And suddenly I had an insight that stopped me where I stood, one foot on one step and one on the step below. The content was not terribly profound. The intensity with which I felt it is a little hard to convey. But I was suddenly aware of the psychological mechanism by which a writer or an actor or a performer becomes addicted to this kind of public feedback. Such public attention is terribly pleasurable. The pleasure lasts for a few days, or even weeks. And under the pressure of such pleasure, even the most dedicated and conscientious artist can have his or her mind move into the configuration \u2014 without even realizing it \u2014 that connects writing (or anything else) in his or her mind with this kind of pleasure. And that\u2019s a very different kind of pleasure from that which you get in front of the page when you put words on it to organize an intense picture of the universe around you and a self within it, from which, for moments here and there, if you\u2019re doing it right, you can vanish as a pained personality into some universal cascade of order and accuracy. That pleasure you turn to the page again and again for, hoping to find it \u2014 and sometimes you do. But it is a rational pleasure, finally. This publicly mediated pleasure, however, you can become truly addicted to: It would be very easy to get yourself in a mental state where you honestly felt you couldn\u2019t write without it. In fact, what I realized is that if you don\u2019t put some conscious energy into fighting it \u2014 because finally, in psychological terms, it\u2019s just a matter of following the path of least resistance \u2014 you will become addicted to it.<\/p>\n
So many writers, on whatever level, already have. How many writers have I talked to over the years who\u2019ve told me: \u201cI can\u2019t work without a contract\u201d? Most of them are particularly high production writers, too: Brunner, Moorcock, Malzberg come to mind. I could probably name more if I thought about it. But this is just the poor man\u2019s version of this addiction. They truly need that \u201cshot\u201d that comes from getting an idea, and having some editor say: \u201cHey, that\u2019s a great one! I\u2019ll buy it from you! Here\u2019s a contract and a check! Go home and write it!\u201d In fact, one of the weirdest things in the world to me has always been to sit around in some professional party and listen to these guys talk seriously and intently about how much this editor or that editor is crazy about some book or other \u2014 of which not a page has actually yet been written!<\/p>\n
By the same token, editors learn very quickly that they have to supply this sort of enthusiasm. Lou Aronica, for example, if you went by what he says at lunch, is just as enthusiastic over the unwritten Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities as he is over Stars in My Pocket,which he\u2019s actually read three times now! It makes you kind of wonder.<\/p>\n
But how often does a Malzberg or a Brunner or a Moorcock get a Sunday Times review? Once, twice, three times out of a lifetime production of 50 or 150 books or so. It\u2019s not much. And so they become hooked on the editorial substitute. In a way, I\u2019m lucky that I\u2019ve had as much of the strong stuff as I have, if only to see how it works.<\/p>\n
And the other source of feedback is, of course, the conventions. In a sense, the conventions are a lot more realistic: For one thing, there the feedback is for work written and published, not an editorial substitute for an addictive craving. And it\u2019s not the inflated sort that comes with mechanical reproduction, i.e., knowing that a few hundred thousand readers, who, indeed, haven\u2019t read your book, are sharing in the praise being heaped on you by the reviewer. The only place where, you realize, there is still a lot of room for misconstruing what is going on around you is an incident of the sort that happened to me at least once at last weekend\u2019s convention: I had been chairing a panel on Visual Interpretation and the Written Word.The participants were (from right to left) Howard Chaykin, Kelly Freas, me in the middle, Walt Simonson, Harlan Ellison, and Richard (The Shattered Stars) McEnroe.<\/p>\n
Richard was filling in for Alfred Bester, who hadn\u2019t shown up. He\u2019s young (29?), stocky, serious, and I don\u2019t think he\u2019s done very much of this sort of thing before. The rest of us are all old convention panel hacks, and Harlan is irrepressible and brilliant, and can make just about any audience glitter. And Howie is almost as good. Now we\u2019re all smart. All of as have things to say on just about any topic. Really, our only difference is how much experience we\u2019ve had with (and our personal style in) saying them. I felt the topic itself was a loser. But somehow everyone rose to the occasion, and the whole thing \u2014 as a performance \u2014 was among the better such I\u2019ve been on . . . not a little because, as moderator, I\u2019d done about fifteen minutes\u2019 thinking before it got started, kept notes while it went along, and I simply wouldn\u2019t let it die.<\/p>\n
