"In Gratitude" seems a bit presumptuous, no?

By now you’ve probably heard the news that DC has decided to release prequels to the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons miniseries, Watchmen, in the form of 7 new miniseries with 34 total issues. If you’re counting, that almost triples the number of issues in the original series.

DC has certainly put A-list writers and artists on these books. Brian Azzarello has made his career on telling stories about gritty, semi-moral (at best) characters, so he seems to be a good fit for the Rorschach and The Comedian series. Darwyn Cooke has previously shown his love for 1950s era heroes, so he seems like a great choice for Minutemen and Silk Spectre. While I’m not a big fan, I can understand why DC chose to use J.Michael Straczynski on Watchmen’s Batman and Superman analogues Nite Owl and Dr Manhattan.

The artistic talent is as top notch as the writing talent:  Amanda Conner, Adam and Andy Kubert, JG Jones, Darwyn Cooke, and Adam Hughes–all artists with amazing illustrative chops. On paper, these miniseries look like slam-dunks, but even if the books are executed in top form, I can’t help but feel uneasy about the decision that DC made to do these comics in the first place.  I just don’t see the need for it. Sure, I could be a typical raging nerd and grouse about how this is all about DC and Time Warner wanting to make money, and I’m sure that figures highly into their calculation, but a financial need is not what I’m talking about.  Where is the need in regards to the story?

What stories were left untold in the original miniseries? Why should I care about these characters outside of their original raison d’être–they were cyphers that allowed Moore and Gibbons to examine what heroes were, are and will be?  They’re not characters like Superman or Batman that will forever fight never-ending battles. The characters in Watchmen had a finite purpose and I don’t see the need to tell the stories behind the motivations that Moore and Gibbons already carefully crafted.

I could be wrong. These comics may not only fit into Watchmen canon seamlessly, but also give the original series a heretofore unknown depth, and if they do, I’ll gladly read them.  But I also once thought the same thing about the Star Wars prequels.

I owned these. My prequel disappointment pain is REAL.

From there we moved on to the Drink ‘n Draw held at Cyrus O’Learys pies where we were joined by Backroom Comics Eastern Washington specialist, Chris Walker and where people were in fact drawing and so we focused on handling the drinking end of the phrase. While conversations from that night will remain forever fragmented in my mind, some of the fine topics discussed were: the death of Randy “Macho Man” Savage, celebrity impressions (Ray Romano, Barney Rubble, and Kermit the Frog were some thrown out), the invention of a snack called the spaghetti taco, why Depeche Mode is a better band than you realize, and the fact that you probably shouldn’t let 4 year olds play Red Dead Redemption.

As the Drink ‘n Draw wrapped up and the night was still fairly young, we moved on to another libation locale as to continue the evening’s festivities. To be truthful, I don’t remember too much of any conversation here. I know there was some but, for the life of me can’t remember. Maybe something involving hula hoops and most likely something involving the love of comics. Oh, and it was all pretty charming and well phrased I’m sure. In any case, we made it to last call. Good for us. Or so you’d think. After returning to the hotel to retire for the evening it became clear that sleep would not be coming so quickly for me but, the return of my dinner would be. 2am to 5am were not my best hours. Ugh. Somehow Chris managed to sleep through the whole debacle. I’m still not sure how that happened.

Saturday morning found the hotel parking lot filled with about 20 DeLoreans. Surreal for sure but also epically amazing. Now joined by Backroom Comics Jetsetter Kevin Malcolm, off we went to the Con to ply the crowd with our witty tales and terrible sketches.

We must have handed out over a hundred terrible sketches to some very kind and appreciative folk (check out Facebook photo album for pics!) and had a blast. There were some amazing costumes… people dressed as all kinds of various Lanterns (not just Green but, Blue, Orange, Red, Yellow, and so on), Cobra Commander, Boushh, Dr. Horrible, Captain America (the First Avenger), and so many more. If that wasn’t enough there were deals to be had on comics for sure (A list of comics purchased is down below) and lets not forget the writers and artists and creators there that really slam dunked the event into the basketball hoop of awesomeness. . Aaaaaand, while some dingus pulled the fire alarm which forced all to step outside for a moment or two (and you know how nerds hate sunlight), the ‘Con just continued with the same all-for-one and one-for-all spirit until we were let back in.

