Small Press Interview: Chris Maverick

I met Chris Maverick (Mav to his friends) as a customer at Phantom of the Attic, the comics shop I work at, close to fifteen years ago. Over that time we've become friends. Mav works on a pretty amazingly wide-range of creative projects. He writes, he draws, he is a photographer, as well as one of the most prolific Bloggers in my personal circle of friends. In this interview he describes himself as "the hardest working lazy man in the world" and it's a pretty apt description.

Mav works with artist Max Bajzek on Cosmic Hellcat Adventures. You can read more about Max and see his art at http://max1975.deviantart.com/ or listen to his music at http://shutterdownmusic.com/history.html

In the meantime, here's my interview with Mav.

• Tell us a bit about your comics and where they are available.

Well, my main comic is called Cosmic Hellcat Adventures. It's a webcomic with a yearly print collection. It's about 4 catgirls (along with their robot sidekick) who are a military unit of adventurers, traveling through space on their artificially intelligent smartship. So you know, pretty run of the mill stuff. Actually, it's intended to be a spoof of about a dozen different things, but obviously manga and Star Trek are in there pretty heavily. You can read it at http://www.cosmichellcats.com. Right now it updates 3 days a week, new storyline entries on Mondays and Thursdays and then on Saturday, there's a weekly joke strip with the same characters that's kind of set outside of the storyline. You can also buy the book collections there.

There are also a couple spin-off projects that are print only. Science Ninja Action Team Cosmic Hellcats: IX, which actually predates the webstrip, and introduces all of the main characters.

Then there's Katt & Dawg, which is a Sin City spoof which is much more adult and R rated (Hellcats is strictly PG-13) than my normal strip. It's about a former Hellcat who quit the team and went to work as a detective and bounty hunter on a planet full of dog people. She's teamed up with her boyfriend who is a 9 foot tall dogman with a really bad attitude. So this is my chance to really push boundaries and do kind of a film noir kinda thing while still being funny and trying to be entertaining.

And then there's Tactics Espionage and Defense Directorate Intergalactic Justice Advocates: µ (or Teddijam for short). This is my super-action-spy story staring a team of SHIELD inspired super spies, who just happen to be teddy bears. They're in the same universe, and like Katt and Dawg were introduced in the main Hellcats strip. I'm working on this one now, but it should be done soon.

All the print comics are available for order through IndyPlanet.com and linked to from the Cosmic Hellcats website.

• Why comics?

Why not? Mostly because I love them. I've been a fan all my life and it's something I've just always wanted to do. I like telling stories and comics provides a way of doing certain things that I can't really do in regular fiction writing or even in movies. It really is a special art medium and I really enjoy playing around with some of it's concepts in the story. Of course most of the little details and tweaks I do are probably lost on 99% of people, but you don't really need to notice them to follow the story and it's always nice when someone happens to point out one to me and I'm like "YES! He gets it!"

• Who have been your biggest influences, both in writing and in art?

Wow, this literally changes from week to week. I'm just ridiculously impressionable, so it really depends on what I last looked at, read or watched. As a general rule, I found Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics series to be highly influential in the way I think about comics, but not necessarily in the style I write or draw. I tend to think pretty cinematically, so there's a lot of movie humor and story structure in the way I write. I tend to be very into character based drama rather than story based and I'm a big fan of classic writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald all the way to TV/Movie writers like Joss Whedon and Ronald Moore. In all their cases character development is way more important than the story that's progressing, not that the stories are bad, but it's what I try to think about when writing.

Same thing with art, it changes very often. But growing up I was a constant huge fan of Roy Lichtenstein & Patrick Nagel and later Dennis Mukai and Jennifer Janesko. All four of those people are obviously know for women primarily, but they're all very sketchy and expressive. It's more about getting an emotion or a feeling across with the lines than it is about being photo realistic.

If we want to put this in comic terms, then the lists of people who I find influential end up including some pretty obvious names, Kirby, Lee, Alan Moore, Frank Miller. And maybe some unobvious ones like Mark Gruenwald and Bruce Timm (who I mention particularly because I characterize him in that same group as the four painters I mentioned)

• What are your favorite comics (whether you consider them influential on your style or not)?

First let me just get Watchmen out of the way. Everyone should read Watchmen. If you haven't read Watchmen, quit reading this right now. Go read Watchmen and then come back when you're done.