At any rate, afterwards, while Harlan fled somewhere else as fast as he could run, and the various other panel members dispersed (as friendly as we all are on the dais, a kind of immediate exhaustion sets in the moment the terminal applause is over, and rarely do even good friends speak to each other afterwards, as this one heads off to the bar, or another is beset by a dozen kids wanting autographs, or that one hurries off to take part in another program starting five minutes later, or this one wanders away toward the hucksters\u2019 room, just to walk around in circles for fifteen minutes, to give himself or herself a chance to come down from the buzz of attention, applause, and even that much thinking and feeling in public, if it\u2019s been a Good Show), as I was leaving the curtained-off area of Exhibition B (where we\u2019d been exhibited), some guy about 25, blond, and wearing some light beige sports jacket, stopped me to say: \u201cYou know, Mr. Delany, I really enjoyed that panel. I thought you did a very good job moderating, and you really had a couple of very intelligent things to say yourself that I\u2019d never thought about before. Tell me, what do you do? Do you ever write anything? Or do you just go around to the conventions and moderate these panels?\u201d Clearly he only knew my name from the panel itself and, presumably, the \u201cpocket program\u201d where it was listed among those of the other participants.<\/p>\n
The feeling was moderately like being kicked in the nuts. I don\u2019t think my public smile wavered, and I probably said something like,\u201cYes, I write science fiction. Thank you for the comment. It was nice of you to take the time to tell me you enjoyed it.\u201d (That\u2019s my standard response to post-panel praise.) \u201cYou\u2019ll have to excuse me, though. I have to get upstairs to another program . . .?\u201d<\/p>\n
And smiled.<\/p>\n
And left.<\/p>\n
But one really negotiates these entire affairs with the feeling that one is a known \u2014 even a well-known \u2014 personage. And somehow, all compliments, even all attention, are saturated with the fact (at least in your own head) that you are somehow being paid back, socially, for having sweated your ass off for 23 years, making, as best you can, in isolation, fine books; so that to receive a perfectly honest and sincere compliment for something perfectly real that you just actually did, followed by your praiser going on to say, in effect, \u201cAnd what\u2019s more, I don\u2019t know you from Adam,\u201d somehow leeches the entire narcotic charge; and your gut reaction, no matter how well you maintain your cool, is pretty much the same as an addict\u2019s, who just pushed the plunger on the hypodermic, only to realize ten seconds later that what he\u2019d thought was heroin was only a glassine envelope full of milk sugar.<\/p>\n
Burned again.<\/p>\n
And it is precisely that aspect of it that, I feel, is ultimately unhealthy \u2014 for me, as a writer.<\/p>\n
The young man putting on this convention was John Estrin. Six years ago, he was a nineteen-year-old fan running the New York \u201cEmpiricons\u201d that were sponsored by Columbia University\u2019s fan group. Today he\u2019s a 25-year-old junior executive at some public relations firm, which was the sponsor for this particular convention. Last summer, John ran \u201cEmpiricon\u201d down at the Milford Plaza, on 8th Avenue (where I chaired at least one panel); and simultaneously there was the Forbidden Planet comics\/SF con, where I interviewed Van Vogt and did a couple of programs as well.<\/p>\n
A few months back I did a convention called \u201cI-con\u201d out on Long Island, at Stony Brook, where I moderated still another panel, also with Harlan Ellison. Harlan is certainly one of the SF community\u2019s best public performers. And though, here and there, I have some minor disagreements with him, I deeply respect the man. Also, I\u2019m just personally very fond of him. Harlan, on a panel, does require a bit of moderating. When you\u2019re dancing that fast and furiously, it helps to have somebody who\u2019ll remind you where the edge of the stage is, so that you don\u2019t fall off into the lap of someone in the front row.<\/p>\n
On that same panel, I had one complete public-presentation disaster case, Raymond Z. Gallun, who is in his late seventies or early eighties, is a terribly nice old man, but tends to mumble on unstoppably, for 40 minutes if you\u2019ll let him, about, \u201cHow I wrote this, in 1933. And how I wrote that, in 1934. And how I wrote the other, in 1935.\u201d Nor does it matter, particularly, what question you\u2019ve happened to put to him. The answer is the same monologue. (I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen the odd aging professor caught up in the same syndrome.) Well, Ray needs another kind of guidance, i.e., every 20 minutes by the clock, you ask him a question to which some portion of his monologue is applicable, let him run on for 50 seconds by your watch (a minute thirty, if he\u2019s actually being coherent), at which point you cut him off at the next comma. (Don\u2019t try to wait for a full period. He doesn\u2019t use them. And even with the microphone, beyond the third row, no one can hear him anyway.)<\/p>\n