We wrapped up the night back at the hotel doing an round robin style group interview with Brandon Jerwa, Eric Trautmann, Mark Rahner, Colton Worley (Kato Origins), and Matt Southworth discussing the world of comics, our place in it, dream jobs, business models, and so much more. All of which is set to be an upcoming episode so watch for it to appear soon. I have to say for as long as I have been involved with this Podcast and the amount of episodes we have filmed and interviews that we have done, this night is easily in the top 5 for sure.

A great weekend and a great Con for sure. I’ve already marked my calendar for next year and hope to see you there.

-Pete and The Backroom Comics Podcast

Go to http://www.facebook.com/#!/BackroomPodcast to see photos and more.

Comics Purchased (and all fromn the 3 for a $1 bin too!):

Rom – #2, 5, 6, Annual 2 and Annual 3

Boris The Bear -#1, 2, 6, 7, 11 – 17

Ripley’s Believe It or Not  – #59 and 66

Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – #7

Battlefield Action – #50

Rust – #1

Alf – Super-sized Spring Special and Super-sized Holiday Special

The Shadow – #13 and 16

Wacky Squirrel – Halloween Adventure

This past Saturday night, at the 15th annual PRISM Awards, DC Comics was honored for their accurate portrayal of mental health/drug issues in two of their titles (Justice League: Rise of Arsenal and Greek Street).

Which, sure, I guess.  If it is accurate that when you’re depressed and do some heroin, you will think a dead cat is your daughter.  Also, that you will hit someone with it. 

Look, even if DC has a comic title that portrays mental health well, they should forfeit recognition in penance for forever associating evil with mental illness in every Batfamily book, ever.

1. The continuation of $3.99 comics, while DC has almost universally reduced their titles to $2.99.  Sure, you’ve reduced prices on new titles, Marvel, but main titles like Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man, Uncanny X-Force, and Captain America stand at nearly four bucks a pop.  And if that wasn’t bad enough…

2. Print and Digital Comics at the same price! I thought The Death of (Ultimate) Spider-Man sounded dumb to begin with (and with Mark Millar’s involvement, I was guaranteed not to read it), but when it was announced that print and digital versions would both be $3.99, I nearly fucking exploded.  How greedy are you, Marvel?  I don’t buy that it costs that much to release day-and-date, especially since you don’t have to pay for printing, shipping, distribution, etc?  Makes me sick.  It just comes off as greedy, man.

3. Cancellation of Great Titles! I never read Thor: The Mighty Avenger, but from what I understand, I’m an idiot for not reading it yet. [Yes, yes he is.  --Ed.]  When Marvel announced they were canceling it due to poor sales, it sparked a campaign to save it!  And at the same time, Marvel puts out tons of superfluous minis, tie-ins, and multiple titles per character (Seriously, how many Spider-Man titles do we really need?), while titles widely-recognized as great and excellent and special etc, etc are thrown out and abandoned.  I just don’t get it.

4. More Crossovers and Events! This is just annoying to me.  What happened to the so-called “Heroic Age?”  Didn’t Marvel say they would move away from giant events and crossovers in favor of more self-contained arcs?  (Seriously, didn’t they?  Correct me if I’m wrong).  But now we have Fear Itself. I love Matt Fraction, but I’m sorry, Fear Itself #1 sucked. I don’t care about how Marvel superheroes would deal with the unstable political climate.  I’m sorry, I just don’t.  I know Marvel has always tried to make their characters relatable and such, but when a giant Red Skull tries to destroy Washington DC and Iron Man has a suit that seeps through his skin, I think we’ve lost any glimpse of relatability.  I know that Marvel isn’t the only one who constantly does crossovers and that it’s a fact of life in mainstream comics (is Brightest Day over yet?), but when there doesn’t even seem to be a story to tell, what’s the point?

