This nice, soft spoken guy who will fucking destroy you with his pen.

Sitting at a round table eating dinner I remember thinking “I’m the least talented cartoonist here, haha”. This was the major leagues and I’m just a sandlot player. A schmuck with a blog. A “painter/cartoonist” – which sounds like “singer/songwriter” – which as Reid Paley used to say sounds like “pisser/shitter”. I’m in that familiar territory of overlap. The doomed hell of Gary Panter. A circle of Dante.

So if I dare to mention myself in the company of Hernandez, Harkham, Regé, Ryan, and Crane – it’s knowing that I’m less like them and more just trying to do my own thing. Whatever that is. I mean, all of them have just put out new books and all of them are cranking on new work. They are professionals of the highest order. Honest to God heroes of mine. Friends. It was inspiring to be around them – and to realize that making comics wasn’t such a lonely pursuit after all. Meaning that there actually are people in the world who really do know what it means to be a comics artist. Not everyone is so understanding. So that familiarity with the craft &with each other’s work goes a long way.

Johnny Ryan was pretty laid back – but outside after dinner when I tried to explain my theory of Jaime’s influence upon Sammy and Jordan’s recent work – in front of everyone – Johnny goes “Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!” and laughs.

I asked Jaime if he was working on the new issue and he said yah. He said it was good to come out to this dinner because he was at home holding up four different pages trying to figure out a specific sequence. He said something about cramming an extra panel into a sequence – but that it fucks up the rhythm, the “space” on the page – the balance – so how do you do that? It’s intuitive – it’s not so scripted out that you could plan to avoid this moment where you need an extra panel. And it doesn’t fit somehow on the page.

Jaime Hernandez and some guy with a blog

Then Jaime turned to me and asked me what I thought was going to happen between Maggie and Reno. He nodded his head when I told him what I thought. But I know that those characters have a life of their own, lives of their own. Even to Jaime. He said so. He said he wished he could put them all on a train and have all these things happen at once, have all these things resolved in one story – but that’s not how it is with these characters. And then he laughed and said “Plus, I’d have to draw all those people on a train – that would take way too long!”

I thought Regé was going to show Jaime his tattoo but Ron said later he was too embarrassed for some reason. You know that little tattoo that Jaime has on his hand between thumb and forefinger? Well, Regé has the same tattoo – he’s had it since he was a teenager.

I dunno how to describe just standing around on the corner after dinner commiserating. I didn’t want to leave, so I kept bumming cigs off of Sammy to kill time. Jordan gave out copies of Uptight to those of us who didn’t have it yet. I insisted we get someone to take a picture of all of us together to prove that it actually happened. I promised Jaime I wouldn’t put it on the blog. He was like “No, it’s cool, put it online. This was fun.”

L.A. is such a nice city to drive a car in – mainly because everyone’s a good driver. So that made it easier to tool around looking for hardware stores & paint stores & art stores. Getting the gallery polished up and finding all the lumber and materials I needed for my show was tough. I’m used to East Coast shopping. Things are more neighborhoody. More chances for one stop shopping.

It took days to find sheets of Masonite. Days to find a halfway decent art store. So I was glad I did come a week early. Me and Sebastian de-installed the Nazi Knife show (guys – don’t use such heavy duty double stick tape to hang your drawings!) and then painted & patched the walls. Sebastian painted the floor while I cut Masonite sheets down to size. It was fun. And a lot of work – but mostly fun. I like working in galleries, working for galleries. Real deadline pressure. The show must go on!

And when the show finally did go on, when it finally opened, I was exhausted. I promised myself that I would stay fairly sober through it all – and did, thankfully. But somehow I can’t remember it all super clearly. One of those time compression/expansion things. Luckily Matt Seneca came to the show and was able to make a record of it. Check it out here. And Sebastian took some photos. Check them out here. Thank you, thank you. Like I said, I was exhausted and am glad you guys were able to capture a little bit of the spirit of the thing.

Forgive me, dear reader, for being proud. But I am. And forgive me if I’m boring you – but I’m not done. I gotta write about hanging out with Regé, Jordan, and Sammy. I felt so inspired after hanging with these guys that I gotta just put some of it down for posterity.