At any rate, Estrin was in the audience. And, as he called up to say, a few weeks later: \u201cI figured, Chip, if you could keep Ray from looking like a total fool, could keep things from turning into Harlan\u2019s one-man comedy show, and at the same time could keep the subject going and the energy up \u2014 well, I figured you could moderate anything! Would you like to moderate a Sunday afternoon debate for us, between Stan Lee and Harlan?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
On the first day of the convention I arrived at twelve. Stan Lee was doing a solo bit at that time in the Sheraton Center\u2019s Imperial Ballroom, and though I\u2019d had a pleasant talk with him on the phone, long distance, while he was in L.A., about possible topics for the coming debate between him and Harlan, I\u2019d never met him in person, and I had no idea what kind of public self-presentation he had, though I\u2019d heard from a few people that he was very good at it, spent a lot of time going around to colleges and speaking in public, and \u2014 from what he said on the phone \u2014 he was willing to field just about any kind of question.<\/p>\n
The program was late getting started, so I walked into the vast Hucksters\u2019 Room \u2014 acres of comic books, many less SF novels, and various SF-related toys and gizmos \u2014 which was kind of the social center of the convention. Saw Barry Malzberg for a few minutes. Then,I practically tripped over Ike (Asimov), with his fly-away muttonchops and western string-tie, the actual Guest of Honor, and we stood around and made \u201cgreat-to-see-you\u201d noises, while fans came up and thrust books between us for him, for me, to sign.<\/p>\n
A moment later Harlan came up to me. \u201cHey, Chip,\u201d he said. \u201cYou were supposed to call me, about this debate. Everybody said: \u2018Chip\u2019s going to call you!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
So I cupped my hands to my mouth and called: \u201cHarlan . . .!\u201d<\/p>\n
That got him to laugh. There was some odd encounter with a young, black fan whom Harlan managed to mistake for Marvel\u2019s single black comic artist. \u201cI know, I know,\u201d said Harlan with his hand over his face in mock embarrassment, \u201call you black guys look alike.\u201d People began to thrust books between us. Harlan said: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but we are in the midst of a conversation, now.\u201d Fans scurried away. And I took a couple of notes in my omniscient notebook (The Notebook That Knows More Than I) on the proposed debate. Then Harlan went off to hug a bunch of young women who seemed to be waiting for him, all in matching beige T-shirts.<\/p>\n
When the Stan Lee program was announced over the loudspeaker, I escalatored upstairs again to the Imperial. The organizers were hanging about, clearly worried because only about 500 people had come upstairs for Stan\u2019s \u201ctalk,\u201d when they had been expecting a turn-out of close to a thousand. (There must have been another clear thousand down in the hucksters\u2019 area. But inertia seemed to be keeping them below,and they weren\u2019t surging up for the second floor programs as expected.) On my way in, I passed a tall, slender late-middle-aged man who, later, I realized was Stan (I\u2019d never actually seen him before), lingering outside with a couple of people I recognized as among the con organizers. Back-reading a little, I\u2019m pretty sure what they were talking about was some version of the following: Stan was politely suggesting that they let him go on now, since this was the time they\u2019d announced him for; and they were saying, well, gee, no, maybe if they waited another ten minutes, another fifty or a hundred people might wander in.<\/p>\n
I took a seat toward the back, and, indeed, in another ten minutes (after a wholly inept young man took the mike and tried, nervously, to keep the audience entertained and expectant, while they waited), Mr. Lee loped onto the stage, took the microphone, and began to present himself in a most personable and relaxed manner. Clearly what he was there for was to plug \u201cMarvel Productions,\u201d of which he is now the \u201cCreative Vice President,\u201d out on the coast. And with a host of funny stories and the dropped names of movie stars and comic book characters, that\u2019s what he did. He was clearly as self-confident as Harlan. Very entertaining. And he obviously knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n