What happened, Marvel?  I just don’t feel the love anymore.

Not hating Jason Todd is, as you can imagine, quite disconcerting, so I have been combing through back issues to remind myself how much of a whiny douchebag he really is.  While flipping through my shelves, I recalled that JTodd was in Bruce Jones’ arc on Nightwing.  I vaguely remembered the storyline as: Nightwing Moves Back To New York Where Jason Todd Is Also Dressed As Nightwing Except He Murders Criminals and Then They Both Bang The Same Chick, But Not At The Same Time.

Turns out, there’s more.  So very much more.  I have absolutely no clue how this information could possibly have slipped my mind.  I’ll just give you the highlights:

• Jason Todd, dressed as Nightwing, fights Dick Grayson, also dressed as Nightwing.
• Dick becomes a male model.
• The fashion designer makes Dick wear a Nightwing-inspired outfit on the runway.
• Jason Todd, wearing a suit-and-tie, fights with Dick, wearing his Nightwing-inspired outfit.  ON THE RUNWAY.
• Later, a tentacle monster swallows Jason, throws him up and then encases Jason in a pukeball of suspended animation.
• Dick, dressed as Nightwing, is joined by the fashion designer, now also dressed as Nightwing, go to save Jason, who IS STILL DRESSED AS GODDAMN NIGHTWING.
• They bust Jason out of the pukeball and it turns out the goop gave him tentacle powers too and JASON TODD TURNS INTO A TENTACLE MONSTER AND SWALLOWS TWO DUDES.

This is not a 4chan-induced fever dream.  This all happened.  If you don’t believe me, you can check it out–the issues are collected in Nightwing: Brothers in Blood.

On the other end of the spectrum are the utter failures: books that are either so terrible that nobody wants to read them or are neglected to the point where nobody knows they exist. While this is a common tale, I don’t think as many creators make a full-on effort, print a ton of books and fail utterly as you might think. I DO think that many projects never get off the ground, but that’s another issue…

The question IS, however, what about the middle ground between those two extremes? What about books that don’t bomb, but also won’t pile up cash like you are hitting the lottery? Why don’t people discuss THAT eventuality more frequently?

Today’s lesson in Failure is: Nothing Can Be As Crushing As Moderate Success.

Here is the hard truth of Comics- the overwhelming majority of Comic Book ideas are destined to appeal to a numerically small group of people. What I mean by that is that while X-Men may sell 100,000 copies in a given month, most Comics are considered Indy “hits” if they sell 3% of that or even less. While several thousand copies sold SOUNDS great, there is a huge gray cloud attached to that silver lining of success.

Can you make some Buzz for yourself selling, say, 3000 copies of an independent, self published book? 100% you can and you probably will if the people who bought those 3000 copies liked what they read. The problem is, however, that 3000 copies doesn’t end up yielding you all that much cash in hand even if you are a 1 man show and don’t have to split anything. What is more important to note, however, is that getting those 3000 copies sold means that you now have several thousand readers who want to know when the NEXT book will be out. By achieving moderate success, you are being made to promise that another book will be forthcoming… and unless you find some way to increase issue to issue readership (something that even Marvel & DC have trouble doing on flagship books) you do so facing the prospect of doing that against declining numbers.

What ends up happening for most Indy creators is one of 3 things- Some quit doing their own projects all together, some continue on doing them and look to make those projects “successful enough” to be “worth it,” and the rest make their personal projects somewhat of a “Passion.”