Ron Regé Jr is working on a massive new book. I saw him do five pages in the week I was there. He’s got this giant binder with reduced xeroxes of finished pages and tons of notes, sketches, and ideas written out for the pages he hasn’t done yet. But it’s all in order, so I could sort of read it – feel it – as a book. It’s in the style of his recent Cartoon Utopia minis – but for those he is usually cutting up a single page & placing one panel on each page – like 2 pages with 8 panels each becomes a 16 page mini-comic. So seeing the pages not cut up and sequenced together is quite an experience. His design sense is impeccable and the images are… Perfect. There’s never any white-out. “Yah, I don’t like using white-out”, sayeth Ron.

And for me, personally, the content that Ron is engaging in is, um, engaging to me. Call it new-agey, call it alchemic, call it whatever you want – but it is perfect for California. It felt very West Coast. Not marginal at all but broad in it’s appeal. It’s a natural extension of his earlier work, of Skibber Bee Bye, of figures wandering through a landscape. Now the landscape is more internal. And as if to just show me that he can do whatever he wants he pulls out a half finished story that is a breathtaking narrative – the kind of thing that I’m sure his fans want him to do. Ron’s range is truly incredible.

Regé can also intuit shapes & proportions without using a compass or really measuring. He makes “head arrangements” and just sees it all naturally. When I show him with some string the harmonic points he’s hitting on the page – we talk in musical terms. He talks about being an intuitive drummer and how he doesn’t read music but can figure it all out in his head quickly. I talk about how I don’t really hear music or understand music but how I understand harmony in color sequencing & proportion. “Yes! That’s how I feel with this”, and he points to a complex web of lines that creates a figure on his page. “I don’t want to measure it all out like I’m writing music. This is improvising. I’m improvising.”

Ron knows his proportions though – his “ear” for cadence and melody, if you will, are remarkable. Advanced. Ron just draws. He sits down and it just appears. He pencils some, but it’s the pen that’s doing all the work. It’s pretty “first take” – and it’s always a sure hand. Detailed AND consistent. No short cuts.

Being in his apartment I was struck by how prolific he has been. Regé doesn’t have many possessions. A lot of library books. A decent zine collection. Art supplies. But mostly it’s just a library of his own work. That’s all he has room for! It’s a reference library of various editions of his books. The French Skibber, the Spanish Skibber. Bottles of beer that are an issue of Yeast Hoist. (I actually got to meet Sam and Tim, the couple who make those beers) there are stacks and stacks of original art, sketchbooks, posters, prints. There’s a giant sharpie drawing that I was convinced was a small drawing blown up to poster size. But it was an original – an amazingly detailed drawing – a flyer for a music festival actually. Everywhere in the place are books he designed, did illos for, had comics in, whatever. It was such a strong voice. A real presence.

And Ron is just so amped up all the time that he made me feel like a lightweight. Like he’d go out to see bands three nights in a row, stay out all night AND draw a page a day! He doesn’t get rip-roaring drunk or anything at night – he just goes out and has social beers or whatever – but then he’s totally able to just draw all day when he wakes up. I felt bad for bummin’ around the house somedays with nowhere to go – but Ron was like “No, it’s cool, since you’ve been here it’s been good. Weird, but good, like I’m going out more and drawing more too.” he also said his landlord was gonna tear out the kitchen soon & he was trying to get the the most out of his time at his own desk. “Maybe I’ll go to Joshua Tree. I can get a lot of work done there”. Then he told me about drawing Skibber on an almond farm.

I’ve known Jordan Crane for years but this was the most I’d ever hung out with him. He lives close to Ron and came over a couple different nights to hang out. He smokes an electric cigarette. A custom made electric cigarette. Inside. Me and Ron would have to go out outside on the porch to smoke our real cigarettes. Not Jordan.

He gave me the new issue of Uptight – #4 – the one with the yellow orange cover. So nice. I liked reading the next chapters like it was a serial – which I guess it is. I felt like I vaguely knew what was going to happen. A character reveal. Very Jaime. And I mean that in the most sincere way. I like it. A lot. I remember thinking that with the last issue of Uptight. Very Jaime. Very Californian. It’s the pace of life out there. I can feel it. Californian authors pace things differently than Midwest or East Coast authors. I think so anyways. Think about it – comics were mostly an East Coast thing in the early days – a hyped up super fast slapstick action pace. West Coast artists like Jaime slow down the pace. I dunno. That’s what I think. It’s the way life unfolds in Los Angeles. A slow steady pace. Rolling. And I think that’s rubbed off a bit on folks like Jordan and Sammy. I feel it in their stories. It’s powerful. Or maybe it’s just in the water or it’s just California because I feel it in Regé and Johnny Ryan too. I dunno. Forgive me. I like keeping score. You don’t have to. Sorry.

