Thoughts from two Mondays ago. I don't know about you, but this is usually how my day starts. Wake up craving espresso from my favorite espresso machine. The one next to my desk in the studio! I make espresso for the girl and I. We play a game of chess. From there the day can go in multiple directions. I usually head to the gym. This is my wake-up ritual that I've fallen in to. Simple and no pressure. If one or all of these things doesn't happen I never worry, there's always tomorrow. There is always tomorrow.
The news, which is usually awful, is always there. I check headlines when I break for espresso, when I break for the bathroom, or when I just need to take a break from the drawing board. It’s so stupid to read or listen to the news that much! Two Friday’s back, I received two scripts for comics I'll be illustrating and now I am swamped! Not quite overwhelmed but probably a sink full of dirty dishes (I have to wash) away from being whelmed over capacity. Speaking of news, I learned that Sports Illustrated was closing.(RIP) I really got my editorial illustration career going with them in 1997. They paid well and they hired me every week for a year at a time. I was always happy to work with them. It was just before really good 12”x17” scanners were available so I would receive my assignment on a Friday and bring in the original gouache painting to their offices on Sunday.
They were a weekly magazine that at the time went out to almost 3 million subscribers. For comparison, my last issue of Animal Man for DC/Vertigo comics sold 19,000 and we were canceled (RIP). My comic book friends thought I gave up on the industry when I told them I would make 3 caricatures of sports figures for SI once a week. They only saw that I wasn't making a new story about a fictional hero doing something weird. Why would I do that? Well, in two days of work a week, or a total of 8 days a month, I was making almost twice the money just from SI than a full 30 days of work to produce 22 penciled pages for DC. And I could have a social life on top of that!
I missed doing comics though. I made some great acquaintances, even friends! in the industry. Mark Texeira, who opened the door of Marvel to me. He literally just met me at reception and told them I was a friend at the door and I walked through... with my portfolio. I already had made friends with him and I was visiting on my lunch break from my crap job at the mural company. Mark's career was blowing up at the time and he was illustrating Ghost Rider, X-Men, Wolverine, and then did a mini series for the new start up Image Comics. He introduced me to Ray Lago. I had met George Pratt (Enemy Aces at the time) in '91 at the Big Apple Con at the Penn Hotel (RIP). I met Jeff Jones at that same convention and was so blown away by him. A later re-met him about 15 or so years later as Catherine Jones (RIP) and she was just as nice as Jeff. I wish I had stayed in touch.
I was a working illustrator and not really part of the comic book community at that time. I didn't realize the significance of working with the writer Ann Nocenti. I did her character Typhoid Mary for Marvel Comics Presents. She really liked what I produced even though I know she was partial to Steve Lightle's (RIP) version who had developed the character with her first. Ann and I became buddy's ever since. On her recommendation I was hired for Animal Man at Vertigo by editor Lou Stathis (RIP). Years later she would be my 'in' at Ahoy comics. We did some Edgar Allen Poe riffs for “Swifter of Terror” and then some of the other former Vertigo people who were now at Ahoy wanted to work with me! I absolutely find Ann to be one of the most inspirational friends I've met. And I have some really amazing tied for the top friends I haven't mentioned!
I realized as I wrote (as I write?) there are a lot of folks that have passed away over the years. A lot of magazines have passed. And now the industry I once made a living off of seems close to ending. I never thought I would teach, but here I am dipping my toe into that. I'm trying to move to making art for galleries. Gallery art was always my goal but it's a terrible business model for the artist. Spend many hours working on paintings for a show, hang them up and hope someone with extra cash wants to buy one. Then the gallery takes half of anything that does sell. Also, try filling out any application and fill in the occupation as “artist”. I'm only briefly employed when I sell a painting and I never know when the next sale will come. Neither will the bank, DENIED! Like I said in my last letter, my birthday is coming up and I'm increasingly more aware of how the world is changing and that also coincides with less of my friends or people I considered as always solidly there, bedrocks, the Great Pyramids. They were as permanently in the world as any politician saying something stupid. (We can always count on that!)
I choose not to dwell on how depressing it could be. I meet new potential friends all the time. I have plans for new projects, I still plan to wash those dishes some day. The Toxic Avenger script written by Matt Bors is really fun! Tom Peyer, my editor, is really smart and fun. I can't wait to have some comics to show for this! Z2 Comics gave me a script for a Lemmy Kilmister anthology. This will be challenging, but I'm pretty jazzed about it. It's only 4 pages so shouldn't take up much time from Toxie. I've actually been turning down opportunities so I can make the Toxic Avenger as great as I think it can be. Doing research and searching for reference a lot this past month. My “support” espresso machine is now up to the challenge with the aid of my new coffee bean grinder and my girl, as always, has been my Great Pyramid.
This cake didn’t have a chance!