Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

The comic book industry is a very small community.

Everyone who works in it seems to know pretty much everyone else. But, because it's so compact, your reputation becomes very important. It's far too easy for a few people to effectively 'blacklist' someone they don't like for whatever reason. As such, it seems that comic book professionals are all very careful not to piss off certain people. Particularly in a bad economy and a shrinking industry, to do so could effectively end your current income and make sure you never get any in the future.

It's a difficult thing for those of us on the outside to comprehend. I guess we all grow up thinking that comic book publishers are all like Keebler Elf cookie companies and everything is happy and warm and people hug kittens and ride unicorns all day long. It's sad when you realize that the people who publish books featuring superheroes who fight injustice and stand up for the little guy don't always follow the same principles.

Valerie D'Orazio, who has blogged about her own struggles against sexual harassment during her time at DC Comics in her excellent blog, Occasional Superheroine, is a very brave person. She didn't set out blogging about her ordeal to be brave or to lead a crusade. Her speaking out came from a need to tell her story and hopefully save others from the same pain she suffered. Since then, she has become a spokesperson for women's rights in comics and, I am sure, a MAJOR pain in the ass to those who have reason to fear her posts.

And yet, still, she cannot tell her whole story because of:

A) Fear of reprisal against herself personally and/or professionally.
B) The difficulty in finding a publisher willing to publish such an uncensored story.
C) The fact that most major comic media news outlets would never announce, promote or even mention it.

That saddens me not because I want to read gossip about industry professionals but because such behavoir shouldn't exist today. And the only way to stop it from happening is to talk about it and bring it into the open.

I don't know anyone in the comic business. I am not going to get the call to write the next Batman mega-event or the newest Avengers incarnation. I only have one personal story to share which I'll do in my next post and, even still, it's not going to rip any tears in the fabric of the blogosphere. It will not, to use an infamous quote, "split the internet in two."

But I believe what Val has written and, worse still, I believe that such things still go on and are kept quiet by the companies and the workers themselves. Why do I believe this?

Because I've seen some myself.

I've worked in the private financial industry for nearly 20 years now and have worked for men who, though not practising sexual abuse, employed a great deal of emotional abuse. Men who thought it was perfectly acceptable to scream at their employees, call them all kinds of stupid, and even one who liked to know how much it took to make his female employees cry. But we all took it, men and women, because we considered it a cost of working at those places and we needed the money. If someone was getting it in a meeting or on the floor, we gave a sigh of relief because it wasn't us. When it was us, we'd grit our teeth and accept that it was our time on the block. But we shouldn't have taken it because it shouldn't have happened.

I'd like to believe that such things don't happen at comic book companies. I'd like to believe that the people running it are as honorable as Jack Kirby. But I can't. Because those companies are run by people and people aren't superheroes. They're flawed human beings, just like the rest of us. But the rest of us aren't publishing stories about superheroes fighting for "truth, justice and the American Way."

When did I get so old?

I've been going to comic conventions since about the mid 1970s so that means I'm old.

Even though some of them weren't the best run events in the world, I always looked forward to them with that little twinge of fan-boy glee that we all know. The mere thought of going to a place where there were dealers wall to wall with great comics and artists and writers and creators on panels and movies and parties and COMICS, COMICS, COMICS! made me weak in the knees.

But things changed somewhere and I'm not sure if it's me or the events that are different.

Evan Dorkin posted a blistering attack on the Big Apple NATIONAL show which recently went down in NYC. You can read it in all it's glory here: http://evandorkin.livejournal.com/176123.html and it made me really glad that I didn't make the four hour train ride from RI to go to that show. Just the thought of it makes me quake with fear.

Strange then that two other people whose opinions I also trust had VASTLY different experiences. Valerie D'Orazio (of Occasional Superheroine blog) actually blasted Dorkin in her blog here: http://occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/2008/11/stop-bashing-older-fanboys.html. While Mark Evanier seems to have had a nice time but doesn't say much beyond this very diplomatic posting here: http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2008_11_16.html. This leads me to the belief that conventions are all subjective. Some will love the show that you hate and maybe even for the same reasons you hated them.

Which brings me to my most recent convention experience.

