92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

LOOSE CANNON

LOOSE CANNON BY LARRY YOUNG

PUBLISHED BY DORKCOURTRECORDS AND TAPES 2034 47TH AVENUE SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116

FIRST EDITION APRIL 2024

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COPYRIGHT © 2001-2005, 2024 LARRY YOUNG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

COVER DESIGN BY WHISKEYISLAND LOOSECANNONGUNPOWDERBOMBICONBYCHRISTOPHERJ. HICKS

INTRODUCTION BY NANCY SEN INTERMISSION BY BRADLEY P. MOSS AFTERWORD BYBRIAN W, SCHOENEMAN DR. JOHN PRICE PHD NOTAPPEARINGINTHISFILM

INTERIORS BY CUTLER GROUP SF ORIGINAL CBR.COM COLUMNS EDITED BY JONAH WEILAND

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NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN ANY RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, OR TRANSMITTED, IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS (EXCEPT FOR SHORT EXCERPTS AS PART OF A REVIEW) WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER, NOR BE OTHERWISE CIRCULATED IN ANY FORM OF BINDING OR COVER OTHER THAN THAT IN WHICH IT IS PUBLISHED.

LOOSE CANNON

LARRY YOUNG

DORK COURT RECORDS AND TAPES SAN FRANCISCO

blurbs and attaboys

(re: Come in Alone and Loose Cannon ) “Warren Ellis and Larry Young’s writings of the period are very much the foundation of a lot

of today’s indie sales methods.” -- Heidi MacDonald, The Beat

“Larry Young is exactly who you expect him to be, in person and on the page.” -- Jordan Scott, daredevil “Larry Young reinvented comics for the 21st century.” -- Richard Johnston, Bleeding Cool “One of Larry’s gifts as a writer is the ability to be witty, with brevity.” -- Mark Finn, a thief, a reaver, a slayer “Perhaps it might be damning with faint praise to refer to AiT/Planet Lar’s output as ‘somewhere between utter shit and Great Art’ but that’s more or less where I imagine Larry Young himself sees himself.” -- Tegan O'Neil, When Will the Hurting Stop “If you are wondering if it’s you, or him... it’s always you.” -- Russ Tinkess, Thorne “I must say I think it’s awesome that Replica Prop Forum members still have Larry Young quotes as their sig files.” -- Daniel Balschi, Director of Operations, Crowne Plaza “If one is to believe the online rhetoric around Young, spending time near the publisher would be roughly equivalent to joining a comic-book fraternity, where comics chat is interspersed with talk of fine liquors to be consumed and aggressively macho movies to be celebrated.” -- Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Journal

author’s note

Let’s tip a glass to the old days; let’s say we all just take a second to revere every wrong turn, every joy, every conversation that could have gone better, every hard lesson we were taught, every birthday party game, every choice that got us here, every laugh we ever had, every little awesome thing we loved.

2001-2005 was a blast. Here are some thoughts I had about it.

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Nancy Sen INTRODUCTION

I first met Larry in the manner I think he would want most people to meet him: through his words. Of course, this was in the context of an online dis cussion group during an election year a dozen years ago; and yet it was about a year into our friendship when I realized with a startle that while I knew in my bones that Larry was funny, principled and kind, I still had no idea what his politics were. Which was, of course, by design, because the politics were never the point. Connection, comics, and creativity – those are, and have always been, the point for Mr. Larry Young.

This collection of columns provides an overview of Larry’s impossibly unique insight into many subjects, perhaps most of all about the mysteri ous nature of creativity itself. As I write this, I am actively resisting the urge to send the pre-publication PDF to every creative person I know. Larry’s writing evokes an incredibly clear picture of a scene, only to imme diately explode that image and take you on a whole other journey. Is he Ms. Frizzle on the Magic School Bus of the written word? You decide (but yes, he is). In “What Do You Do?” Larry says that “sometimes reading a short little something by someone else… kick-starts the thinking meat and then we’re all off to the races.” Ain’t that the truth. If you are a person with a single creative bone in your body, this collection is an absolute must-read.

