SOLD OUT Part 6 by John Hebert (the conclusion)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

'Twas the day before Hallowe'en '86, and I'd finally finished what was to be my first comic book art assignment and was on the way to deliver the pages to the printer. The girlfriend and I were in my trusty Camaro, speeding along the NY State Thruway toward the printer in Gloversville with the bundle o' funnybook art nestled in the back seat whilst bad 80's tunes (then again, was there any other kind of 80's tune?) blared from the in-dash Delco. It was pretty darned cold that afternoon, but I kept the heater off to keep me uncomfortable and maintain what little edge I had left as the last thing I needed was to fall asleep at the wheel - I'd been up so long that I was ready to drop and I still had miles to go before sleep.

We alternated between exhausted whimsy and dead silence as we drove on, the whole project had been electrifying yet draining and once we'd completed what we assumed to be the final stretch, we were eager for a return to normalcy, never guessing that all things normal were no longer an option in the life I'd chosen. We hopped off of the Thruway and hit the county roads, passing fields, barns, silos, livestock and some beautiful old farmhouses, the kind of which I had always held a grudging yen for, then, suddenly, it came to me - the entire area looked like the farm town in that awful "Halloween 3: Season Of The Witch" where they manufactured the possessed fright masks. Now maybe it was just a combination of exhaustion, the season and the late night cable reruns that had kept me company at my drawing board talking, but the fact that the town not only looked so similar and was virtually deserted gave me a major case of the creeps (much like many of the editors I would later work with!)

We plodded on, finally pulling up to the printing company - a very basic, nondescript brick and block building that also functioned as a newspaper office - the freelance printing had been a secondary income, utilizing and minimizing the down times between editions, but turning a nice and not-so-little profit for the company as I was later told. We were welcomed by the manager/editor/traffic manager who whisked us inside and gave us the tour of the place, as I'd earlier inferred, it WAS very basic, yet it was also quite impressive in the volume and quality of work produced there. Skulan really had found a true diamond in the rough for his printing needs. We laid out the pages on a composing table and went over everything, stressing certain things we needed and doing a couple of last, last minute corrections that even Tom and Raj hadn't caught and took in the almost erotic experience of viewing my...very...first...printed...COVER WORK. Since we'd missed the initial, scheduled print run, the company had run all of the covers to avoid idle presses and a few of them were sitting around on desks, in boxes and trashcans. To this day, I regret that I didn't grab some of the "rough cuts" that were gracing the previously mentioned wastepaper baskets as even flawed, those covers would have looked so cool pinned up all over the walls in my studio and rooms, but, c'est la vie. I wanted to eat and answer the more and more desperate call of Morpheus which I was finding more and more difficult to ignore.

We thanked the manager and left, stopping at a Burger King and filling up on cholesterol for the long drive home. As we ate, I stared across the road at what must have been the world's smallest Pontiac dealership - basically the size of a gas station, with only 4 or 5 new cars splayed about their meager lot. I respected the quaint, bygone era nature of the area, but decided then and there that "Mayberry" probably wasn't for me and that when the time came, I'd probably be NYC bound. The girlfriend and I talked about it as we jumped into the Camaro and headed back east, alternating between moments of giddiness at the prospects of being a real, honest-to-goodness working commercial artist, possibly living in the city, and then shifting back to melancholy at the less positive prospects it conjured.

The relationship had been increasingly more strained since I'd taken on the project, especially in the last couple of weeks when we'd bearded the dreaded deadline doom and now, for the first time, as I drove on I really began to wonder where we were going and if it might end up being "me" rather than "we". She had another year of school left to complete, we'd all heard the stories and seen the effects of separation on relationships. I know what I was running over and over during those awkward silent moments on the interstate that day, and I think she must've been thinking about the same thing- either that or she was just visualizing a cow and pig wearing ballroom attire and dancing to "Turkey in The Straw", it was so hard to read her.

We made it back to Albany, I said my goodbyes as I dropped her at her house, promising to call later on after some much needed shuteye and headed back toward Stately Hebert Manor with the window open and the stereo cranked to keep me awake and prevent me from thinking too much(it almost made me agree with a couple of Reagan's policies...for a minute) as dusk began to settle. 10 minutes after swinging into my driveway, I had the blinds drawn and was profoundly out cold, having left a wakeup call for 1988 and grinning at the possibilities my future might hold as I dropped off.

Then my Mom came home. I'd only been asleep for around a half hour when she knocked on my door and reminded me nicely, yet curtly, that I'd promised to pick up a pumpkin for the front porch. Damn! I'd been so wrapped up in "The Project" that I'd let the usual, banal everyday stuff like a simple pumpkin get away from me. "Okay", I muttered, let's go get one and dragged myself to my feet. Of course, by the time I'd gotten up, gotten dressed, slogged out to the car and made it to the "pumpkin store", they were: a. closing up and b. sold out(ironic) of the damned gourds anyway. I promised to pick one up at a farm store the next morning, then carve it and have the blasted thing lit just in time for the little vandals to wreck and headed for home and my bed once more.

I'd just dosed off when, off in a hazy distance, the phone rang and a unicorn delivered it to my door, announcing that it was Tom from Fantaco. He was very excited and explained that in the "lag time" we'd created by being late with the pages, the printing company had run every other assignment they'd had on "tap" just as they'd done the covers and now, with nothing else scheduled, they were actually going to print the entire run of "SOLD OUT!" #1 overnight, having it ready the very next morning. The girlfriend and I could drive back out to Gloversville the next morning, pick up a few cases of comics, drive back to Albany, and have them available for the inevitable influx of Friday afternoon customers. Wow! That'd be great...if I wasn't A. exhausted, B. pissed off at the world, and C. numb from the shoulders up. Somehow, though, I heard my self agreeing to do it, hanging up, then calling she-who-was not-to-be--ignored and telling her of the great adventure we had in store for us the next morning ( AFTER getting a pumpkin of course!), then I hung up and headed for my bed. Of course, I was now so overtired and yet wired that I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up and cleaned and organized my studio, finally sacking out at around midnight. I'd been up for something like 36 hours at this point and I had another long drive ahead of me.

At around 1 p.m. on Friday, October 31st, 1986, the girlfriend, several cases of my first published work, and a pumpkin, pulled up in front of FantaCo in that very same dark green Chevette that had been a part of the beginning of all of this fiendish plot, somehow coming full circle. We trotted into the store, announced our presence and the FantaCo crew surrounded us, cracking the cases open, diving into the books with joy, satisfaction and relief, just as I when I'd picked them up at the printing plant some 90 minutes before and when I'd stolen more than a few looks at them while driving back and steering with my knees. It had been a job well done, they all agreed and now, it was time to let the general public get a crack at the comics. We opened up a case which Tom personally placed on the floor in front of the main display racks which he always did with whatever was the "hot" book of the week like Miller's "Dark Knight" or one of the never ending array of X-Men titles and the customers descended on them, picking the proverbial bones clean to a politely positive collective response and more than a few requests for signed copies. I'd done good. I was happy.

