Month: September 2018

It’s a tad ironic that I started this chapter with the Robert Frost poem about favoring fire. Our world didn’t end, in fact we came out of things not too bad off for having raging flames and smoke pouring forth about a bedroom’s length from our home. Smoke smell and debris is still everywhere but none of our stuff burned and as I write this we have water, power, gas and Internet back on, with the big question being if there’s anything that’s going to need to be rebuilt since we were in the same building. Compare that to the neighbors whose place actually caught fire. They don’t even have a home right now and they weren’t even here when it happened so wouldn’t have been able to save anything beyond what they took with them on their daytrip.

Sudden disasters are surreal things. Our first indication anything was wrong was a sound of breaking glass and yelling. I thought someone was having a fight and Dawn went to look, then came back in yelling there was a fire. You grab for things like wallets and keys and your pet (thankfully no kids here), trying not to panic, and you get outside and everything’s just smoke, noise and hollering. Is everyone out? Has anyone called 911? And by the way oh shit, the building you live in is on fire and for all you know it’s already spread into your own separating walls and all you can think of is grabbing a garden hose and watering the roof and the part of the blaze you can see.

It’s a little surreal. Okay, a lot surreal, as you can probably get a sense of by this photo some bystander snapped right as the fire trucks were finally arriving to take over from our amateur hour. Would have fit right into the X-Files.

Then of course you’ve got to get the hell out of the way and let the pros do their job, except okay, I admit I dodged the cops for a bit so I could unlock and open my own front door before anyone felt a need to bust it down. Then you go sit on the curb and watch and hope that the chainsaw the firefighters are taking onto the roof won’t be needing to cut a hole in your part of the ceiling, which would really suck if your part wasn’t in danger of burning. Then again burning would be worse.

I would guess they got the fire out pretty quickly after they arrived. Then there’s a lot of standing around while their machine sucks out as much smoke as possible, and then the forensics guys had to come inspect and record the site just in case of arson while the police interview the witnesses one by one. All signs point to this being an accident but it’s a procedure thing.

And well, that was my Friday night, and I could not hold with those who favor fire. How was yours?

“Art should be free from compromise” is a refrain you may occasionally hear.

Sure. And flapping your arms and believing hard enough should be able to get you to fly. I think it is safe to say, though, that in all cases I’ve ever run across it is not the case. Gliding? That’s a compromise, isn’t it?

Even a completely solo effort is going to deal with issues of materials, time and energy, etc. Now add in even one other person and, well… everyone’s done group projects, right? Compromise is everywhere–even with a paycheck involved–and it doesn’t do much good to pretend otherwise. And if Bob hates drawing maps and you assign him to draw the map, even firing Bob is going to leave you with a shitty or non-existent map at the end of the day.

When a paycheck’s not involved, or there’s some money but hardly a living wage, then it becomes even more important to be aware of the strengths and limitations of those involved. The great majority of comics still start at base with a written script, and even if like me you’re lucky enough to have an “in-house” artist who is technically working for free, and we have no corporate overlords or gatekeepers to satisfy, there is still a budget to be considered, and that budget is what Dawn and I are capable of bringing forth in a timely manner. Writing “we open on a town where hundreds of people are going about their business in the Weird New West” is easy for me to do, but unless I happen to be working with Sergio Aragonés it’s probably not going to fly in the art stage, particularly if there’s a short time limit involved. And even if I was working with Sergio Aragonés then I probably shouldn’t tell him “I want this done in a photo-realistic style.” He might do his best to try, consummate professional that he is, but that ain’t how he usually rolls.

There’s a case to be made for stretching limits and tackling challenges, of course, but do your best to find out the strongs and not-so-strongs of your partner(s) and keep them in mind, and while at it keep in mind that life loves getting in the way as well. Art is never free from compromise, but arguably it’s the end result of those compromises that truly makes it art.

This past weekend at Long Beach Comic Con we tabled next to a gentleman who was relatively new to the exhibiting scene and he had plenty of questions for us since we seemed like veterans.

Well okay, I guess after almost nine years we aren’t really spring chickens at this. Hardly experts, either, but it just reminds me how much everyone still hobnobs with each other about best practices.

Now our neighbor didn’t bring this up in particular, but one aspect of tabling at conventions that’s a continuous concern is load-ins and load-outs and trying to make those run as smoothly as possible. And for this blog I’m just going to take a minute and basically be an advertisement if you’re thinking of joining the hallowed ranks, or you have joined the ranks but are still struggling with efficient schlepping of your stuff. This little guy right here is awesome:

Pictured above (including handy Amazon link, but you can find it elsewhere as well) is the Magna Cart Flatform 300 lb Capacity Four Wheel Folding Platform Truck, and it is the bee’s knees. We don’t know how we’ve gotten along without it all this time. I suppose poorly. We’re strongly considering getting another, and at about $50-$70 retail that’s well within budget.

It is something that seems too good to be true, and yet it’s been living up to its hype. Lightweight, low-priced, sturdy, and it folds up beautifully for easy storage under even a tiny convention table. Yep, those wheels collapse, but thankfully only when you choose to have them do so. They’re also cushiony and thick enough to handle a bit of rough terrain (though I’m talking cobblestones or rough asphalt there, not true offroading), and the padded handle is comfortable to push and pull.

But the best feature is one we didn’t even realize until it was delivered. There are labels on it that clearly show you how to extend and collapse the cart, and I can’t stress enough how nice that is to have the first few times you use it, to say nothing of coming back to it after a long break or just being too damn tired to think much.

It’s got its limits in terms of platform size and carrying weight, but for the average Artist’s Alley or Small Press denizen, it’s like it was tailor made just for our needs. If you don’t got one, I say get one. Your back, your brain and your sweat glands will all thank you.

“It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights!

It’s time to get things started on the Muppet Show tonight!”

It’s a refrain that has echoed down through my memories, and Jim Henson is to blame. Oh, no doubt he had scores of collaborators and enablers and fellow travelers along the way, not the least of which was his wife Jane who did indeed help “get things started” way back with their first TV puppeteering show, Sam and Friends, in 1955. After that came commercials, Sesame Street (50th anniversary next year!), The Muppet Show, and then cult movie classics like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. And honestly that’s just the most well known output.

This last weekend Dawn and I managed to get ourselves out to the Jim Henson Exhibition on its last day at its (relatively) local Los Angeles location, and passing through in some ways made me sad all over again at his sudden and untimely passing in 1990. I’ll be honest, there are a lot of celebrity deaths that haven’t really impacted me much. Henson was an ouch. Looking at the exhibition’s pictures of him in the year he died, at barely over half century old, I saw a man still smiling, still working, still full of life and energy and imagination. He was 53. By that reckoning I would have eight years left.

But man, what a career. What a legacy. I still don’t know a huge amount about his personal life, but Henson never seemed to suffer from the imposter syndrome that plagues a lot of creatives. He knew he was talented and he knew he had good things to offer the world, but never went full Kanye (never go full Kanye). He worked his employees hard but stayed friends with them as well, sharing credit wherever credit was due. He navigated the adult world like a boss but remained a child at heart.

As creative role models go, you could do a lot worse than Jim Henson. Nearly twenty years after he’s gone, he’s still inspiring. Still getting things started. And we can all be happy about that.