One of my favorite things about Larry’s writing is how it teases the reader; his words are the laser pointer to our helplessly obsessed cat. For example, in “Los Angeles,” Larry depicts life in L.A. by taking us from the emotion al high of working on a shiny dream movie set to the emotional low of find ing oneself with a broken nose in the midst of the Rodney King riots. And look – it’s incredibly impressive how he highlights the dramatic ups-and downs of life in L.A. in a way that innumerable TV shows and movies have tried to do, only with far more brevity and effectiveness. But also: god dammit Larry, what the hell was “that thing with Catherine O’Hara at the Dresden”? I need to know.

Similarly, in “A Column Title Suggests Itself,” in which the stated aim is to identify what makes a great comic, he takes us inside a wine tasting at a local spirits establishment so effectively that we can practically smell the wood of the bar and the musty pheromones of the old broad elbowing him out of the way; and yet, does he ever reveal what does in fact make a great comic? (Hint: No, no he does not. The bastard.) While you do not need to be a fan of comics to enjoy this book, being one will of course enhance your enjoyment of it; because while Larry always has a way with words, his writing is most effective on the subjects he loves most. Personally, as a Batman and Superman fangirl, I got so lost in Larry’s Batman/Superman crossover proposal in “How Not to Submit a Story Proposal,” that I found myself freshly heartbroken when I remembered that the whole premise was that this unspeakably brilliant thing didn’t get made. Fuckin’ suits. And of course, comics fans will find no end of easter eggs and references to delight them, but Larry’s columns offer so much more. As a burgeoning standup comedian, I find myself excited to send several columns to my non-comic-reading colleagues – because what better advice can there be – in art or in life – than “don’t do what other people are doing, because, you know, other people are doing it, already, and better than you.” Larry per sonifies that advice in “The Long View,” in which he takes the opportuni ty of Hunter S. Thompson’s death to eulogize the still-living Harlan Ellison so effectively that I forgot Hunter S. Thompson even died. In the end, my favorite part of the book was reading about Larry’s “rock solid, take-no-shit, New Hampshire Yankee with a granite exterior and a heart of gold” father. In these columns, we get a vision of a man who loomed so large that he blotted out the sun. We sense the patience in a man who sat in the hot Texas sun endlessly twisting the rubber band pro peller of a balsa wood rocket so that his son might win his own version of the Space Race; the gravitas in a man who saw profound teaching oppor tunities in sweaty amusement park lines; and the wisdom in the man who taught Larry that The Rules Do Not Apply To You. The twist ending to this collection may be that, twenty-odd years after these columns were original ly published, Larry himself is the rock-solid, take-no-shit gentlemen with a granite exterior and a heart of gold – but the San Francisco version. You know... where all the cool stuff happens.

Nancy Sen Boston, Massachusetts April, 2024

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LOOSE CANNON

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The Next Big Thing January 12, 2001

Know what this is?

It’s Radio Free Larry.

It seems every six months or so, I find I’m introducing myself to a whole new set of cats, and I’m running out of cute and entertaining ways to do it. This time, let’s leave it at this: I’m Larry Young. I write the Astronauts in Trouble family of graphic novels, as well as “The Bod” for Image Comics’ February release Double Image . I’m the Minister of Propaganda for one of the best comic stores in the country, Comix Experience. I’m the co-publisher of AiT/Planet Lar (www.ait-planetlar.com), the folks who’ve brought you Channel Zero and are serving up Warren Ellis’ Night Orbit and his Come in Alone compendium, as well as Steven Grant’s return to Whisper . We do all of the fulfillment and distribution of our product line that Diamond doesn’t do first. So that’s writing, publishing, and distribution and fulfillment taken care of, and a few hours a week behind a counter at a retail shop. Everything in comics from concept to commerce; I have an idea and four months later I’m giving you change from your twenty and putting a graphic novel in your hands.

So I see some things along the way, and Jonah Weiland is holding the antenna to broadcast Radio Free Larry.

But there’s a monkey in the business, because I don’t have to worry about playing nice. I don’t go out of my way to piss people off, but I worry a lit tle less than some do about stepped-upon toes. I don’t have any corporate masters, so I don’t mind stripping the paint off of things to show you what I think is really going on.

I’m a loose cannon.

+++++

One of the things you run into in the sort of media-saturated world we live in today is the New Expert. The New Expert gained life again, reanimated from the steenkin’ corpse of the Know-it-All, right around the time the phrase “hanging chad” became as prevalent as “paper or plastic?” and people who haven’t read a newspaper in five years became accredited scholars in Constitutional law overnight.