For those of you who opt to quit your Creator Owned projects- you honestly are better off doing so. Honestly, I have had a number of people bail on me over the years on projects I have worked on, and in every case I have had to shelve those projects. While there are always reasonable logical thoughts behind these decisions & none of those guys in any way suck or are bad people, I think it’s important to be firm. If you want to do a Creator Owned project and you have time to waste during the week, you have time to work on your project. The point you have to come to is that YOU really don’t WANT to do it, and just move on… because if you go into the Creator Owned arena expecting to pay mortgages and car payments with your “profits,” you most likely will be disappointed. Doing your own Creator Owned Comic HAS to be a passion and everything else should be somewhat gravy or you are looking for disappointment. If you know that’s not happening, quit now and avoid the heartache.

For those who are looking to take your moderate success and build it into “Mega Success,” I can say you have a huge, difficult road ahead. Not an impossible road, but a very difficult one. The key, as always, is what you consider “successful enough to be worth it.” If that means 1 book that pays all your bills, hopefully it’s a very long-term goal… but if you have more modest goals in mind, it’s definitely less of a pipe dream. What kind of goal is “realistic?” Honestly, I can’t give you a general statement on that because I don’t have all the knowledge of your project and how it’s doing. But what I can say is if your goals are 100% financial, then it is much harder to achieve than goals that include other factors.

Some, for example, have a specific story they want to tell… so for someone like that, maybe they feel a sense of accomplishment if they publish the full however many issues it takes to get to a satisfying end. Having a fan base that also wants to see you get to that end point and will continue to buy the issues as time goes on IS something you can cultivate and if that factors in to making a project “worth it” to YOU, then there is light at the end of the tunnel…

Everyone else who does a Creator Owned project will end up falling into the third category- those of us who treat our projects as a Passion. What I mean by this is, yes, you want your book to be successful but you are willing to put energy into it & see it through because you WANT to. In theses cases, you really should look at any “investment” of money, time or whatever else you put into a project in the same what that you do with the money you spend on buying a lottery ticket- no reasonable person EXPECTS to hit the lottery. You HOPE you will & will be VERY happy if that happens… but when you give that dollar to the lottery agent, you look at it as spent.

And if you want to be happy and do Creator Owned work in Comics, I honestly think you need to look at what you are willing to spend in terms of money or time or whatever else you put into it and do it for the trade-off of enjoyment that doing Comics will bring you. And if doing Comics and interacting with other creators and all the other things involved aren’t something that you feel are WORTH that trade-off, then you need to join the first group of quitters and give up. But if you DO enjoy those things, then you need to find the level that you can commit to and work within that…

So the Failure in this is really not knowing yourself and whether your expectations fit into the reality of moderate success. If you aren’t honest with yourself or if you try to “overachieve,” you may be setting yourself up for a huge fall….

Today’s lesson in Failure is: Don’t Wait To Be Good Enough.

To fill in the blanks- Henry is an 86 year old gentleman who, according to what he told me, wanted people on my Twitter to know he “dates Supermodels,” follows Charlie Sheen (to scare himself sober) and is “a pimp but not on Mondays.” He moved to Newark from the Dominican Republic when he was a child, married his grade school sweetheart and lived a pretty normal life until he was 60.

According to Henry, on the day before his 60^th birthday, he went to see a doctor because he had a slight headache that just wouldn’t go away. The doctor gave him all sorts of scans and tests and found that he had a cancerous tumor pressing on his medulla oblongata and which, according to the doctor, only needed to grow another 1% in order to kill him. He saw every specialist they could find, and every one told him the same thing- Henry was 60 years old and was given mere weeks to live.

He got that diagnosis 26 YEARS ago, and every time he went to the doctor he was told the same thing… all it needs to do is grow just the tiniest bit and he would die. According to Henry, the first year was hell; he was super careful what he ate, what he did, where he went… he was mindful every moment of every day that his next breath might be his last and that paralyzed him with fear.