Roger wanted to take some photos of the auspicious occasion. We agreed, but first decided to slip into our Halloween costumes that we'd secreted away under the cases of comics...and the pumpkin in the car. A few minutes later, there we were, in full "Rowdy Roddy Piper" and "Cyndi Lauper" attire, leaning up against the logo'd front window of FantaCo, capering for Roger's camera and...loving it, even when some Tony Danza-esque lobotomy scar wandered up and asked where we were wrestling that night. I told him it was a costume, he started naming venues, again, almost demanding where I'd be in the ring that night. I politely asked him what day it was. He said "Friday". I asked the date. He said "October something". I said "It's HALLOWEEN!!!" He seemed to finally get it, then told me he hoped I'd win my match and wandered off as did we a few minutes later. Fortunately, I had the legs for the kilt.

That night, after all of the relatives and friends had gone over the comic with fine tooth combs (as had we, like, a thousand times), and the evening meal was done and the stream of annoying trick-or-treaters had died down, the hastily carved pumpkin burned on, casting its eerie, yet inviting light across my front lawn, she-who-must-remain-nameless and I lay on my bed, watching "Transylvania 6-5000" on cable, grinning a thousand, satisfied grins. I had never been able to visualize what my first publishing experience might be like although I'd waited, hoped and dreamed on it for so long, and now it had happened, and it was exhausting, exasperating, trying, stressful, draining, straining and countless other "ings", but, as I dozed off my thoughts trailed off to that quote in "Where The Buffalo Roam" where Bill Murray summed up not only Hunter Thompson's life, but my own now as well, when he uttered the immortal last line "It Never got Weird Enough For Me". I couldn't agree more, even now, on the other, back side of that long lost, sometimes lamented, sometimes not so much, career, but it was ONE HELL OF A RIDE!

John Hebert


Thanks, John. John is living happily ever after with his bride, who is NOT she-who-shall-not-be-named and working on the comic book Captain Action. There was a second issue, the conclusion of Sold Out, but that tale will be told another time.
ROG

P is for Photography

And now for something completely indulgent. Hey, it's a blog; by definition it's indulgent.

One of my sister sent my five -year-old daughter two one-use cameras, and I had no idea what she was photographing. The only instruction I gave her was to use the flash when she was inside. This is what she came up with, and I didn't alter them in any way:






These first three items I believe are gifts she received for her birthday.


The ballerina costume - on the floor?


Most of her plushes have very unimaginative names. This is Unoicorn; I blame the TV shows Little Bear and Franklin, where most of the characters have likewise boring nomenclatures.


No Imelda Marcos here.


Not only did she take the picture, she laid out the blanket and arranged the subjects.


Difficult to tell here, but the piece on the right is a piece of her artwork; the item on the left is 1000 years of British monarchies.


Do all only children refer to their stuffed creatures as their sisters?


Chomper


I'm assuming this is the ABC-TV program Dancing with the Stars. I don't watch it; the child watches it with the wife.


Deerie. (Not to be confused with the late Blossom Dearie.)


There are a whole bunch of self-portraits. Lot of them are just strange mixes of colors. She also took some headless photos of her mother, and one of my back.


I took this one: the photographer.
***
Ringo Starr - Photograph, written by George Harrison and Ringo Starr.



ROG

Cinco de Mayo

A couple months back, Mr. Frog wrote: "St. Patrick's Day used to be stupid and irritating to me. Then, 8 years ago, I moved to a college town. Now it's a damn embarrassment to humankind."

While I understand his sentiment, at least some people have a vague notion of this guy who drove out the rats, or something like that. Besides which, I'm Green 365, so it probably bothers me less.

Whereas Cinco de Mayo - recently, I saw a reference to a four-day weekend! - is an excuse to drink tequila and Kahlua, and Allah knows what else; the former seems also to be the holiday anthem.

And for what? Because most people, in an informal poll I did, think it must be Mexican Independence Day.

Nope. But it was a significant day in both Mexican and U.S. history.

Should I succumb and mix me a white Russian this evening and listen to some music?
or here.


ROG

Student Demonstration Time

When I first started this blog four yeas ago, someone asked me, some point after May 4, 2005, to write about Kent State. I'd written a paragraph about it, but I didn't have more to say. But now I do, and it's all about that maligned (by me, and others) Beach Boys song, Student Demonstration Time.

For it reminds me that ten days after that headline-grabbing Kent State, there was Jackson State, though it appears earlier in the Mike Love narrative.

The violence spread down South to where Jackson State brothers
Learned not to say nasty things about Southern policemen's mothers
Nothing much was said about it and really next to nothing done
The pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for a gun.

I always hated the glib tone of the second line, but now that I think on it, the third line was profound in its accuracy. How many of you who remember Kent State also remember Jackson State? I'm guessing not many, but it's not your fault.

America was stunned on May 4, 1970
When rally turned to riot up at Kent State University
They said the students scared the Guard
Though the troops were battle dressed
Four martyrs earned a new degree
The Bachelor of Bullets
I know we're all fed up with useless wars and racial strife
But next time there's a riot, well, you best stay out of sight

Well there's a riot going on
There's a riot going on
Well there's a riot going on
Student demonstration time

I was in high school at the time, but both Kent State and Jackson State had a profound effect on me. Fear, yes, but also a sense of resolve to keep up the struggle against "useless wars and racial strife". Yet this song, coming out a year after the events chronicled, totally undercuts it. Meh.



BTW, I found on the Internets lyrics to the song, but one source had replaced "The Bachelor of Bullets" with "badge of eternal rest". Was that just misheard lyrics or something else?

ROG

Pete Seeger is 90

I've seen Pete Seeger sing about 32 times. This is no exaggeration; it may be an undercount. He would appear at various antiwar and anti-nuke campaigns in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York State. One of the first times I saw him was at a George McGovern rally in New Paltz, my college town, in 1972. Once, I went on the Clearwater, where he performed.

When a number of people protested the Springboks, the South African rugby team, playing in Albany, Pete was there singing in the rain. The one time I actually saw Pete in concert was April 4, 1982 at Page Hall in the downtown SUNY Albany campus.

But his impact on my life long preceded seeing him perform. My father owned his "We Shall Overcome" album; it was as pivotal in my appreciation of music as any Beatles or other pop album; my review of the expanded CD release is here My father was a singer of folk songs, performing regionally in the Binghamton, NY area, and he often sang songs that Pete, or friends of his such as Woody Guthrie, had popularized. And I saw him perform "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" on the Smothers Brothers show in 1968, which helped crystallize my opposition to the Vietnam war.

I think Pete's taken some unfair criticism. About Dylan going electric, Pete is quoted as saying, "There are reports of me being anti-him going electric at the '65 Newport Folk festival, but that's wrong. I was the MC that night. He was singing 'Maggie's Farm' and you couldn't understand a word because the mic was distorting his voice. I ran to the mixing desk and said, 'Fix the sound, it's terrible!' The guy said 'No, that's how they want it.' And I did say that if I had an axe I'd cut the cable! But I wanted to hear the words. I didn't mind him going electric."

And the late Phil Ochs castigated him, unfairly, in this couplet from Love Me, I'm a Liberal:
"I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs."