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Folks who I’ve never had a conversation with about anything other than Stevie Winwood’s decline after he left Traffic, or whether or not Iron Man could really take Thor in a fair fight (what with Iron Man’s power being lim ited only by its energy source, but Thor is like, y’know, a god ), were soon telling me exactly how the Twelfth Amendment altered Article II, Section I of the Constitution beyond their ability to actually articulate rationally. You know what I’m talking about; it seems there’s always some hot-button topic, some new outrage that has the pundits punditting and the finger waggers wagging their fingers, and it seems it doesn’t really matter to those guys what they say as long as they weigh in with their opinions on whatever it is that everyone else is yammering on about. It matters to me what I say about comics. I’ve loved the art form from before I could read, and I’ve been following the business ever since I real ized making comics was a job you could actually have , as opposed to hav ing some sort of magical funny-book delivery system put ‘em on the racks down at the drug store. You’re not going to get Woodward-and-Bernstein here, but I won’t blow smoke up your ass. That may be as close to a mission statement as you’ll get from me about this column. Now, I dunno if you all noticed this, but in the US, the ol’ economy is slow ing down. The Fed took the unprecedented and unscheduled move to drop interest rates .5% to combat the slowing economy. Making it cheaper to borrow money, the big brains figure, will have the folks lining up outside the bank. Of course, they won’t be looking to buy that new Jet-Ski; they’ll be trying to get a third mortgage on their living quarters, but still. Helping hand from Uncle Sam. The bubble has burst on the dot-commies; tens of thousands of I-workers, e-traders, and code monkeys have become unemployed. This hasn’t real ly hit the National Unemployment Rate yet, as the ratio of new Starbuck’s kiosks opening up to failed dot-coms closing down has largely remained at par. Wonder why that dude with the soul patch is so surly when he hands over your venti latte in the morning? He’s the guy whose burn rate on his venture capital was a little faster than he had thought. So tip the poor bas tard well. +++++ You’ll not find that sort of thing here.

And, of course, the anticipation is that everything’s grinding down slower

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than it’s taking DC to release The Invisibles as trades; the stock market is well below last year’s highs. Consumer confidence is in the crapper; early reports from the retail sector have holiday shopping totals much, much lower than expected. Which means everyone’s freaking out; consumers and businesses are hanging on to their well-earned dimes and quarters and entrenching against the impending down-turn.

This hearkens back to the economic upheaval of the Eighties and the first appearance of The Dazzler.

I can almost hear you all saying, “Wait; what? I was with him there, until that last bit.”

It’s kind of a running joke with me and my friends that if some new thing the kids are into in the real world finally shows up in comics, the fad’s been over for years, and the comics industry just didn’t get the hipster memo. I first noticed this with the introduction of The Dazzler, disco powers in full effect; but depending on when you started reading comics, it might have been when Robin and Kid Flash started saying “groovy” in the first Teen Titans run or when that break-dancing superhero Vibe showed up in the Justice League . When the “next big thing” finally permeates the awareness of the guys making decisions at the House of Corporate Comics, the chances are pret ty high that the apex of whatever-it-is’ popularity has been reached at least six months before. Which brings us to the guy running Marvel. Bill Jemas. Don’t know the guy. Heard he’s from Topps. somebody over there had enough sense to wave bags of money at Axel Alonso and Stuart Moore, so there’s that . There might be some interesting things coming from Marvel editorially, creatively. I’ve got my eye on it. But this guy Jemas. Yes, I understand there are business decisions reached that outsiders can’t fathom. Yes, I understand that there are stockholders to answer to; yes, I understand a monstrous debt that’s poised over every decision like 250 million Swords of Damocles. Yes, I understand how easy it is to be a Monday-morning quarterback. Still.

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Here’s what I don’t understand.

Marvel’s said they’re printing to order on the Ultimate books. No overprint. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Now, it’s easy to see that they think the demand for these books will be such that kids will be selling ‘em on ebay for $20 each the day it comes out. It’s easy to see that these early announcements are geared to fright ening retailers into increasing initial orders in order to meet a demand that Marvel is telling them they should perceive. That’s cool; I’ve seen some of the world and how it works, and if retailers fall for that, it’s their store.