No, I didn\u2019t think there would be any problems with him and Harlan the next day.<\/p>\n
I stayed for about 25 minutes of it.<\/p>\n
Then, suddenly, I was hit by an overwhelming desire to be out of there. No fear or anxiety, mind you. Just a kind of: \u201cWhat am I listening to this idiocy for . . .? I want a drink and some lunch!\u201dWhat I\u2019d come to see Stan for was to find out how well he did what he did, how comfortable he was doing it, what his style was, so that I would know how to integrate it with Harlan\u2019s. I hadn\u2019t come to learn anything having to do with the content of what he might have to say. And, really, after ten minutes I had what I needed. So fifteen minutes after that, I left in the middle, quit the hotel, wandered down and across town to 46th Street and Eighth Avenue, and went into Joe Allen\u2019s, where I had a Tequila-Wallbanger and some saut\u00e9ed chicken with capers, while I worked diligently in my notebook on the long prologue of Splendor and Misery.<\/p>\n
Spilled some chocolate syrup from desert (a hot fudge eclair, filled with ice-cream) on my white shirt \u2014 which, as I quipped to the actor-cum-waiter who brought me some club soda to scrub it out \u2014 \u201cThis only happens when you have to perform in front of 300 people in an hour.\u201d Then I wandered back to the Sheraton, in time for my four o\u2019clock panel: the one I told you about, with McInroe, Harlan, Chaykin, Freas, and Simonson. And went home.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Sunday, the second day of the convention, I woke up with knotted guts and watery shit. Somehow I\u2019d come down with stomach flu. And there was yet another infirmity, which had plagued me the day before and was to produce unexpected agonies all that day as well \u2014though, frankly, I\u2019m almost embarrassed to mention it. Nevertheless: I\u2019d had a hangnail on my right forefinger the previous day (fortunately I\u2019m left-handed); while trying to bite it off, I\u2019d pulled a sliver of nail loose from the quick. It had bled. It was now swollen and under the tiniest of scabs. And anything that touched it, from another finger to a piece of paper, to a comic book picked up at the wrong angle, sent a shooting pain through my hand and into my forearm.You may assume that, on top of all else I say, such shooting pains indeed shot, quite at random, about every 20 minutes all through the weekend, whether I was wandering by myself in the hucksters\u2019 room, moderating a panel, signing a book, or talking to friend or fan. And I don\u2019t think I acknowledged it once.<\/p>\n
A hang-nail . . .?<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s the kind of pain, as we know, Real Men ignore (while not eating quiche) \u2014 especially if they have to run through another day of SF convention.<\/p>\n
Frank wasn\u2019t up, yet.<\/p>\n
I wondered out to the Associated Supermarket over on Columbus Avenue to pick up a bagel and some yogurt. While I was at the back of the check-out line, a vaguely familiar voice passing by behind me said: \u201cChip . . .?\u201d And I looked up to see a hefty, white-haired male in a pale blue shirt and silver sunglasses. How I recognized him, I\u2019ll never know, because he\u2019d lost at least 80 pounds since I\u2019d last seen him, and that had been in East Lansing, Michigan, three or so years back at a Clarion. \u201cA.-J. . . .?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. It\u2019s me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He smiled behind his shopping cart. (It was A.-J. Budrys!) \u201cHow\u2019re you doing, Chip?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFine!\u201d I said, grinning in spite of my stomach; and my hand \u2014 which touched something just then. \u201cWhat on earth are you doing here? Are you here for the convention? That\u2019s where I\u2019m going, as soon as I go home and eat a bagel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNope,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know there was a convention in New York this weekend. I\u2019m visiting my mother. I\u2019m just doing some shopping for her \u2014 she lives right around the corner from you,\u201d which, by now, I\u2019d actually remembered his telling me once, years ago. At onetime, this area of New York was a Ukrainian\/Lithuanian neighborhood; there\u2019s an old Ukrainian Church, a few buildings away from me on 82nd Street that I\u2019d just walked past this morning on my way to the store. A.-J., who\u2019s Lithuanian by nationality, had grown up here \u2014 though he\u2019d lived in Chicago most of his adult life. \u201cI\u2019m leaving this evening,\u201d he told me, \u201cto go and see my wife\u2019s family in Connecticut. So I won\u2019t have time to drop down there.\u201d<\/p>\n
We enthused a bit more about the chances of just running into each other in the supermarket like this, hundreds of miles away from our last meeting, or indeed, any other of our ten or so meetings in the last twenty years. Then I walked out onto sunny Sunday Columbus Avenue.<\/p>\n