I'm happy that Bruce Springsteen has spread the gospel of Seeger in a couple of his recent albums. In fact, the first time I heard Springsteen do Seeger was on the http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/12743 Where Have All The Flowers Gone compilation which came out in 1998 and I bouught 3 or 4 years later; recommended.

Some have suggested that Pete Seeger deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and I wouldn't argue with them. I was thrilled to watch him at the pre-inaugural bash in DC.

A couple recent Pete Seeger collections I've seen, but have not yet purchased: American Favorite Ballads Volumes 1-5 [Box] [4/21/09] and Rainbow Race/ Now/ Young Vs. Old [4/21/09].

Happy birthday, Pete.


ROG

Blogiversary Numero Quatro

When I say that I have posted every day for four years, and I say, "I don't believe it," I'm not being rhetorical. Given the whimsical way I started this blog, AND my notorious lack of discipline, I figured it'd last a month or two, maybe until the JEOPARDY! saga was finished, or after I made some observations about the daughter until she hit those early milestones.

Yet here I am. I've really tried NOT to write more than once a day. I don't have time. How did I do THIS year?
2008: May, September, November, December; 2009: January, February reached goal
2008: June, October; 2009: March one extra post
2008: July, August; 2009: April three extra posts
So that's 374 posts in the past year, not to mention my other blogs here and here and here and my work blog here.

One of the things about blogging, of course, is that one doesn't do it in isolation. I don't think some people realizes that blogging is more than the writing. Near-twin Gordon talks about the 70/30 rule - I don't know if it's original with him, but it doesn't matter - which is that 70% of the time you blog, but the other 30% of the time you spend reading and commenting on other blogs.

This has gotten more tricky this year by two factors:
1) my wife's internship, which has made use of our single computer more difficult. Perfect example happened yesterday, when I got up at 4:35 a.m. to work on this post, but my wife ALSO got up at the same time to do school work until 5:55; given the fact that I have to wake the child at 6:30 and leave at 7...
2) my embrace of Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Facebook. I was reading the March 2009 Ladies Home Journal this week - it was left in the lunchroom - and someone wrote that Facebook is "a big time suck."

That "other" time is important; it keeps me informed, even if it's about weird stuff. But also one starts to actually care about those other people. When Tom the Dog tweets: "Today was a good day. Tomorrow will be better. I feel like I've turned a corner. About time." a few days ago, I hope that means he'll start blogging again. When Scott gets laid off from his job, I feel the need to commiserate. Yet I've met neither of them.

The great thing about this busyness is that I stopped worrying about the number of hits I get on a given day, or my Technorati score, or any of that. I AM happy that this blog is still in the top three or four when one Googles Roger Green.

This coming year, I've decided that I need to do a few specific things:
I'm going to continue to do ABC Wednesday because it forces me to stretch.
I need to do my long-promised list of Beatles songs in order of what I'd want on to hear on a desert island; some of the biggies will not fare well.
I need to continue my year-by-year analysis of Oscar-worthy movies so I can finally make my list of my favorite movies (though one on my list is certainly NOT Oscar-worthy).
And of course, my once-a-month Lydia piece.

I MAY miss a day or two. It's much more likely given the fact that I'll be away for a couple weeks this summer without computer access. Or maybe I'll just post YouTube videos like Eddie does when he's stressed. I will likely, in the words of Alan David Doane, reposition some stuff for sure.

Thank you all for coming by. Comments are always welcome.
ROG

MOVIE REVIEW: Sunshine Cleaning

Carol's and my long weekend away was coming to an end, and so we decided, as a last hurrah, to drive back to Albany's Spectrum 8 Theatre to see Sunshine Cleaning.

Amy Adams stars as Rose, the former high school head cheerleader whose life hasn't turned out as she planned, but she works hard to take of herself and her son, even though she sometimes has to drop him off into the hands of her slacker sister Norah (Emily Bluth). Rose is also involved with her married high school beau who recommends Rose quit being a maid and start cleaning up biohazard at crime scenes.

Ultimately, the story chugs along to its more-or-less happily ever after conclusion, after some detours. I remember Amy Biancolli's review addressing a plot device in the story that one either believers or not; I bought the conceit. I realized that I had seen a couple very solid performances. Yet the story, while initially intriguing, tended to wander off and so did I.

The makers of the indie hit Little Miss Sunshine also made this movie, right down to casting Alan Arkin as the grandfather; it's a different role, but not so dissimilar that one would find it a variation on the theme.

Ultimately, in spite of the fine actors, and the initial intriguing premise, the story of Sunshine Cleaners didn't always work, much to my regret, for I wanted to really like this film. This is one of those movies that's quirky, but that's not always equivalent with good. I don't regret seeing it, but at best, I recommend with strong reservations.

ROG

Obama's first 100 days

I had this ambitious blog post in mind where I would tackle a whole list of specific topics within specific categories and analyze/grade them all. Well, THAT'S not gonna happen. I did, though want to note that the more political reading I do, the less cognitive clarity I get. Particularly with criticism of Barack Obama, I hear apparent faux pas by the Obamas towards the Queen of England lumped together with legitimate concerns over whether the economic stimulus will work fast enough to avoid staflation down the road. It all becomes noise.

Listening to the Sunday morning talk shows, it seems that the greatest concern about President Obama is "where he draw the line in the sand?" Whether it be economic issues - will he pour MORE money in the banks if they fail the 'stress test'? or foreign policy - he can talk to our adversaries, but what if that doesn't work? I've come to believe that it is Obama's seeming malleability, after years of George W. Bush's apparent certainty, hat seems to make the pundits nervous.

I specifically recall the Sunday morning of April 12. What's he going to do about the Somali pirates holding Captain Philips? Doesn't he appear weak when the White House says he's "monitoring the situation"? By the end of the day (in the US), the story had totally changed.

I fully support talking with our enemies. That's what Obama said he'd do in his campaign, despite some criticism, and I believe it's the right course. He's already made substantive and long overdue changes with regard to Cuba. So, Hugh Chavez showboats by giving Obama a book (which subsequently jumps up the Amazon book sales list); doesn't matter in the long run. Talking with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be better than not talking. It seems that the concern is that our adversaries are all willier than the US is and that the talks are stalling tactics that ultimately won't work. Maybe so, but that doesn't mean we don't try.

When he was in Europe, Obama made comments about some mutually negative attitudes which I thought were accurate. It was embarrassing, e.g., back in 2003 when the House of Representatives renamed French fries and French toast.

I'd like to see more investigations, by Congress if not the Justice Department, in a couple areas. One is the collapse of the economic markets. The auto industry was merely incompetent, but as I heard on Bill Moyers' show, William K. Black suspects that it was more than greed and incompetence that brought down the U.S. financial sector and plunged the economy in recession — it was fraud. And he would know. When it comes to financial shenanigans, William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, has seen pretty much everything.

Black made a great comparison with plane crashes. When there's an accident or even a "near miss", there's an investigation. If after a crash, the authorities said, "Let's move on," what kind of confidence would be derived from that?