Anyways, Jordan is a great talker & he explained how he customized his electric cigarette. And about color and printing ink and printers. The usual sports talk for comics folks. (Sasha said she went out to dinner with a bunch of cartoonists recently and it was just like listening to jocks talk about sports! Haha!)

Jordan is psyching himself up to draw a short story in a month so he was talking strategy. Maybe he could teach his kids how to color on Photoshop & they could help him with his deadline. Something like that. Child Labor. I think he was serious!

I hung out with Sammy the first day I arrived from New Mexico. We went to breakfast at like a movie star type French bistro. That was fun. I told him how much I liked his new comic – Crickets #3. He showed me his sketchbook and how he was composing scenes. They weren’t fixed – just sequences across the page in a loose web. He said something about if a scene needs breathing room don’t limit it’s page count. Time expansion. Less about fixed rhythms & more about playing by ear. Sort of like an additive process – playing off emotional changes – cramming moments together and then letting them breathe and spread out.

See, that’s what Jaime said. He said that whole thing about cramming an extra panel in when you need it and how you can’t plan for that. If the scene needs it, it needs it. I’m not saying that is a specific Californian problem or style – but it is a way of phrasing that seems more relaxed to allow for divergences within the narrative because of the pacing and because of the unity of the design. The unity of design of the characters I mean – and of the setting – and so the narrative just unfolds. Character driven.

Me and Sammy went up to Griffith Park, up to the Rebel Without a Cause Observatory to look out over the city and smoke cigarettes. L.A. is kind of magical. It’s like Heaven. Or Hell. Your choice. I had been so lonely out in the desert of New Mexico that I tagged along with Sammy while he went on his errands. We went to one of those movie poster stores on Hollywood Blvd. He bought a couple film stills for references. Then we went to the Family Store. Then I sat in the barber shop while he got a trim. Then to the butcher shop. I was stalling him as long as I could. Then his wife called and he had to go home for dinner. So I drove back to Echo Park. Me and Ron hit the taco truck. Heaven.

next week: walking around Santa Monica pier with John Pham and Jon Vermilyea!

“Here for your consideration is the six page story, ‘Follow the Bouncing Ball’ from Archie Comics #126, with a publication date of March 1962. Produced by the peerless penciller, Harry Lucey, this story appeared on the stands five or six months before Amazing Fantasy #15 (AF15 had a cover date of August, but states September 1962 in the indicia).

“This story involves the accidental introduction of radioactivity into a high schooler’s life, with supernatural results. Not only that, but the throwaway gag panel that concludes the story introduces the concept of the so-gained supernatural power interfering with the teen’s normal romantic life, which is a central theme to Spider-Man, and critical to the long lasting success of the character. And then there’s the use of the word ‘tingling’ which came to be associated with Spider-Man’s ‘spidey-sense.’ It kinda of makes you wonder…

“Zeitgeist? Coincidence? Or, perhaps, this story was read by Stan and/or Steve during a lunchbreak, leading to the conscious or unconscious sparking of an idea. The timing is just right. We’ll never know, of course, but it’s something to ponder. Now’s your chance to read it for yourself, and see what you think.”

I’ve been here 3 nights so far and Ron has been kind to host. He lives in a second story apartment in one of those pre-war white adobe corner jobs. There’s four units and it feels quite comfortable if you know and like your neighbors – and Ron does. He said it’s like Three’s Company. The other day people just started stopping by. “This never happens,” Ron said. One after another long lost friends were appearing in the little apartment. Just as one would leave another would drop by. It was like a rolling party. It never stopped for two whole days. The second day was even funnier because a photo shoot was happening next door. So there was a make-up trailer parked outside with loads of pretty girls parading up and down the stairs. Unfortunately, I had slept through most of it – exhausted from the earlier parade.

I rummaged through Ron’s zine collection. I found a few CF zines, a Rozz Toxx manifesto, some Kaz Strepak zines, and Ron’s Cambridge Massachusettes city sponsered teen anti-drinking scratch-off postcard.