Ya can’t blame Marvel for trying to increase orders; I don’t even blame them for marketing comics as a manufactured collectible…

…but, you know…

…disco’s been dead so long it’s got house music parodies. You can buy Jim Lee X-Men and “Death of Superman”s and Doctor Solar #10s in any quar ter box in any part of the country.

It’s not 1986. It’s not 1993.

Looks like Jemas thinks the next big thing will be spending money on comics-as-collectibles, like it was back then … but even Todd MacFarlane isn’t spending his discretionary income on baseballs anymore. Comics-as collectibles is as dead as disco, pet rocks, and Beanie Babies put togeth er. No one buys comics now “as an investment,” yet that’s what it looks like what Marvel’s executive team is banking on. It looks like Marvel is cater ing to an audience that isn’t around anymore, and is too busy trying to find a PlayStation 2 to buy than to worry about what’s going on with Spider Man.

But.

Stuart Moore is over there. And Axel Alonso. Those guys have good instincts. I bet if they can keep their heads down, do their jobs, get the good folks over there producing entertaining stories in the excellent medi um which is comics, it won’t be collecting comic books, like Jemas thinks…

…it’ll be reading those comic books...

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…that’ll be the Next Big Thing.

Friendly Neighborhood Larryman January 18, 2001

So, I was paging through the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly , snack ing on a little pepperoni and smoked Gouda while the missus watched Croc Files on The Discovery Channel, and there it was.

Sandwiched in between a compelling ad for L’Oreal and “Jim Mullen’s Hot Seat” was the picture of the week.

The new Spider-Man costume Tobey Maguire will be wearing in the large ly-anticipated Spidey flick.

“At least he doesn’t look like Nicholas Hammond,” I thought.

Now, I read all the funny books I could get my hands on when I was a kid. Spider-Man was even a favorite. There’s just something compellingly pri mal to a sixth-grader’s imagination to think of yourself able to swing on a webline of your own devising through the man-made canyons of New York City. And, I have to admit, I’m surprisingly in touch with that little ten-year old Larry that still lives in my psyche, and I’ll probably get a big charge out of the film when it comes out. Director Sam Raimi’s work is always profes sional yet unassumingly twisted, and what I’ve seen of Maguire’s acting ( The Cider House Rule s and some thing I caught late at night on HBO with Reese Witherspoon) makes me think he’ll bring a sense of earnestness to it, at least. And pretty soon we’ll have a big orgy of comic book-related consumerism and we won’t be able to escape Kirsten Dunst and Willem DaFoe on the talk shows and old guys in Bermuda shorts and black dress socks will be walking the beach with their metal detectors and Spider-Man Underoos and Marvel will be throwing big sacks of Scrooge McDuck gold coins in the air, cackling wildly about how they finally have a decent film made of one of their characters and basically it’ll be 1989 all over again except it’ll be spiders instead of bats, this time.

And, you know, that’s just aces.

If you’re Columbia Pictures.

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Me? I’m not much interested in weekend grosses and who’s got points. I’m interested in a nice, healthy comic book industry, and Marvel’s got a chance to do something that’s good for comics and not just what’s good for Marvel. Remember last summer’s X-Men movie? A decent bit of fluff, sure, but I knew who everyone was. I wasn’t exactly the target audience. Fox was after a blockbuster, and that meant people besides comics fans had to go see their flick. They did a yeoman job on the marketing, including even airing a “making-of” special in prime-time which was a thinly-disguised half-hour promo for the film. Got the butts in the seats, as they say. Now, let’s say you had never heard of these X-Men, before, but you’ve got a little kid and you’ve caught the cartoon a couple of times and something about it seems a bit familiar and somebody at work reminds you that it’s all based on a comic book. But you remember that time you were sick and stayed home from school for a week, and your aunt even drove down from Schenectady because your mom was worried about that fever you had that wouldn’t break, but at least you got to take it easy and play “Sorry” and you even fondly recall that big stack of funny books your aunt brought that’s probably still in the back of the closet of your old room at your folks’ house. So you go to the drug store down by where you live, after the movie, to see what’s up with these X-Men, but there aren’t any comics there. No spinner rack, no stacks of coverless ones on the floor. Not like when you were a kid. The assistant manager (who’s not much older than you) says he didn’t think they made comics anymore when you ask him where to find some. But a guy in line tells you about a store across town where they sell noth ing but comic books, so you get into your car and drive over there, because you’re nothing if not tenacious like it said on your last employee review at work. Let’s just say that you live in a town that has the World’s Most Perfect Comic Shop. Rows upon rows of whatever you want. A kid comes in look ing for Jason Sandberg’s Jupiter , and they have #1-6. A young art student asks for reference on the Vulcan Green Lantern, and the supermodel behind the counter knows that’s GL #90 and talks knowledgeably about Mike Grell’s career. And you come in and ask for anything with the X-Men in it and no one laughs and you’re pointed out to a couple of books and some guys off to the side discuss whether Dougray Scott could have pos- If you’re a regular joe, your first thought is gonna be, “They still make comic books, huh?”