I almost lost my very light breakfast three times on the way to the con.<\/p>\n
Just before my first panel, I sat around in the art show area with Bob
Whitticker and Jonni Seri, two of the more civilized long-time fans, who seem to have been on the verge of getting married now for going on six years. Jonni gave me a back rub, which I truly appreciated. Between two panels, I had lunch with Denny O\u2019Neil (across from the hotel at the Stage Deli, of all places) and his girlfriend whom I hadn\u2019t met before, a red-headed dance therapist named Maggie. At the same lunch I learned that Larry O\u2019Neil, Denny\u2019s son by Anne, whom I remember as a perpetual six-year-old on East Sixth Street, was now eighteen, a senior at the High School of Music and Art, was still a vegetarian (twelve years ago I\u2019d just assumed it was a passing phase), and was apparently determined to become a comic book artist, somewhat to his father\u2019s chagrin!<\/p>\n
Then we went up to the con\u2019s hospitality suite, where the pros could, presumably, escape the fans. The clutch of rooms was dominated by Marvel Comics\u2019 resident \u201cSpider-Man,\u201d a very nice, 26-year-old actor-cum-body-builder, a Peter Parker look-alike whom Marvel retain sat such functions to zip around in blue long-johns with a redhead-mask over his face, throwing nets and climbing things. He\u2019s really quite bright, knows the character well, and sometimes even leads tours through the Marvel offices, here in the city. He\u2019s personable, and good at answering questions. Most of the afternoon, however, he was bouncing about the Sheraton\u2019s pale egg-shell 29th-floor suite, three-quarters naked (between costumes), combing his hair a lot, while his petite blonde girlfriend in designer jeans hung on his impressive biceps, and generally being friendly and decorative.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t remember his name.<\/p>\n
Denny, Maggie, and I were talking in the corner. I sipped a bit of ginger ale to settle my still-queasy stomach and ate a totally uncalled for chocolate cookie. Ray Gallun sat down to join us \u2014 and created that crashing lull that sometimes happens among even the most lively and witty conversationalists when someone interrupts the flow of repartee with an intensely mumbled account of something terribly important that occurred in (as best I could make out) 1932.<\/p>\n
Quarter to five, and I took off downstairs for the Georgian Ballroom, with Ray still tagging along. In the ballroom (Imperial: read \u201cmodern.\u201d Georgian: very \u201ctraditional,\u201d with red drapes along the walls, much copper, hanging \u201ccrystal,\u201d and gold) there were about 800 kids and lots of confusion. George (Mr. Sulu) Takei was just finishing up his program, plugging Star Trek III. (I\u2019d ridden out with him to I-con a couple of months back. He\u2019s a truly nice guy and as big-hearted as they come, if just a bit hyper in a perfectly understandable, actorly sort of way.) Harlan was swamped with fans at the front. No one quite knew where Stan was.<\/p>\n
No one was announcing anything, so I went up on the stage, took up the microphone, and, well, created order.<\/p>\n
Stan was just waiting out of sight, of course, for something to happen. There he came, loping up.<\/p>\n
There was Harlan.<\/p>\n
And we launched in.<\/p>\n
I introduced them with cute anecdotes, to loud cheers. And we were off and flying. Both were in fine form. About a third of it was serious (a debate about gun advertising in comic books, which really got the audience hopping) and about two-thirds of it was tap-dancing (what\u2019s wrong with movies; are comic books good for you) \u2014 which, it was clear, was just about the proper proportions such an audience could handle. And when it was over, just to be different, I managed not to go running off, but broke through the ring of autograph seekers to say thanks to both of them, while the applause was still going on: Harlan was fighting his way downstairs to get to the limo that was to take him to the airport. Stan was signing veritable mountains of comic books but, over the hubbub, shouted me a smiling invitation to visit him, next time I was in L.A.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Conventions are a fixture of comic book culture (not to mention science fiction culture, and other related fandoms). Yet they rarely get analysed as an experience. What is the point of going to conventions? How do they reinforce a sense of sub-cultural identity? What do cartoonists and other artists get out of them? The \u201cDimension Convention\u201d that took place in New York in the summer of 1984 was an entirely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[542,1167,1222],"class_list":["post-665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-ellison","tag-delany","tag-stan-lee"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}