The other area I'd like more information involves torture. Congressional hearings may begin to address this. It appears clear to me that Obama wanted to denounce torture, put out some documents, then move on. But "move on" just won't cut it. As Salon put it, "President Obama released memos that describe, in horrific detail, the torture techniques authorized by the Bush administration. The memos make clear that top Bush officials didn't just condone torture—they encouraged it."

Finally, there's the economy. Robert Reich gives his grades, which I think are about right. I believe that some sort of massive health care initiative needs to come out of the budget, that putting money in prevention and well care will save money down the road. But I'm STILL unconvinced that the bailout, operated by insiders such as Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, will do anything. The TARP money, going back to 2008, has been spent with ever-changing goals, without any noticeable oversight. To quote Marvin Gaye, "Makes me wanna holler, throw up both my hands." That's because, at this juncture, I don't know WHAT should happen. Those first quarter bank "profits" are largely a result of changes in the reporting mechanism.

Most people are reasonably happy with Barack Obama as President. I am, too. He's smart, he's articulate, and he's more energetic than he has a right to be, given the scope of the issues facing him. It feels like much more than 100 days, since he started dealing with them before the inauguration. I watched the press conference last night, and he proved to be - and this is by no means belittling - competent., which is a refreshing change.

Unlike certain unnamed people, I want him to succeed. His attempts to create more transparency, while incomplete, is better than I expected. Good luck, Mr. President , on the next 1360 days or so.
***
Oh, Arlen Specter (D-PA). Just wanted to write that. The Republican chair, Michael Steele, said Specter's switch is an "outrage" because he switched for "political expediency". It's true that he almost certainly would have lost his party's nomination; it's also true that his former party has moved so far to the inflexible that he was no longer comfortable there.

ROG

SOLD OUT, Part 5 by John Hebert

Before I get to John's rellections, a couple comics-related things:
1. Len Wein, creator of, among many other things, X-Men staples such as Wolverine, Storm, and Nightcrawler, had a house fire, as I've mentioned. Here's info for the Let's Restore Len Wein's Comic Book Collection Project. Contact Evanier before sending anything.
2. Free Comic Book Day is this Saturday, May 2; hope it doesn't interfere with the Kentucky Derby. In all likelihood, I'll go to Earthworld in Albany, as usual, get a bunch of free stuff for the kid and for me, and end up buying something i didn't know I wanted.

Now, back to John, after I show you his X-Men 100 swipe homage with a circus strongman, Rowdy Roddy Piper, every guy who ever worked at an amusement park in the 80's, and me.

I was a penciling fool- working and reworking pages here and there all that summer of 1986, getting the then-girlfriend to letter and dying to get to the inks. I'd been very fearful of inking my first book because I didn't think I could ever be much of an inker. When I'd started trying to bust into the biz in earnest a couple of years before, I'd decided that penciling was a little too complicated so I thought to break in as an inker first and learn from whomever I'd inked and go from there. This brainstorm lasted just about a month- or the time it took for me to @*%*&^ up my copy of the Marvel Tryout Book and then be told by Zeck that my inks sucked, but that my pencil work had potential, so I'd gone with it.

Anyway, I'd shortly have to put my brush handle where my mouth had been. Once I'd penciled the entire comic, we'd all set a date where Tom, Roger, she-who-was-not-to-be-ignored, as well as FantaCo stalwarts Matt Mattick, Hank Jansen, and Joelle Michalkiewicz and myself would sit down, spread all of the pages out on the floor of the back office and take the "SOLD OUT!" experience in before committing it to ink, deciding what worked and what didn't, what needed to be punched up and where we needed to tone bits down. It was a bit frustrating, to say the least. While almost everyone agreed that it was a very tight piece of effort, there was always a bit of niggling back and forth where everybody but one person would just love something, but that one detail bothered that one person which seemed to corrupt the entire apple cart and then we'd rework the damned thing until somebody else wasn't happy and then.....Suddenly, at some point, after a very long day in the back office and losing the daylight, we staggered out into the early autumn evening clutching the bulging manila folder of pages ready to be committed to ink. My moment of truth had arrived.

One of Tom's primary requirements for the artist was that he or she could draw a reasonably realistic turtle and hamster.

I'd put everything into the pencils, to the point where I needed to go to ink just to stir up the old creative juices with a change of technique. Even though I've never thought of myself as a particularly good inker and with the additional weight of the fear of screwing it all up with bad inks, I think I did a pretty darn serviceable job- especially on the first half of the book when my energy level was high and I was interested, and in fact, thrilled to be doing something other than penciling. I did a really broad John Beatty type brush style throughout most of the book with a swatch of Jerry Ordway and a ton of zip-a-tone tossed in for good measure and just enjoyed the Hell out of most of the experience, but before long, I was tiring of inking as well, especially after we'd begun making last, last-minute changes as I was going along, sometimes scrapping panels after they'd been committed to ink and making me feel like a rat in a maze.

Our deadline was fast approaching too, as was Halloween when we'd hoped to have the book on the shelves, the girlfriend and I went into overdrive, always expecting the project done "the next week", then still spinning our creative tires in the not-so-creative sand and shooting for the following week. It finally came down to the very cold day before Halloween of 1986, when I, having been up for something like 26 hours, leaned over the drawing board in my humble, yet tastefully appointed studio, forcing myself to ink those last few pesky panels that I'd put off inking for various pointless reasons for so long. The edict had come down from Tom Skulan - the book had to be done THAT DAY!!!! We'd already missed one scheduled press day and it was not to happen again.

The girlfriend had shown up at around 8 a.m. and we'd torn into the unfinished pages immediately, determined to deliver the entire finished book to FantaCo by noon for one more final "look-over" be various staff-eyes, and then we were to drive the entire project out to the printing plant in Gloversville, NY, some 90 minutes away. I was so tried and ragged by that point that I didn't think I'd make it and longed for the peaceful reassurance of the void I was sure to encounter as I'd fall asleep at the wheel and swing the Camaro in front of a speeding semi on the Thruway....."Don't bother calling an ambulance Ferdie- he was a funny book artist, now he's road pizza!"

So, we made it into the store at around one in the afternoon and dropped the packet of pages on Skulan's desk, ready for criticism and a very, very long nap. Tom and Raj were the primary editors now, going over every panel and page, never missing a misspelling or uninked eye on some tiny figure in the background that no one would ever notice, but we fixed everything right there in the back room where it had all begun just a few, short, holy mackerel- it was, like FIVE months earlier, what was I thinking?!?!? Anyway, thankfully, most of the required changes were of the lettering variety and she-who-must-not-have-been ignored took care of them with white out and a couple of markers while I slipped closer and closer towards comatose while sitting on that very cold, uninsulated office floor. That cold and the aching in my joints were the only things keeping me awake, but somehow, it was finally done and the time had come to drive the darned book to the printer. The pages were lashed together in a large shiny orange folder and away we went, towards the beginning of the rest of my life, the world's smallest Pontiac dealership, and the embarrassment of being photographed in a skirt on a busy Albany street.

To be CONCLUDED!