Ok, hi again. Let's continue…

Well, it depends on my mood. No surprise I'm drawn to ensemble books with long continuously evolving growing mythologies where character development is more important than the story, so I've always been a fan of the X-books and of the Teen Titans. At least up until both of their most recent revamps. I'm still reading both of those books, but they're starting to lose me. Similarly, I was a big fan of Birds of Prey for a long time, and the New 52 killed that for me (IWillNotRantIWillNotRantIWillNotRantIWillNotRantIWillNotRant). Another good example is John Byrne's Next Men. I've stuck with that for a long long time. I'm currently enjoying Morning Glories a lot. To reach back and look at a book that no one but me ever read, David Campiti and Bill Mumy's Lost in Space. Loved it! That may explain a lot about Hellcats right there.

• Have you studied art or writing in college, or are you self-taught?

I went to Carnegie Mellon University and graduated with a double major in creative writing and literary and cultural studies and a minor in art, so that probably explains why I tend to think of stuff the way I do with comics. I'm always looking for hidden undertones and scholarly ideals in the text and art. Really, I guess that makes me a huge nerd… but an educated nerd!

• What’s your normal process for creating your comic?

For the main comic, I write an outline of what I want to do over the course of a year and then I write short panel breakdowns of what I want the first 10-20 episodes to be and then I send them to Max, the artist on Cosmic Hellcat Adventures. This gives him a chance to modify stuff if he has a good idea and get his feedback in and then he sends me the inked pages which I color and letter. I generally write the actual script as I'm lettering. This gives us some time to collaborate and makes the story almost as much his as it is mine. Sometimes by the end of the story arc, some minor visual detail that he tossed in can end up changing the whole direction of the story. It's fun like that. I like to think it's very Lee and Kirby.

For Katt and Dawg, which I drew as well as wrote, I actually just did a script for myself from the beginning, complete with dialogue that I knew I'd be able to change as I went along. Same thing for the Teddijam story I'm working on now.

• How do you promote your work?

Not well enough. We pay for banner ads in places. We have a Twitter feed (@cosmichellcats) and a Facebook page. I tell people about it. And we go to comic book conventions a few times a year. Really, promotion is the hardest part. I honestly don't expect to get rich (though it'd be nice, so everyone go to my website and buy a copy or 50 dammit) but I do want to spread the stories farther, get more feedback and make enough money that I don't go broke doing this. Oh yeah, and unlike most indy comics, I have hot cosplay models. So if you check out the site or come see us as con icons, you'll see girls in the sexy costumes from time to time. Hey, I might not be the best at promotion, but I know sex sells!

• What do you enjoy most about being a comics creator?

Telling the stories. I know it sounds hokey to say, and you've probably heard this come out of the mouths of a million artists in any medium from comics to painting to writing to acting to singing, but I really don't know how to not do this. Telling stories is just kind of what I do. There's stuff swirling around in my head, and like any other artist, I've got just enough vanity and audacity to think that other people out there actually give a damn about what I have to say. And also, like every other artist I have just enough lack of self-esteem that I really need to know what they think in order to have self-validation and not jump off a bridge. So that's the reason I write and draw and even tweet random stuff everyday (@chrismaverick).

• What do you find most difficult about being a comics creator?

The time. It's a labor of love, but a labor nonetheless. Hellcats is something I've been doing for 4 years now. And basically it's a second job. It takes about as much time as my real job, sometimes more, and it's not profitable. In fact, sometimes it ends up costing me money. So really it's the the love of the whole thing that keeps me going.

• What's more important to you: Telling a story or pushing the bounds of comic book art?

Definitely telling a story. At least for me. A couple reasons, one, all of the stuff I spouted above about how I think about stories and fiction in general, and two, I personally believe I'm a much stronger writer than I am an artist. Its just what I'm more interested in. I mean, I'm really happy when I have a particularly good looking or moving piece of art, and I'm really happy when someone says they like something, but I'm driven much more by the writing aspect of it.

• Why self publish instead of submitting your work to the majors?

Well, the stories I'm interested in right now are mine. I'd love to write Spiderman one day. Or Justice League. But Hellcats was a very specific idea that I wanted to tell and I wanted it to be mine. Yeah, it'd be great if I had the power of Disney or Warner Brothers behind me selling the book, but I wanted to own it, I wanted full control and I had something unwrapping in my head that I wanted to make work. Also, I'm kind of lazy. In fact, I may be the hardest working lazy man in the world.

• What are your long-term goals with comics?