Here’s the thing about Henry, though- he got to a point where he said to himself, “if I am going to die, I might as well enjoy myself.” He started off slow- eating spicy Dominican foods again, having a shot of Gin in his Morning OJ (“A Tribute to that rapper, Snoopy,” He told me.) and having a good time with his grandkids. When none of that killed him, he tried riding a motorcycle for the first time, and followed that by skydiving and taking a trip to Vegas where he discovered, “They have shows where naked girls sing to you at lunchtime… Never saw that in my hometown!” In fact, Henry kept trying things and living his Life and outlived a lot of people- including the doctor who first gave him weeks to live!

When I was at Emerald City Comic Con, I spoke to a lot of aspiring Comics people. I say “aspiring,” because many of them were stuck in the same predicament that Harry found himself in at 60 years old- not that they were going to die, but that they were somehow paralyzed by an idea and left with a feeling that something bad would happen should they do the “wrong” thing. Many of the people I spoke to were waiting for their Writing or their Art skills to somehow “improve” so that they could start doing Comics once their abilities were “good enough.” Just like Harry, however, they were well intentioned but actually wasted precious time by NOT acting right then and there.

I don’t want to stretch the metaphor too thin and leave you with the idea that there is ANY “Life & Death” similarities between having terminal Cancer and making Comics, but what I DO want you to think about is something I have said dozens of times in this column and will probably say dozens of times again… and that is the way to improve at Comics is to MAKE Comics just like the way to enjoy Life is to LIVE your Life.

Here is the real thing that talking to Henry left me with- the dude didn’t know all the current lingo or everything that was going on in today’s culture, but he was willing to give almost anything a look. His attitude was to try something and to feel his way through life, even at 86. As creators, we often have this feeling that we should never let “The World” see our Comics until they are “ready,” but I am not 100% sold on that after chatting with Henry. Sure, editing and going through a process is important, but it’s also important to try something and let the chips fall where they may. Truth be told, a lot of what ended up being printed in Robot 13 was Daniel and I experimenting with things and trying something we never tried before. Could it have crashed and burned? Like the Hindenburg! But if we never gave something a shot and got some feedback from it, how would we know if it was worth repeating?

One guy told me at ECCC that he was having some anatomy drawing issues and he wanted to get all that squared away before he sat down to make Comics. Very admirable that this guy is committed to Craft, but what would happen if he just made a Comic anyway? He’d have a Comic that had some funky looking hands and feet in it, but he’d also have a FINISHED Comic.  And to be clear- if the finished product isn’t all that great, I am not saying run off a huge print run and try soliciting that Comic through Diamond, but there are many ways far short of that kind of undertaking that will get your Comics in front of people.

A while back I made the statement that everyone’s first Comics tend to Suck, and I still believe that. There is always improvement and progression and a sense of things getting better that (if you are any good at all) make your early work look crappy by comparison with what you are doing now. And I think that holds true if you are making Mini-Comics in your basement or if you are George Perez- everyone can find flaws in their older work. What you miss out, however, by not working THROUGH that and waiting until your Art “arrives,” is the enjoyable process of growth that doing something like Comics gives you. When I look at older stuff I have done, I see how far I come and I cringe a bit… but I also look back and remember the enjoyment I had of creating those Comics.

And THAT, my friends, is where the FAIL is. It’s not that “The World” is somehow missing out- it’s that YOU are. And yea, you run the risk of putting out a “bad” Comic or two, but you also will find quickly what works and what doesn’t. And there is NO guarantee that when you “perfect” your skills that the resulting Comic will be any good anyway, because a “good” Comic is more than the sum of it’s parts- it’s about the energy and the vibe and the storytelling ability of it’s Creators as much as it’s about raw skill. So do what you want- Henry and I are going out for drinks, because as Harry said, “Today ain’t Monday!”

That’s it for me and the blog today, folks, but there is more ECCC goodness yet to come.  The Podcast crew has been busy with interviews today–Jeph Jacques, Ian Boothby, Danielle Corsetto, Ron Marz and more.  Keep checking the site and Facebook for interview uploads.

The convention ends in one hour, so that gives me 60 whole minutes of money-wasting time.  To the piles of cheap comics!