John Hebert
***
Miss Marvel, Mister Roger, Miss Lydia, May 3, 2008, Earthworld


ROG

O is for Opportunities

OK, I am a sucker for good causes:
BlogCatalog and Heifer International are partnering to call for the end of world hunger and start of hope on April 29. All we ask is that you join thousands of other bloggers and write a post about world hunger on April 29.
You Can Make a Difference.

I am posting this a day early in case others want to join in.

* Right now, more than 500 million people are living in "absolute poverty" and more than 15 million children die of hunger every year.
* World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the population is underfed and another third is starving.
* Even in the United States, 46 percent of African-American children and 49 percent of Latino children are considered chronically hungry.

Organizations like Heifer International are the solution. Every day in April, Heifer International is lifting people out of poverty by providing communities with livestock and agricultural training to improve lives and inspire hope.
What can you do for Bloggers Unite For Hunger And Hope?

* Join this event by visiting Bloggers Unite and adding a badge to your blog before April 29.
* Visit Heifer International to learn more about Pass On The Gift.
*Make a small donation or take some other action to end world hunger.
*Blog about world hunger on April 29 with links to solutions all over the world.

I was stuck for an idea about what different perspective I could bring to the topic, until yesterday, when my American Institute of Philanthropy Charity Rating Guide and Watchdog Report showed up in the mail. Among other information, the website designates the top-rated charities in a variety of categories. For hunger, they include, with links:
Action Against Hunger - USA A+
Bread for the World B+
Bread for the World Institute A
Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest) A
Food Bank for New York City (formerly Food for Survival) A–
Food for the Hungry B+
Freedom from Hunger A–
Global Hunger Project A
The grades are based on "rigorous analysis. Groups included on the Top-Rated list generally spend 75% or more of their budgets on programs, spend $25 or less to raise $100 in public support, do not hold excessive assets in reserve, and receive 'open-book' status for disclosure of basic financial information and documents to AIP." Knowing this information is extremely helpful, for, in the words of the newsletter, "As the unemployment rate continues to rise and home foreclosures increase, it is more important than ever that those who are able lend a hand to their neighbors who need it."

I am interested to hear from any of you , especially outside the Unites States, to find out if watchdog groups such as AIP exist elsewhere.
***
Also, here's something I learned about watching Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS, American public television:

Playing For Change -- Songs Around The World CD/DVD in stores now

After 4 years of filming and recording musicians around the globe, we are finally releasing our album "Playing For Change: Songs around the World," featuring a 10 song CD and 7 track DVD. This is a collection of songs and videos featuring over 100 musicians from around the world that have never met in person, but have been brought together through the power of music.

Today is our chance to show the world that independent projects designed to connect and inspire people can be successful.

The album demonstrates that regardless of our religion, race, gender, or political views we can unite through music. The time is now to unite as a human race and this global collaboration driven by your love and encouragement is designed to lead us in that direction.

The CD/DVD is available online or at that increasingly popular purveyor of music, Starbucks.

ROG

iTunes Meme

The meme: the last vestige of the desperate blogger. Thom wrote about the number of cuts from groups and solo artists that populate his iPod. well, I don't have one, but I do have iTunes, so I thought I'd list those folks.

Unlike Thom, most, though not all, of mine are culled from albums. But it's not a particular reflection of my whole collection. For instance, the Beatles, who I own extensively, only have 14 cuts, all from the Help! album. Sometimes I remember to add songs and sometimes not. Apparently I have more recently, since most of the artists represented have birthdays in the past five months. So this list might look quite different in a few months. Links are to videos of songs I like and I own.
1. Johnny Cash (Feb)- 153. I do love John R.
1. James Taylor (Mar)-153.
3. Frank Sinatra (Dec)-114. A couple box sets
4. R.E.M. (Michael Stipe: Jan)-110.
5. Burning Spear-101. This was a group that got downloaded from someone else's list.
6. Aretha Franklin (Mar)-98. Largely from a box set
7. Temptations-95 (Eddie Kendrick: Dec; David Ruffin-Jan; Dennis Edwards: Feb)
8. Heptones-87. Likewise from someone else's roster.
8. Elton John (Mar)-87. Same birthday as Aretha, BTW.
10. Marvin Gaye (Apr)-80. He also died in April, a day shy of his 40th birthday.
10. George Harrison (Feb)-80.
12. Eric Clapton (Mar)-79.
13. Supremes (Diana Ross, Mary Wilson: both Mar)-76
14. Neville Brothers (Aaron: Jan)-73.
15. Elvis Presley (Jan)-72.
***
I mowed the lawn for the first time this season yesterday. When you have a push mower, timing is everything. The mower doesn't work well on dewy mornings and I don't do well in the heat of the day. So mowing at 6 or 7 pm is optimal, if it hasn't rained.

I always listen to music when I mow. Today it was Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage. The title track also appears as the last track of a disc on a six-CD set Say It Loud, which covers 100 years of black music. On the compilation, the Hancock cut sticks and never gets past 4 minutes of the 7 minute song. When I listen to the Hancock album, I expect the same result, but of course it plays fine.
***
Charles Mingus Cat Toilet Training Program. Yes, THAT Charles Mingus, no joke.

ROG

The Lydster, Part 61: What She Watches (which means I watch too)

Lydia's pediatrician has a real antipathy about children watching television or videos. While most guidelines suggest avoiding kids watching TV before the age of two, we waited until she was three.

Most of the first programs were actually videos - programs on something called VHS - which we acquired from my now-18-year-old niece, all circa 1994. Surprisingly, given the fact that Alex was obsessed with him in the day, there was only one Barney video. (I remember specifically being chastised by my parents for NOT buying her a Barney thing in the day; it wasn't my antipathy for Barney, it was "What do you buy someone who seems to have everything already?" It'd be like buying me Beatles stuff until they put out new product.)

I DO have antipathy for this Barney DVD I got from my in-laws, a "live-action" game show with a studio audience of kids and adults. My wife said that I might applaud if I were in the audience; maybe, but I just don't want to SEE grown-ups getting all excited about the antics of a purple dinosaur.

Another batch of videos features "the Magic School Bus." Voiced by Lily Tomlin as The Frizz, and occasionally Malcolm Jamal-Warner in the ending segment, they were so successful with Lydia that she now has over a dozen books and a DVD.

Not much else really stuck, other than Arthur, the aardvark, though she was briefly enamored with this funky 15-minute (in English, followed by the same in Spanish) home safety tape with the catchy tune, "Code Red Rover, grown-up come over."

Ultimately she found there were shows on TV for her. Her first great love was Little Bear, based on the Maurice Sendak-drawn books from a half-century ago. She was onto Little Bear, and Emily, her doll Lucy, Cat, Duck, Hen, Owl, Mother Bear and Father Bear every day for about eight months until we were seeing the same episodes for the third time. Still we read the books, which are direct sources for some of the episodes.

Lydia's current favorite TV show is Franklin, which again has but one character with a name other than Bear, Fox, Skunk, Mr. and Mrs. Turtle and so on. She likes calling Franklin Frank; she thinks this is wildly hysterical. The theme song is by Bruce Cockburn of "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" ("some [s.o.b.] would die") fame.; actually have a half dozen Cockburn LPs.