I'd love it if could support me, but I'm not holding my breath. Really I just want to be able to tell good stories that I enjoy writing and would enjoy reading and hope that as many people read them as possible. Like I said before, artists are notoriously self-conscious. So we totally need feedback from the masses in order to feel like our lives are not empty and meaningless. Do please, read my comic, write us and let us know what you think. I mean you wouldn't want to see me jumping off a bridge would you.

• Where can you be found you on the web if anyone wants more info?

The comics's website is http://cosmichellcats.com. And there's a twitter account of @cosmichellcats. You can also follow me, individually at @chrismaverick or write me at mav@cosmichellcats.com (or both Max and I at feedback@cosmichellcat.com)

Libraries

I've been thinking about libraries recently, and how grateful I am that they exist. Reading and books are such a major part of my life that I simply can't imagine a world where they weren't readily available.

I grew up in the country. The grade schools I went to in first through third grade (in Nineveh and Rogersville, PA respectively), were small community schools. In Nineveh there were only three classrooms and three teachers for six grades. First and second grade kids shared a room and a teacher, as did third and fourth, and fifth and sixth. Neither of these two schools were big enough for an actual library. One day a week the Bookmobile would show up. This was the traveling library for the entire school district and I assume it spent the rest of the week at other grade schools. It was essentially a large motor home lined with bookshelves and books.

The librarian was a wonderful woman by the name of Mary Berryman. She was small built, with gray hair, catseye glasses, and a sweater held on by clasps. I know how amazingly cliché this description sounds, but it is the truth. When I was six I thought she was old, but she continued as the district grade school librarian well past the time I graduated college, so my perceptions are a little skewed.

As I've said elsewhere on this blog, I learned to read, mostly from comic books, well before I began first grade. Mom is an avid reader and instilled her love of books in me very early. Library day was my favorite day of the week.

I'm not exactly sure of the chronology of this, but I also remember the Library came to our community during the summer months as well, for a summer reading program. It's possible I went to the Bookmobile before I actually started school. Mom tells me that once when she took me I chose the books I wanted and when I took them to check out Mrs. Berryman asked my Mom if they weren't a little too advanced for me. Mom said they were what I wanted, and if they were too advanced, well then, there was something for me to learn from them. She continues the story that when we returned the books I couldn't wait to tell Mrs. Berryman all about them.

Mrs. Berryman guided thousands of students through the hallowed shelves of her library over the years, but I think it's accurate to say I was one of her favorite kids. Mom instilled my love of books. Mrs. Berryman and the school library facilitated my access to them in a way my family could never have afforded. I was voracious (still am).

Oddly enough, the first three real books (chapter books instead of stuff written primarily for kids), did not come from the library. Mom bought me a copy of the Howard Pyle version of The Adventures of Robin Hood. I inherited copies of both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn from my older brother. I had read all of these by the time I finished third grade.

By the time I entered fourth grade the school district had built a brand new school building in Graysville, PA and consolidated several of the smaller grade schools in this new location. Mrs. Berryman finally had a permanent home for her library, and for the first time I had access to one every day. I couldn't begin to tell you the number of books I read there.

In addition to the library we were periodically given a catalog from Scholastic (or the 1970's equivalent) that we could order books from. I remember getting several in this fashion, including my first copy of All In Color For A Dime, a collection of essays about comics of the Golden Age. This was probably my first, conscious knowledge of comic book history, and definitely my first exposure to the concept of comics scholarship (just as an aside... I loaned my copy of this to the Chatham student I'm advising this semester because one of the essays ties in specifically with the topic she is writing about for her thesis.)

My original copy, with this cover, is long gone.
A revised edition came out a few years ago.

In seventh grade I went to the West Greene High School building (there was no separate middle school then; grades seven through twelve all wandered the same halls and used the same facilities). Of course I very quickly made myself at home in the library there and became a very familiar face to the new librarian, Mrs. Hildreth. The books housed there were aimed at an older audience of course.

During my teen years, in addition to the books I read from the library, I began to buy a lot of cheap paperbacks: Westerns, spy novels, and men's adventure stories with guns and girls. They were the kind of books that were probably inappropriate for my age and certainly not available at the school library. Eventually I discovered Science Fiction and Fantasy and was somewhat redeemed.

During my last year in high school there was a day when the seniors went to work as an assistant with one of the grade school teachers and help with their classes. I couldn't think of anyone back at Graysville I would rather spend the day with than Mrs. Berryman. She proudly introduced me to her classes as someone she was proud of and who had a bright future, because as she told them, I had always read books.

Mary Berryman did eventually retire and lived a long life. She's gone now but shines in my memory as the absolute Platonic ideal of a Librarian.