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sibly have been cooler than Hugh Jackman and you go home satisfied with your purchase and your shopping trip and you can’t wait to read more adventures of those guys you saw in the film and you get home and open the comic…

…and it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Marvel didn’t have the wherewithal to predict that maybe some of the movie audience might seek out the on-going comic adventures. They did n’t foresee that maybe people might want to amplify their movie-going experience with a little four-color fun.

This doesn’t have to happen with the Spider-Man movie, and here’s one I’ll give ‘em for free:

All Marvel has to do is produce a sixteen page introduction to the Spider Man mythos, drawn in a clear style, and reminiscent, at least somewhat, of the characters and situations as portrayed in the film… to give away for free at every single movie theater showing the film. To the kids and their parents. As. They. Go. In. If I were Marvel, I'd have half a story inside, the last page of which says, "Want to find out what happens to Spidey? Call 1-888-266-4226 or point your web-browser to www.the-master-list.com to find a comic shop nearest you." And then have the sixteen-page end of the story waiting there at the shops for free. Any retailer worth his salt can turn those folks coming in into repeat cus tomers, even after he runs out of the Marvel-supplied freebies. He can say, "Sorry, the demand has been more than we thought... but here's a good Spidey comic from the past (out of his quarter box) and a coupon good for one comic free with your next ten dollar purchase. And Marvel has the rest of the story online, so you can find out what happens… Don’t have a com puter? Well… you can read this print-out of it I have here, if you REALLY want to know how Spidey gets out of that jam.” I’ll bet you a dollar more than half of those folks come in the next week end, looking for Spider-Man , and Superman , and Jimmy Corrigan , and Maus , or anything else they’ve heard of, and, in fact, are open to the whole damn field of comic books, because once you get a taste of the entertain ment that only comics can provide...

…well, I don’t have to tell you , now, do I?

And the beauty of this is that the budget for the production and printing of this Spidey out-reach comic could be tied to promotion of the film. The

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studio would have to be behind it, of course, but it’d be a drop in the Hollywood bucket. They could hit the kids with a one-two punch that sells the DVDs of the movie and the Silly-String and the Spider-Man shirts and get their lunch-money with Spidey books each month until Spider-Man II: Electric Boogaloo hits the screens. Columbia is happy, Marvel is happy, comic book retailers are happy, and the audience is happy.

It’s easy.

If Marvel doesn't get something like this going for May 3, 2002, my plan to see LARRY YOUNG PRESENTS CAPTAIN AMERICA will have three years shaved off the timetable, true believer. Los Angeles January 26, 2001

There’s a reason they call it The City of Dreams.

I first hit Los Angeles in November of 1991. My boyhood chum, Rick Austin, was then working for MTV-LA as a producer on MTV Sports and on their movie show, The Big Picture . He found himself working on a PR piece for The Godfather III that Paramount loved so much they offered him his pick of upcoming films upon which he might work some similar magic.

Rick, being no piker, instantly said, “ Star Trek VI. ”

“What’s your take?” the Paramount suits asked.

Rick’s a pretty quick guy, so from a running start, he says, “Let’s get a cast member from The Next Generation to call up the events of Star Trek VI on the Enterprise computer, and we can cut to interviews of the actors involved in the movie, talking about the plot, the shoot, whatever, and make it all look like a historical document of the Star Trek universe.” So they said, “Make it happen,” and Rick called me up in Massachusetts, and filled me in and told me if I helped him script it, I’d get an onscreen credit and he’d get me on the Paramount lot to watch ‘em shoot the spe cial. A couple of weeks later I was standing on a transporter pad and sitting in Picard’s ready room watching Rick plan shots with Rob Legato and talking with Guy Vardaman and shooting the shit with Michelle Forbes at the craft services table behind the bridge viewscreen and basically just livin’ the dream.