But she has branched out:
Angelina Ballerina: on once a week, has fueled her need to dance. Not to take lessons, mind you, just to twirl in front of the set.
Ni-Hao, Kai-lan, Blue's Clues: doesn't actually watch unless it's on in real time.
Jack's Big Music Show: a program I'd almost watch without her.
Dora the Explorer: she watches relatively little of this, but she has Dora pajamas, Dora Band-Aids, several Dora books and she got a Dora DVD for her birthday. Why does she, and her cousin Diego, seem to YELL all the time. "WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE STORY?" And they are so damn earnest, too.

Her upcoming favorite is the Wonder Pets. a hamster, a turtle and duck get in their flyboat and save other animals. There's always a costume change relevant to the location and some difficulty before they get going that turns out to be useful later on.

It was my wife, though, who noted the operatic stylings of the introductory piece:

Imagine if you can that, instead of Linny, it is a basso profundo singing: "The phone, the phone is ringing." That octave descent alone would be stunning. Then a tenor, not Tuck, singing the second, a non-lisping contralto, rather than Ming-Ming, on the third. There's a certain drama in the presentation.

The rest of the music is tied to the situation or the geography. Recently, WP saved the Rat Pack (three rats, one named Blue Eyes), a fiddler crab on the roof and a bluesy Louisiana bullfrog. This is award-winning stuff against stiff competition.

I figure that I'd better record this stuff now before she heads for school, for while I think I'll "always remember", chances are that I won't. ROG

Bea Arthur, RIP

Edith's cousin Maude Findlay going toe to toe with Archie Bunker.
(I suspect the changed intro music is there for some copyright reasons.)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Of course, Bea Arthur was also a star of Golden Girls, as well, as well as a song and dance person, as this Mark Evanier find showed.

ROG

Being Alone QUESTION

My wife has this book called "The Daily Spark: 180 easy-to-use lessons and class activities!" They are journal writing warm-up activities. I was leafing through it when I came to an entry called "All Alone":

"Mark Twain once said, 'The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with oneself.'
"What do you think he meant by this? Does this idea apply to your own life?
Conclude your entry by explaining how you feel about being alone. Do you dread it, or do you enjoy having time to yourself?"

I think people have always thought of me as a social being. Yet, even as a child, I always enjoyed the comfort of my own room. It wasn't the room itself, which was tiny. It was what the room represented, which was (relative) solitude. I'd read there, or create imaginary baseball games or look at my postage stamp and coin collections - where IS my postage stamp collection anyway?

I suspect that some of the difficulty I've had in relationships in the past is that my desire for alone time was perceived as some sort of rejection of the other.

These days, I try very hard to take off one day per month, usually a Monday. I can play racquetball a little longer than usual. Then I'll come home, eat, read, watch TV, blog, whatever I want, in my own house. It's the only time I can be in my own home by myself, especially since the child arrived. I used to go to the movies to see a film my wife didn't want to see, but lately the desire for that has been outweighed by other needs. if it's nice, though, I might trek to a park and read there for a while, if it's quiet.

So do you have an inner Greta Garbo or an outer Ashton Kutcher?

ROG

MOVIE REVIEW: I Love You, Man

Here's something that's true; I can be a bit of a movie snob. I tend to go to movies that I expect to be good. Oscar-nominated films, films acclaimed at a film festival, and so on. Every once in a while - a GREAT while, given the more limited opportunities - I'll go to see more popular fare.

Carol's and my first night in Saratoga last week, we went to the Wilton Mall. I'd never been to the Wilton Mall before; it was mallish. Mallesque? One of the presents we got from one of my brothers-in-law for Christmas was a packet of tickets to any Regal Theater. This turned out to be our first opportunity to use them.

We had gotten there about 20 minutes before the film was scheduled to start, and bought popcorn. This was far inferior to the great popcorn I'm used to from the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. We were "entertained" by a package of "behind the scenes" pieces - one was for "Angels and Demons" the sequel to The da Vinci Code and again starring Tom Hanks. The segment was peppered with commercials: food commercials, car commercials, commercials for the U.S. Army.

Then it was the appointed moment. Time for...previews, the standard fare.

O.K., FINALLY, the actual movie. We'd heard some decent comments about the new evidently raunchy comedy I Love You, Man. It stars Paul Rudd, who we liked from The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, as a man named Peter, a real estate guy who early on becomes engaged to his girlfriend Zooey (Rashida Jones from Parks and Recreation, and The Office). The problem is that he doesn't have any male friends, a real issue for Zooey's friends.

Paul gets advice from his gay brother (Andy Samburg from Saturday Night Live) on how to meet straight men. But it is on his own that he meets Sydney (Jason Segel), a usually honest fellow - sometimes too much so, and they hit it off over a shared passion.

A movie like I Love You, Man can either work or not, depending on the writing and acting. I'm disinclined to over analyze it, except that it was less coarse than the last two Rudd movies I saw.

The verdict: while it has its flaws, including supporting characters that arrive but seem to get lost along the way and a joke or two that go on too long, I laughed, quite a bit actually. Ultimately, that's all I really want in a comedy. My favorite joke, not a big ha-ha, but a knowing one took about an hour to set up. It's a rather simple premise, but it worked for my wife and me, mostly because of the performances of Rudd and Segel.
***
Not used in the movie, thank goodness, was the term bromance, though the commentator here used it to describe this movie. I happen to dislike the term intensely, though I can't explain exactly why. Maybe because it seems want to have it both ways: a teasing, somewhat homophobic way to show show how non-homophobic straight guys can be. ROG

World Book and Copyright Day

From the news release:
On 23 April 2009, we will celebrate the 14th World Book and Copyright Day, proclaimed by the UNESCO General Conference in 1995 to promote greater awareness of the importance of books in the world.

In order to support the Organization in today’s society, this year international professional associations are once again kindly invited to play an essential role in informing and mobilizing both their members and their external networks of experts and stakeholders.

For this edition of the Day, UNESCO suggests to explore the topic of the paramount function of books for the development of quality education, as well as the link between publishing and fundamental rights.

One of the cool things my wife did this past year was to apply for and receive a $600 minigrant to buy books for her English as a Second Language unit that had been limited by ancient, archaic texts. Even more impressive, she got a publisher to donate - that is, give for free - an almost equal number of books.

Something I know from personal experience is that teachers often spend money out of pocket for books and supplies that they bring to the classroom. In honor of today, perhaps you might contract your local school or PTA to see what books they might need. Or contact your local library; ironically, in a period of increased demand for library services, library budgets are being slashed.

So buy a book, for yourself and/or for someone else.
***
An action film, Salt, starring Angelina Jolie, will be filmed in part on the streets of Albany. Some folks are up in arms, even though the schedule suggests that it won't disrupt the morning or evening commutes. I think the real issue is that there was NO information at all going out to the general public until a couple days ago about something that begins today, and there is a lot of misinformation floating out there.