During college and grad school I had access to libraries of course. I used them primarily for research and class projects, but there was always the reading for pleasure aspect of it. I read a lot of Hesse, Henry Miller, Proust, and Kerouac while at Edinboro.

Somehow though, once I was out of school, I simply didn't go to a library very frequently. I still read, but I was buying most of my material by that time. I felt like I needed to own everything I read. One of my high school teachers, Will Hinerman (more on him in another post), had a large library of books in his home. There were always books around when I was growing up, but I don't think the idea of a personal library ever crossed my mind until I saw his. It became a goal. To supplement the books I bought at the big chain stores and local book stores I haunted used book stores and flea markets. I suppose I have a little bit of the hoarder in me.

So over time I accumulated a lot of books, a fact that was brought home to me a couple of years ago when, for the first time in many years, I needed to move them.

I started going back to the library regularly when I started working in Oakland. The main branch of the Carnegie Library is around the corner from my store. Over time I have realized I don't need to own everything I read (I would already be out of room in my house if that were the case). I'm there frequently and take advantage of many of their services. I have come to know many of the librarians there, and they are all exemplars of the Berryman credo.

There are two people in my life who I consider close, dear friends who are librarians, one at the Carnegie and one at a university library far away. One of them tells me that every day in the stacks she hears the books sing to her and feels it is a sacred duty to take care of them. The other one refers to the library as a “Temple for the Secular Soul.” I love that they both use the language of the sacred to refer to what they do.

For most of recorded history the ability to read was reserved to a special few. It was one of the things only the very privileged ever learned. The idea of archiving the collected knowledge of the world, its history and its stories, is one of the greatest ideas in our history. Today, when the skill of reading is taught to everyone, I fear it is all too often taken for granted. The ability to read was kept from the lower classes, slaves specifically, in an effort to keep people uninformed and more easily controlled. Ideas can be dangerous things, especially to the status quo. Today, when information is at our fingertips, when the wisdom of the ages is readily available, far too many people choose to remain willfully illiterate. Books are gateways to other worlds, to other ways of thinking, to knowledge and wisdom, to entertainment and enlightenment and empowerment.

In a recent conversation with one of my librarian friends she told me that someone had accused her of reading too much. My immediate response was to say that there's no such thing as reading too much. This was based on my own belief that there are far more books I want to read than I will ever be able to read in my lifetime. After giving it some more thought I do want to amend my initial kneejerk reaction. It is possible to read too much if you never actually go out and have a life as well. Your life is your story; you are writing your own book every day. It should be filled with something other than reading. But reading provides guideposts and maps for the kind of life you want to live.

In spite of the pages I devour, I don't think I live to read.

I read to live.

4-Star Review for Scratch on Amazon

Another good review of my ebook Scratch appeared on Amazon.

4.0 out of 5 stars Terrific book!, January 26, 2012 By  Daniel Lee "Terry Lee" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Scratch (Kindle Edition) I found this book to be well written, with well defined, intriguing characters and a unique premise. Mr. Wise does a great job of keeping the story moving at a good clip, juggling various story lines, and making the fantastic seem entirely plausible. The book is very cinematic in its presentation, and played out in my mind's eye as a gripping film. This was a fun, engaging read, and I'm looking forward to lots more from this author, who reminds me of a young Stephen King. Don't mistake this analogy - Mr. Wise isn't a match (yet) for Mr. King in his prime, but he shows great promise and deals with similar themes.

Small Press Interview: Scott Hedlund

Scott Hedlund is a Pittsburgh-based small press comics artist. I first met Scott as a customer at Phantom of the Attic Comics and in the course of the last fourteen years we have become friends and artistic collaborators. Several years ago our mutual friend, writer Brian Babyok, asked if I would ink Scott's pencils on a comic called Chaos Punks. This was a project that was not only a lot of fun, but very seminal for me as well. After many years of not working on comics, this project got me back to the drawing table.


We worked at a rate of a page a week. Each Wednesday on new book day at the store Scott would bring me a new, completed page of pencils. I would return them, fully inked, a week later. This weekly deadline and expectation was a key for both of us in terms of production. Over the course of forty-eight weeks we both grew as artists and learned from each other.




Scott continues to grow as an artist and to work on a number of projects.

1) Tell us a bit about your comics and where they are available.