This past weekend, I trudged up to Framingham, MA, along with the long-suffering wife to attend SUPERMEGAFEST (see flyer to the left). I've been to this show several times in the past but my enjoyment has dwindled in recent years. But I still remember the joy of getting to meet legendary artist STERANKO and talking to him about magic and his great HISTORY OF COMICS a few years back. Since then, the personality of this show has changed quite a bit. Comics have become a VERY small part of this show and pop culture seems to have taken it over. By pop culture I mean old celebrities from really old shows or movies and half-naked women that I've never heard of. I have nothing against half-naked women but the long-suffering wife doesn't particularly appreciate them. I'm kind of numb to the whole thing by now after living through about ten years of CHILLER THEATRE conventions. Sad that I've come to the day where half-naked women no longer get much of a response from me.

Anyway, I didn't have a particularly great time at this show but, I have to say, I think it was all me this time. I wanted to see several guests this time. Peter Tork was only my third fave Monkee but he was a Monkee nonetheless. I also wanted to see Leslie Nielsen who I think is one of the greatest unintentional straight-men ever to appear in movies. There were a couple other ones I wanted to see but, once I got there and actually SAW them, my desire fled from me like the clothes from all the half-naked women.

Peter Tork has gotten really old and, strangely, I'm a little angry at him for that! How dare he age like normal people? Don't they know that they are supposed to stay the same age forever? In fairness, he seemed very nice and was very friendly and appreciative towards his fans. But I didn't get an autograph. That still wasn't MY Peter Tork and all it did was remind me how old I had gotten.

Leslie Nielsen, on the other hand, looked GREAT for his age! I was really thinking of getting his autograph until I saw the stand on his table. $30 for an autograph. $60 for a signed movie poster (provided by him at least) and $30 for him to sign an item provided by you. I know that's probably not much these days but that was more than I wanted to spend for such an item.

Then don't get me started on how bad Richard Kiel looks or how sad I felt for him trying to maneuver his scooter into the only men's room available which was NOT handicap accessible.

The comic guest I wanted to see never showed up. And I didn't see Jonathan Frakes or Linda Blair there.

There were very few comic dealers there. I think that there were maybe four over all. Of these, only one had anything that appealed to me and, of course, they were all out of my price range. There was a dealer with a TON of old monster and b/w comic mags but, unfortunately, this was the dealer who WROTE the price guide for such publications so they were priced accordingly. I'm looking for the one shot CREEPY #144 which was published several years after the title was cancelled. He had it... for $75! Another issue I want is VAMPIRELLA #100... which he had... for $65! Notice a trend here? I picked up some $5 cheapy issues from him but that was the only thing I bought.

Every toy or figure I looked at was either over-priced or met with the thought, "what am I gonna do with that?" Not like I don't already have a ton of these things sitting in a storage unit already.

The panels they offered just didn't interest me. I wasn't particularly curious about the career of George "the Animal" Steele anymore. I might have been about 10 years ago but I lost interest in wrestling a while ago. And, let's face it, the guy who played the Silver Surfer and Abe Sapien isn't really A-list material. Give me Jessica Alba or Ron Perlman and we'll talk.

I was left with an overall feeling of 'eh'. I didn't find anything that was a great deal nor did I see anything that I just couldn't live without. I could have spend all my savings on old comics (probably would have only been able to get about 5 of them before the savings went dry) but the long-suffering one wouldn't have been very happy and would have continued to suffer.

Which makes me think I'm getting too old for this s**t. I no longer looked at the dealer's room as a treasure room waiting to be looted. The guests were no longer people I was dying to meet and the panels were about as interesting to me as deciding which skin softener to use on my feet. I resented all the people bumping into me or cutting in front of me or just standing in the middle of the freaking aisle because, after all, nothing is more important than them doing their impersonation of a freaking stone wall while debating how good Mary Ann looks after all these years! I really wanted to have the superpower of being able to push these numbnuts out of the way with total impunity. People in costumes no longer solicited awes of amazement from me but generally sighs of "could you please not hit me in the face with your blaster pack?"

Maybe I am too old. Maybe my time for such things has passed. Lots of other people at the show seemed to be having a great time. Maybe I've just gotten to the point where I no longer can justify spending lots of money on toys and comics anymore. Not with the economy failing and my potential retirement being about as rock solid as raspberry jello.

Maybe I'm growing up.

Wicked Dreams

I'm in a bad mood today.

It's just been one of those days were everything has been off kilter and piling on new levels of crankiness. Being at work just adds a whole new dimension to it. For those of you who don't know, I'm an accountant at a small private school which, when all is said and done, is a job that should only be held by those cranky goblins from the Harry Potter movies.