ROG

N is for Nature

I'm old enough to have participated in the very first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. For that occasion, I joined some of my fellow students in picking up the trash around my high school. For whatever reason - perhaps because my father was a smoker - I decided to concentrate on one of the smaller, but more annoying pieces of litter, the cigarette butt. I recall picking up 1300 of them before I lost count. And I thought I was really doing something.

Today, I recognize that saving the nature of our earth involves a lot more than picking up litter. Not that I've stopped; my daughter plays at the local elementary school playground, and I've picked up the trash three days in a row, knowing that the garbage I picked up on the third day was not there on the first.

I'm pretty much an obsessive on recycling. I've discovered that, e.g., another unit on my floor will have ordered a large deli plate. In these parts, the base is flat and black, while the top is clear and a hemisphere. Both parts are recyclable, with a 1 or 2 in a triangle. Yet someone has often thrown them in the trash. Well, not IN the trash; they are so large that they've been placed NEAR the trash. I pick them up, wash them off and take them home.

I often read newspapers on long trips or even taking the bus to work; instead of trashing that read paper, I'll bring it back home.

Recently, we've acquired some large canvas shopping bags from our local public radio/television station, WMHT; unfortunately, we've lost one. However, I was carrying the other one around when shopping at the local CVS pharmacy. The clerk commended me, "I wish more people would do that." On the same shopping trip, I stopped at the nearby Price Chopper supermarket, and the clerk there gave me three cents off my purchase; all the stuff fit in the same bag, BTW.

At my office in the past three years, we've sent out our research on links to PDFs rather than printing and mailing them. Not only have we saved whole forests of trees, we've saved a bunch of money on paper and postage. Generally speaking, we have - as most UAlbany e-mails suggest - think before we print.

The state of New York has recently passed a better bottle bill. Starting in about six weeks, it won't be just cans and bottles of beer and soda that will have a redeemable five cent deposit, it'll also be on water bottles. Knowing full well that this will be a pain for retailers and distributors, because neighboring states haven't enacted a similar law, I think it's on the whole a good thing. However, I expect an uptick in the number of bottle entrepreneurs rummaging through my recyclables bin on trash night looking for the returnables that I never put there but that other neighbors inexplicably do.

But all of this seems like small potatoes. We've recently got a better front door and better windows, but should we get a solar paneled roof? Can we AFFORD a solar paneled roof in the short term, even if it pays off the long run?

I get peevish about some neighborhoods' behavior in limiting environmental consciousness. Some in the United States actually ban people from hanging clothes outside on a clothesline, saying that it will reduce property values, as though the current recession hasn't already done that. Similar bans exist on the aforementioned solar panels for the same reason.

Here are some links that deal with some of the more substantial issues of Earth Day:
What to Do to Celebrate Earth Day?
How To Teach Your Preschooler to "Go Green"
My college's current sustainability bulletin -PDF
My college is also participate in the ongoing IBM Smarter Planet University Jam, April 21-23: "Faculty and students from more than 170 academic institutions around the globe will be participating in the Jam. Beginning 12:00 AM EDT on April 21st and continuing for a 72-hour period, they will be coming together for an on-line conversation on
important topics such as the vulnerability of global supply chains for food and medicine, the environmental and geopolitical issues surrounding energy, how to adapt our education system to help students acquire the skills to compete in an interconnected, intelligent and instrumented world, and more."
Green Tax Incentives in the US

Always have to have some music:


And for a little whimsy, Welcome Back: The longer the winter, the sweeter the spring, and this winter seemed very long indeed. And if spring brings such pleasure to us now, I can only imagine the joy and relief it must have brought to man in ancient times, when winters were not so much endured but survived. (If you're in the Southern Hemisphere, watch it in six months.)
ROG

SOLD OUT, Part 4 by John Hebert

Mr. Hebert continues his reminisces about a comic book I had something to do with because on this topic, his memopry's WAY better than mine.

Now, it was time to put my money where my mouth had been all those years. I had to actually sit down and produce a comic book- doing the pencils and inks all myself and I'd gotten my then-art student/girlfriend to agree to letter the project. This was the point where a lot of the poseurs and wannabes are separated from the real pros. It's one thing to draw lots of pretty pictures of Batman, Wolverine and Phoenix standing around and looking dramatic with no real backgrounds, but when you've got to TELL THE STORY WITH PICTURES, make it interesting and authentic and throw in some kind of "cinematic magic" to boot, that's where it's all at. I've seen so many kids and even adults who are SO sure that they're the next big thing in comic art crumble and drift away sheepishly once they actually get a real script in hand and they see that copying a Jim Lee or McFarlane splash page has virtually nothing to do with actual sequential art that I can see them coming from a mile away now.

This, however, was my turn to shine or fail and skulk off to a lumberyard or some worse fate and I was determined to not allow that to happen. I gave my all on that book, staying up sometimes more than 24 hours straight, drawing, redrawing, hitting the library (pre-Internet) for reference, trying to stay "current" with the look and storytelling of the piece, sometimes second and even third-guessing myself into a near nervous breakdown of worry (which, admittedly, I came to do again and again even once I'd "made it in the big leagues" a few years later) and doing my best to not only impress Tom and Roger, but to try and out-mainstream the mainstream comics that "my book" would share rack space with. I'd pencil a page or 2, then pop into the store to show Tom and Raj what I'd done, then head back to the proverbial and literal drawing board sometimes high as a kite and sometimes near-suicidal as I had to pencil, repencil and even cut and paste up some pages combining 2 or 3 pages into one . This was occasionally very frustrating, but now, in retrospect, I realize that ALMOST every change was for the better and that this was the first real editorial input I'd ever had outside of school work and the volunteer work I'd done on theatrical projects and etc.

There were a few times when I practically begged Tom to let me ink a few pages, to not only get ahead, but to break up the monotony of the thing, but he insisted that, except for the cover and ONE page that would be sent around to the Comics Journal and such for promotional purposes that the entire book had to be pencilled and lettered before we'd all sit down, go over it, making sure evry panel of every page was complete, cohesive and coherent before I'd be allowed to commit the project to ink.

Phew, "tough room", I thought, but not as tough as the times I'd have with the lettering. As I stated previously, my then-girlfriend had been recruited to letter the book. She'd never really even read comics and was struggling her way through art school, and, in the interest of complete honesty and disclosure, we did end up breaking up during the production of SOLD OUT!- once for a few days on the first issue and then permanently and badly a few pages into the second book. She was in over her head on the book, but in all fairness, she did give her all most of the time and she really had gotten involved to support me and in retrospect some 20 years later, that was a good and decent thing and I'll do my best to say as little as possible in regards to this subject from here on. I was constantly throwing her copies of Simonson's Thor which was lettered by John Workman- the only letterer whose work was not only competent, but practically jumped off of the page and actually added to the compositions and storytelling. I wanted "our" first project to be a winner and as strong as possible, but at times, I was too close to it and I didn't handle the pressures as well as I should have. I'd spend days banging out a page, then I'd drop it at her house for lettering-sometimes only a panel or two, then feeling it all slipping away when I'd come back a couple of days later and find out that nothing had been done. It was agonizing; I couldn't let this book fall apart, I had to get it done - the right way. It was my portal to the big leagues and out of Palookaville.