I like to draw a lot of different genres mainly because I'm interested in story-telling. I typically work with a writer on stories. I think it adds something to comic books to have more than one creative person's input on the project. I like to let the story influence me as far as page layouts and finishing techniques play out. This keeps me entertained and challenged to improve my work. Check out Weirdlings Press (www.weirdlings.com) for most of my comics. Some of the more notable projects that I have contributed to includes: Weirdlings, Chaos Punks, World of Orenda, and Fairhaven.

2) Why comics?

I love the art of telling a story. And drawing comics is one of the easiest forms of expression. I put pencil to paper and I am doing just that. It's very satisfying to me personally and I enjoy the community that goes on with other comic creators and comic fans in general.

3) Who have been your biggest influences, both in writing and in art?

Ron Frenz was my first favorite comic book artist with his run on Marvel's Star Wars comic. Later I got into John Romita Jr's Daredevil run. Nowadays I'm inspired by people like Terry Moore, Adam Hughes, Yanick Paquette, Edward Risso and Guy Davis. As far as writers go, I like Peter David on X-Factor, Jonathan Hickman on Fantastic Four, Mark Waid on the new Daredevil, Brian Azzarello on 100 Bullets and Wonder Woman, and Scott Snyder on SwampThing.

4) What are your favorite comics (whether you consider them influential on your style or not)?

Currently, my favorites include: Swamp Thing, X-Factor, The Walking Dead, Wonder Woman, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Ultimate Spider-Man, I, Vampire, Justice League Dark, Rachel Rising, Voodoo, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, FF. I don't even want to get in to past comics. There are too many!

5) Have you studied art or writing in college, or are you self-taught?

I went to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and received a degree in Visual Communications. Drawing comics though pretty much comes from "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" and then I went from there.

6) What’s your normal process for creating your comic?

I guess I answered some of this in question 1 as far as how stories come together. The actual drawing part starts with a script, finished or loose and I break down the script into thumbnail drawings. This part defines story-flow/pace, overall page layout, character positions and space for word balloons. I then move right up to the full-sized 11x17 page and draw in the details. I use reference when possible. A little bit of accuracy doesn't hurt but I am also conscious of keeping the lines loose and I try to avoid stiff poses. In the last year I have been inking and coloring using the Wacom: Cintiq 12 using Adobe Photoshop. Then I do the lettering in Illustrator and place it into the Photoshop file.

7) How do you promote your work?

I promote through social media and person to person. I cohost a Comic Book Podcast called the Comic Book Pitt (www.comicbookpitt.com) and I make sure to mention any comic projects that I am working on. I use Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Google+, and of course Weirdlings.com is where most of my work is on display. In person, I go to a handful of comic book shows every year. Whether it's as an exhibitor or fan; I always bring something to give away that mentions my next/current project and what website to go to for more information.

8) What do you enjoy most about being a comics creator?

I enjoy the story-telling and the community of comic shows. The friendships that I have developed through this common love of the medium are what give me purpose and satisfaction in life.

9) What do you find most difficult about being a comic’s creator?

Probably the long hours it takes to draw a story and the low return financially. I see so many artists that make an easy buck on pinups of established characters. 22 pages of sequential art carries a lower value than one slick image.

10) What's more important to you: Telling a story or pushing the bounds of comic book art?

Ha! Probably telling the story, since I keep blabbing on about it! I think the art should serve the story, but there is an infinite amount of ways to push what works artistically and still tell the story.

11) Why self-publish instead of submitting your work to the majors?

Honestly I don't see myself succeeding in the professional market. There is a consistency of quality while maintaining a grueling schedule that I don't think I can live up to. Maybe I'm just a realist.

12) What are your long-term goals with comics?

I don't have any long term goals beyond next summer's comicon season. I have a few books that need printed. I will be working on a new story in the New Year and I'm excited about drawing it!

13) I've personally seen your work improve dramatically in the past few years. It seems like there was suddenly a point where you made a quantum leap in ability. What do you think happened to make this take place?

Thanks Wayne! That means a lot to me. I could name a few things that happened. I think our team-up on Chaos Punks helped me to improve my line work. Drawing for an inker is a whole other mindset than drawing something that I would ink myself. I also started using some photo references to get the character's looks and personalities down, as well as settings. It could also just be the volume of pages that I have drawn over the years and I finally drew enough bad ones. Ha!

14) Where can you be found you on the web if anyone wants more info?

Most of what I have drawn can be found at Weirdlings Press (www.weirdlings.com). Also the Comic Book Pitt podcast (www.comicbookpitt.com) airs pretty regularly. Thanks Wayne!