Which reminds me that this is not the job I'd like to be doing and certainly not the job I thought I'd be doing 20 years ago. All of which leads me to think about dreams and how they can really screw you up.

A few days ago, Valerie D'Orazio posted a message in her always excellent blog, Occasional Superheroine, which was basically a response to some messages artist Colleen Doran posted in her blog about a particularly odious fellow who'd been stalking her and her family for quite a few years. Val's post didn't excuse the guy's bad behavior but gave some more details about who he was and what his life was like. Apparently he's a guy who's been hanging on the fringe of the comic business for a lotta years, hoping for his big break and dreaming of making it in comics.

And that made me think.

I certainly don't condone his stalking and consider it inexcusable but there was something in Val's description that hit a bell with me. So I started to wonder. How many people are out there, yearning for a career in comics and making that basically the entire focus of their lives? These are people who forgo opportunities in life because they might interfere with that possible comic career. They hang onto the outskirts of the industry, trying desperately to break in but forever hopeful because comics is their "first, best destiny". Such people pass up chances for life, love and happiness because that's not what they were born to do. They were put on this earth to make comics, if only someone would give them the chance to do so.

These are the types of people (generally male) who end up alone in apartments full of their collections that are often fire hazards but which they cannot part with. In many cases, these people are getting older now and that comic career hasn't happened and probably will NEVER happen. How many people break into comics when they're middle-aged? It's a youth market, now more than ever. To be older than 30 in comics is to have that black crystal from LOGAN'S RUN blinking in your palm. But they hold onto the dream. Partly because they've invested too much in it already to back off but also because they're afraid of what it would mean to abandon that dream.

For the most part, these will be people who will end up being unemployable except in the most limited sense because they didn't get the skills or training or a diploma to do anything other than working in comics. They have little to no savings. Health insurance will be virtually nonexistent.

We have, in effect, created a new sociological group: The Forgotten Comicists. It's one that never existed before but their numbers have been growing since about the mid 1970's. Before that time, we didn't have the hundreds of people who grew up wanting only to make comics and, if they couldn't do that then they wouldn't do anything. Back in the 1950's and 60's, if you wanted to do that and couldn't (for whatever reason), you went and did something else because you still had to feed and clothe yourself. Not today. We are now seeing an alarming amount of people who refuse to do anything else because this is their dream and who are we to tell them that they can't live their dream? Soon, I expect the American Psychiatric Association to declare this a legitimate mental disorder.

Funny thing is that this isn't all that unusual for creative people and their obsessions. How many times do we hear of actors and actresses who keep trying to land that elusive part that will make their career while they're waiting tables or parking cars? Or that painter who does his 'real' work at night in his studio waiting for that downtown gallery to realize he's a genius and give him that one-man show he deserves? Or the writer chipping away at that Great American Novel because that's his purpose in life even though no one wants to read it?

Truth is that it's not as easy to be a creative person in this world anymore and JUST be creative. There are no more patrons and grants are drying up faster than an ice cold Pepsi in the Sahara. And here's the really hard, painful truth for all of us... there isn't much need for so many creative people. There will always be really successful creative people at the top end. Those actors/writers/painters who make lots of money and live the life. But most of us are going to end up in that middle ground. The one filled with people who might be really good, but just aren't good enough. The place where no matter how hard you work or how many networking connections you make, that role, that gallery show, that book tour, that big time comic assignment, isn't going to happen.

Maturity, I think, lies in the ability to reach that point of understanding. To objectively look at your work and determine if it should remain the sole focus of your life. No one is saying you should abandon it completely; just the dream of that being your livelihood.

Americans love to say, "Never give up on your dreams." Funny, it's always the ones who succeed that say that. It's not the ones who have failed for the umpteenth time and they don't have the money for rent and the car needs repairs and there's no food in the house. The universe only needs and creates so many Walt Disneys or Henry Fords or even Stan Lees. Most of us will end up being Vince Colletta or, even worse, Ed Wood Jr.

We come to comics or acting or dance or music or writing or art because we love it, because it inspires us to be creative. But, in the end, only so many will go to the show. The rest of us will play out our days in the farm teams of A, AA or (if we're very good) AAA ball. And we'll be let go to try and make our ways the best we can because there's a shiny new crop of youngsters coming off the bus all the time, endlessly feeding the machine.

"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, The Fool."
"Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." T.S. Eliot

Sorry I wasn't more entertaining today. I'll try better tomorrow.