I got more and more stressed and was sleeping less and less, spending more and more of my awake time at the board after everybody at my house had gone to bed, and then crashing and sleeping the day away, only to begin again once the sun went down. I was a vampire without a cape and hokey accent, and I was hating it and loving it at the same time. As tough as doing a regular comic is, this was even tougher on some levels because it had to be FUNNY on top of all else and, as many have said before, "Comedy is tough". We had to load the book up with loads and loads of sight gags, yet not overdo it and burn the reader out, we sought some weird state of balance where we'd go deeper and deeper into the absurd and twisted, then veer back into straight narrative-it was great and a true challenge as I had no problem diving into the absurd, but I sometimes needed (and still need) guidance to find my way back. The sight gags and plays on words and titles that I crammed into oh so many panels were inspiring, when I'd get a small notebook page with "John-go nuts here" scrawled on it, I did, feeding off of the guffaws and giggles I'd get from Tom and Raj when I'd plop the corresponding pages down on the desk for their look-sees.

It nurtured my need for not only reassurance and acceptance that every creative person craves, but it sustained my constant need to entertain- a flaw I still carry with me which is why I still stock a book of office traps and pranks on my desk to this day and why my cohorts at the firehouse and I spent two years planting broken lawn implements in one particular guy's truck. It's a sickness like drugs, drinking or gambling (at least two of which I know a bit about), but for the most part a benign one- although the lawnmower guy would most likely dispute that.

There were times it seemed like I'd never finish the project, that it'd never be an actual, tangible book. I kept working and reworking, getting closer, yet further from completion. The comics business was actually writing the damned thing for us with its absurd bombardment of the market with more and more awful small press black and white comics, some so ludicrously titled that we couldn't even have come up with them. I sometimes think that it was a good thing that the book took us so long as we had had time to look at what was going on and say "Whoa, gotta put that in there!" The first pages completed- both in pencil and ink were actually the cover and the last page, when I got the go ahead to actually ink 'em, it felt like one big psychic enema, it was the break in the monotony that I needed - I could breathe again...for a few days, but thank God for those late night showings of HBO's comedy specials on more than one occasion, they kept me from running screaming off into whatever night I was in the midst of.

There were a couple of inspirational moments on the project as well. The first started out absolutely horribly. I'd had a "Big Brother" when I was a kid because I'd grown up without a Dad of my own and my "Big Brother" and his family and I were and still are, close. Jack had a son named Erin who'd had a lot of behavior problems for years and had just seemed to be getting a handle on them when he was murdered by his mother's boyfriend on July 8th, 1986. As a tribute to him, I put Erin in the book, arguing with a doppelganger of FantaCo's own longtime counterman Matt Mattick over a jacked up cover price and some 10 or 12 years later that very same panel was reprinted in a comics news magazine as accompaniment for a letter on speculation and distribution issues.It was self-serving, but I'd do it again in a minute.

Bottom panel is John's tribute to Erin, on the left; I had no idea. A pretty good likeness of Matt on the right. - ROG

The second "uplift" if you will, came near the end of that summer when The Comics Buyer's Guide printed the cover of SOLD OUT! #1 in their coming attractions section. I'd picked up a copy while dropping pages off at the store and retreated with she-who-was-not-to-be-ignored to this great little dive of a mexican restaurant where she had lunch and I stared at the cover art on that cheap newsprint blankly. I'd arrived. It's funny, that Mexican place was still going strong until the owner died 4 or 5 years back. It's a coffee place now; my office is basically spitting distance from there, and every time I pass it, I can't help but think of that warmest of afternoons.


To be continued.........

ROG

The weekend without the child

My wife and I haven't been away alone together in over five years. This correlates nicely with the age of our progeny. (This is not to say that Lydia's never been away from both of us; last summer, while Carol was in college, I dropped her off at Grandma and Grandpa's in Oneonta, about 75 miles away, so I wasn't the position of both taking her to day care and picking her out.)

But the wife and I alone together for more than a few hours? Doesn't happen. Yet our tenth wedding anniversary is coming up next month. Taking off time during the school year is tough, and the summer will be pretty packed, too. This past week, on the other hand, school was off.

So my parents-in-law kindly drove up the hour and a quarter to watch Lydia Thursday afternoon while Carol and I took a vacation in Saratoga Springs. Saratoga? Isn't that only about 30 miles away from Albany? Indeed it is. but we stayed at an inn, and visited places we'd never been before. You know how people in Manhattan never go to the top of the Empire State building unless they're hauling in relatives from out of town? It's pretty much the same thing.

It was near enough that the trip there and back wouldn't be onerous, but unfamiliar enough to be able to explore.

I'll undoubtedly discuss the specific aspects of the trip over the next few weeks, but let me give you some first impressions:

*We end up watching either the Today show or Good Morning America only when we're off work. saw Today on Friday, GMA on Sunday. What depressing shows. No wonder people tune out the news.
*We ate too much.
*We've become near experts at getting around Saratoga.
*We worried that the child would miss us. we called Thursday night and she talked to us, but when we called Friday night, she was too busy watching TV to pick up. (That is NOT a complaint.) However, she (with Grandma's help) called us Saturday morning.
*She has so many things that getting Lydia yet something else seemed undesirable. Ultimately, we opted for flipflops.
*The hotel allegedly had a public computer, but the two times I actually had time to use it, it died after 16 minutes one times and 20 minutes the other. So no, I haven't read any of your blogs lately; I will, I will, eventually.
*The times I did get on my e-mail, I got e-mails from a friend of a friend of Raoul Vezina's and my high school history teacher, both of whom came across me through this blog.

Ah, my wife needs to use the computer. Bye for now.

ROG

Treppenwitz: I Should Have Thought of That Sooner

I learned a new word last year, treppenwitz. OK, "learned" might be overstating it, because it subsequently slipped my mind.

It's of German origin, as you might surmise. It's that phenomenon that takes place when someone angers or frustrates you; the moment passes, and then 15 minutes later, you come up with that perfect rejoinder that would have turned your antagonist into a puddle of despair. Or so you would believe.

That smackdown to the rude driver you eviscerate, instead of saying, "You...you..."
Putting racist/sexist/homophobic commenters in their place with a such rapier-like wit that they are slackjawed.

I listen to the political talk shows or the Jerry Springer-type shows - in some ways, they're pretty much the same - and I know that if I were on one of them, I would suffer mightily, not because I don't have my facts or a sense of my own convictions, but because I'd likely get caught up trying to match snark with snark.

Ultimately, I think I'll stick with the written word thing. This is not to say that, someday, I wouldn't want to do a podcast. But it'd be MY podcast, or on a civil and friendly podcast of someone else's.
***
Speaking of words, I seriously had no idea of the primary meaning of the word 'teabagging' until this week, though someone said it was mentioned by a character in The 40-Year Old Virgin, which I saw. I think the tea party notion is silly; it may have been Arthur of AmeriNZ who said, "Taxation without reprsentation? I thought they were from the District of Columbia!" which DOES suffer from that political malady.
***
Because I like it: Susan Boyle.

ROG