This is a page from Chaos Punks, written by Brian Babyok,
pencils by Scott and inks by me.

Pencilled panel from Weirdlings

Finished inks and colors by Scott

Pencilled page from Weirdlings

Finished page

Finished page from Weirdlings

2011 – The Year in Review

So it seems that New Years is the time to take stock, to look forward by looking back. New Years Eve is an arbitrary demarcation that nonetheless makes most of us review where we've been and make ourselves promises about where we want to go.

If we're honest with ourselves, every year has its share of good and bad. I was surprised at how many posts I read on Facebook from people who were happy to say goodbye to a terrible year. It says something about our perception of events. Don't get me wrong... If you had personal tragedy in your life then the decision to try to move beyond it is a good one. I know lots of people who lost loved ones this year, or went through a divorce or a breakup, or lost a job, and if you are one of them, I am sorry. But these things happen every year. They will happen in 2012 as well. Maybe not to you, but to someone you love. Cycle of life and all that... The secret of looking back and taking stock is to come to terms with what the previous year has taught you about dealing with the issues life inevitably throws at us every year. Simply saying goodbye to what has gone before without making the changes we need to make only guarantees we will suffer many of the same misfortunes in the future.

I personally had a pretty good 2011 (and if you've been reading this blog regularly you might want to skip this part... it's a recap). Not that everything was perfect or that there weren't events I wish I could do differently.

The year started with my opportunity to teach at Chatham University You can read my blog about the experience HERE). Being a college professor, on some level at least, has been a long-time goal, and to finally realize that was a dream come true. But, it wasn't a dream that just fell into my lap. Part of this success of mine in 2011 was due to events I set in motion and work I had done in 2010 (and lots of the years of my life prior to that as well). It was a wonderful experience. One that I hope to get the chance to repeat, at Chatham or elsewhere. I'm not teaching this year, due more to budget constraints than any dissatisfaction with my performance. I'm disappointed because I did truly love the experience. But, if I want it badly enough, and do the work necessary, I will have the opportunity again. My association with Chatham continues, though. One of my students asked me to be on her advisory board for her senior thesis paper, and Chatham agreed to it. It's not a full class like last year, but I am still involved in comics academia, helping out a student I have a tremendous amount of belief in.

Two weeks into the semester the most difficult part of my year began. My mother went into the hospital, which led to an incredibly stressful and difficult month. My parents are both elderly. Dad turned 92 this year and Mom turned 89. Given their ages they are in amazing health, and I am aware, every day, of how lucky and blessed I am to have these amazing people in my life. Without going into a lot of detail, Mom went into the hospital to have a stint installed in a heart valve. That procedure went well, but while she was there she reacted very badly to some of the meds she was on. Her age and some other health considerations led to complications. She was in the hospital for a couple of weeks and then transferred to a personal care home for around three weeks. Eventually she went home and resumed her normal routine, and at the moment is in pretty good health. Much better than we would have guessed last spring, anyway.

But while it was going on, in the middle of my first month of teaching, it felt touch and go, and I have rarely been more frightened and sad.

The good and the bad, living side by side, day to day. Just like every year.

I turned 50 this year. It's still hard for me to believe this. I don't feel 50, at least not what people think 50 should feel like when they're younger. Maybe everyone feels that way. I know for some, this kind of milestone is cause for a mid-life crisis, but I felt good about the whole thing. We had a birthday party, mostly organized by my friend and roommate Marcel. It was amazing and humbling and a reminder of how blessed with friends I am. We don't have a specific head count, but somewhere around 80 people showed up, from many different phases of my life. Old friends from high school and my youth, as well as some fairly new friends. I felt embraced by love and camaraderie. It was a little overwhelming, and happy simply isn't an adequate word to describe my feelings that night.

But there was some melancholy as well. As many people as did show up, there were significant absences as well. A few of the most significant people in my life simply couldn't be there, for reasons I completely understand. I'm not upset with any of them for not making it. But their absence at the party reminded me of their absence in my day-to-day life. Once again, this is not meant as a complaint against any of them. Life has taken us to different places, and in most cases it is distance and life responsibilities that kept them away. We are still friends, and the core of our friendships remain. But there are still holes in my life where these people used to be. My feelings there simply boil down to “I miss you.”

I made new friends this year. I met people I really like and enjoy, some of whom may be significant people from this point on. New friends and new relationships have been a part of every year for me. I hope that continues every year. New friends don't fill the holes left by old friends, but they do expand my life and make it more full.

In August I went to Chicago for the first time (and spent time with one of those new friends). It was a great trip and reminded me I need to make the effort to travel at least a little more often than I usually do.

When I got back from the trip I was asked to host an event at the Toonseum, where I had the opprotunity to interview Jerry Robinson, creator of both the Joker and Robin, and one of the legendary pioneers of the comics industry (my blog on that experience is HERE). As it turns out, this may have been Jerry's last interview. I'm sad to report that Jerry died on December 7. Joe Simon, creator of Captain America, died a couple of weeks later. Tough year for comics legends.

The year has been creatively fulfilling for me. I wrote (and got paid for!) a couple of entries for an encyclopedia of comics. If you've been following my blog at all you know I jumped into the world of epublishing. In August I published three complete novels as ebooks, in formats compatible with Kindle, Nook and a variety of other ereaders (take a look at the sidebar for links to each of them, or you can read my blog post about it HERE). It has been a slow build, in terms of promotion, but I'm starting to get reviews (and a couple of small checks from Amazon). Obviously, I believe I write at a professional level, but it's nice to see that reflected in a couple of 5-star reviews.

That said, I spent so much time figuring out the ins and outs of the epublishing business that I didn't actually write as much as I had hoped. I came back to the manuscript for the second book in my Arthurian trilogy, and started a new project about comics that is part history, part academia, and part autobiographical commentary on the topic. Neither went as far as I had hoped. Somewhere around mid-October I hit a creative low-point and haven't really come out of it. It's frustrating, but I also recognize it as part of my life-long pattern of creativity, at least the production end of it. I hit the dead zone, and then spend some time beating myself up for it, which only makes things worse and leads to some depression. Eventually I remember that this is part of the process and just allow myself to lie fallow for awhile. The muse (and my discipline), will return. I just need to time to recharge. The upside of the creative low is that I've got a shit-ton of reading done, so that's always good.

At a holiday party this past Friday there was a little ritual where we were asked to write on a piece of paper the things we wished to say goodbye to in our lives: bad habits, attitudes, beliefs, whatever. We then burned the slip of paper. It's a nice physical manifestation of an interior wish (an act of magic). I had a really tough time coming up with something to write, and I don't know if I'm happy with what I chose. I've thought about it since, and have come up with a few better options. I want to let go of taking the impersonal whims of the universe personally. It's a Buddhist, “letting go of ego” thing. Not the ego that allows me to feel good about myself or my accomplishments, but the ego that makes me crazy about things and events that really have nothing to do with me.

But there are things I don't want to lose, even if they are difficult at times. I wrestle with my creativity, and that can frustrate the hell out of me. But the wrestling is part of the process that leads to good results. There are times I wish I could let go of some of the melancholy that wends its way through my heart, but melancholy, at least for me, is the minor chord of life that gives resonance and depth to everything else. I value my ability to feel, and that needs to embrace all feelings.

More important than what needs to be left behind is what I want to lie before me. I've never been much for New Year's resolutions. Most of them seem to be easily broken and, as a result, not taken seriously. It's not so much about what I want to accomplish in my life in 2012 as about what I hope to manifest for the rest of my life.

Let me nurture and value the family, friends and relationships I have while being open to cultivating new one.

Let me continue to wrestle with my muse and progress in my art, my writing, and my ability to live in a creative and fulfilling way, to be a laureate in the art of living.

Let me be a positive influence, mentor and role model to those around me who see me in that fashion.

Let me balance all that comes my way in the future, the good stuff and the bad, because life guarantees both of those things no matter what I do.

Let me be centered and act in ways that are consistent and rewarding to my innermost self, and let that authenticity in my life bring good things into the world around me and to those I love.

Happy 2012 to everyone. May it be a year that brings better understanding to us all.

Ready Player One

Last Monday on my lunch break around 1 PM , based on the recommendation of a number of friends, I picked up a copy of the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline from the Carnegie Library. I finished it around 11:30 that same evening. It was a quick read partly due to the writing style, but primarily because of the subject matter. For those who haven't heard of it, the following is the book description, lifted directly from the Amazon page.

“At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.”

It's a love letter to Geek Culture, very specifically Geek Culture of the 1980's. Not that it can't be enjoyed by someone younger. The setting is a World of Warcraft-like MMO, so anyone who plays modern video games can relate as well. But, for anyone who grew up at that time, listening to that music, watching those movies, and most importantly, standing in arcades playing coin-op video games, this book is a treasure trove of fun nostalgia and cultural touchstones.

I lost count of the obscure references that brought back memories for me. To solve the mystery/puzzle of the game world the characters need encyclopedic knowledge of a variety of Pop Culture topics. When a clue from the movie Bladerunner played a part I flashed back to the summer of 1982 when, working as an intern at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, my friend and mentor Doc Falhaber and I came out of a dark theater feeling drenched and claustrophobic. Thirty years later the oppressive atmosphere of a neon-lit corporate oligarchy has become real life (which, in the reality of the novel, is part of what has led to the state of the world in 2044).

A significant puzzle is solved by knowledge of the lyrics of 2112, the magnum opus from the 1976 album of the same name by the rock band Rush. But not just the lyrics. The original album liner notes included written narration between the various segments of the song. These were not a part of the song and only existed in print. I hadn't thought of that in years but I immediately flashed back to sitting next to my record player, giant headphones clamped over my ears, and reading along with the gatefold album sleeve spread across my lap.

But it was the video games that brought back the most. Though I've played a few, I'm not really a video gamer now (partly because I know how hooked I can get and I simply don't have time in my life... it's a conscious decision on my part to avoid an addiction). But I used to be. I pumped way too many quarters into video games in the 80's. I played them all. I spent hours in game rooms at various malls. There was a Defender machine at Balsalmo's Pizza in Waynesburg, and I got really good at it. A few years later the same game at a pizza shop in Edinboro had a ridiculously low threshold score for winning extra lives. I once walked away from it with over 40 lives left. I simply couldn't play any more.

At that same time Fred and I would make a weekly trip into Erie to get comics. There was a game at the Millcreek Mall called Ry-Gar that we were stupidly obsessed with.

In the book there is a passing mention of a game called Gorf. I actually laughed out loud at the reference, simply because that game is so tied into something that has become a giant part of my life that I had simply forgotten the original video game.

It's like this...

If you go back several posts in this blog you'll read about the origins of the comic Fred and I created, Grey Legacy. The first appearance of the character Shadowlock was in a series of short, comedy novellas we wrote. It was in the fourth book of the series, the only one I wrote the bulk of. The title was Alpha Atari, and a lot of the story was based on our shared obsession with video games at the time. While reading Ready Player One I couldn't help but think of our story. A universe that was based on these video games is something we had written close to thirty years ago. Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying we were ripped off, or that our efforts back then were in any way comparable to what Cline accomplished in this book. We weren't the only ones influenced by this in the 80's. DC Comics released an officially licensed series called Atari Force (with beautiful art by Jose Garcia-Lopez). I was vastly amused at the surface similarities though. Anyway, in our story our heroes, all based on ourselves and our friends of course, travelled to the planet Gorf and had wacky adventures there.

A few years later, when Shadowlock became an actual ongoing concern for us in comic book form, as an inside joke we named his home planet Gorph. That name survived when we changed the title of the book to Grey Legacy and changed our entire approach. On the very first page of the comic the character Lesterfarr begins school at Gorphtek University.

I reference it in the Brix comic and comic strips I did in the last couple of years. Gorph has become such a common setting in the universe Fred and I created for our comics that I had not thought of the actual origin of the name for many years.

One note of complaint about Ready Player One, and this comes very specifically from my comic book back ground.

In the novel there is a reference to an 80's era video game called Swordquest. The premise of the novel is that there is a puzzle hidden within the game world and the first person to solve it wins untold riches. Swordquest was an actual game with the same premise. The first person to solve the riddle of the video game would win a prize, the "Talisman of Penultimate Truth." This was an actual prize, created out of gold and jewels and valued at around $25,000 at the time. It was won by a guy from Detroit named Steven Bell. I played Swordquest once or twice. My friend David Ealy owned the game and I spent a couple of days at his house, playing the game and poring over the clues, many of which were contained in a comic book that came with the game.

And here's where my problem with the book comes in. The premise of the entire novel is that knowledge of obscure Geek Culture references were essential to winning the game, and there are countless examples of references to game designers and movie stars, but when the Swordquest comic is mentioned there is no mention its creators. The comics were written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, and drawn and inked by George Pérez and Dick Giordano. These are all legendary names in the history of comics, and in a book that celebrates Geek Culture, the comic book guys still got ignored. It's a really minor gripe based on my own interests, and I really recommend the book, but would it have killed the author to give credit where credit is due in the world of comics, just like he did with every other topic in the book?

Anyway, go read it. It's a lot of fun. One of the most purely entertaining reads I've had this year.

For the Novel

For the Kindle Edition