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“I love this place,” I thought, more than a few times.

A few months after that , I moved down to LA to try to get in on the pro duction side of things, and while helping Rick on a shoot at the first game of the playoffs, down at the Forum, I got my nose broken in the middle of the Rodney King riots. Rick and I went to the Lakers playoff game on April 30, 1992, entering the Forum before the riot started and exiting the game after it was in full swing. Wisely reasoning that this might not be a good night to run out of gas, Rick less wisely pulled into the gas station right across the street from ground zero to tank up. After pulling out his wallet to pay, Rick was accost ed by several members of the local citizenry, physically proclaiming their dissatisfaction with the American system of jurisprudence in general and with the Rodney King verdicts in particular. Rick had his wallet stolen; I retained my wallet, but got my nose broken. In telling the story to chums later, we hit on the best way to describe the surreal scene: “Ever see the first ten minutes of Blade Runner? Crazy people, flying cars, stuff on fire, Harrison Ford running over cabs, shooting people...”

“I hate this place,” I thought, more than a few times.

I eventually made my way up to San Francisco, where I met the best girl and bought the best house in the best city in the world, where I write and produce comics of my own invention while publishing the books of other talented creators as well.

And I found that it was time to go back to Los Angeles again.

We had some meetings set up with some fine folks, and I was a little appre hensive. Not because of the meetings, but because Los Angeles and I did n’t really part on the best of terms. There was that broken nose thing, and the earthquakes, and the fires, and the mudslides, and the thing with Catherine O’Hara at the Dresden. But I got on the plane anyway, and I lost myself in the best present I got for Christmas, Korolev , by James Harford, and I reminded myself that even if the meetings weren’t immediately productive, it’d be nice to take a gan der at how the entertainment business looked from a new perspective. Our meeting at Natural Talent went very well; Mimi and I were very happy to meet with Donna and Kelly. They’re clever folks who obviously know what they’re doing. Their receptionist, Francis, is a cool cat, too, and is a well-versed comics fan. And Natural is just down the way from the Museum of Flight, which houses a replica spacesuit. So there are good vibes all around, there.

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Oh, and let me mention the other spacesuits.

At last year’s San Diego show, Mimi and I struck up a conversation with Hector Cordoba, a talented artist and sculptor, who, along with his wife Jessie and his cousin Elias Cordoba, comprise Nostrum Costumes, a prop production company outside of LA. We arranged with Elias to come see their warehouse and to pick up a pair of prop spacesuits that we’re going to use to generate interest in ˆ at comic book conventions. Instead of scant ily-clad booth bunnies, I’m thinking supermodels in spacesuits.

But maybe that’s just me.

Elias and Hector hooked us up with the full-on prop: outer excursion lunar suit, backpacks, boots, helmets… the whole nine yards. There was so much equipment to take home that we couldn’t carry it back on the plane, and had to drive the Mustang convertible we had rented back up the coast to San Francisco.

And it was somewhere on that trip up the 5, listening to Mimi scream out the lyrics “I said do ya speaka my language, he just smiled and gave me a Vegamite sandwich...” along with the radio cranked up and tuned to a Fresno oldies station, in the middle of the night at 95 miles an hour sit ting in a Mustang convertible filled to the brim with costume spacesuits and after meetings with some folks who seem to be on the same page as me that I realized I was basically just livin’ the dream again.

“I love that place,” I said, to Mimi, as the glow from the lights of Los Angeles retreated behind us in the rear-view mirror.

So it’s not exactly a stylish return high atop a white charger, but at least it’s not exeunt holding one’s nose.

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There’s a reason, you know, why they call it The City of Dreams.

The Minister of Propaganda January 31, 2001 One of the most recurring bits of feedback on the first column I did was a veritable ocean of requests for me to define what I do as the wise and ter rible “Minister of Propaganda” at Brian Hibbs’ shop Comix Experience in San Francisco. At its most basic, I’m a comic shop clerk for a few hours each Friday after noon, keeping my writer-publisher self abreast of the retailing trends cus tomers embody with their each and every purchase. At its most grand, I’m the charismatic leader of a small band of brainy hipsters who convene at the end of the week like the Impossible Missions Force to hoist a few pints and discuss-with-an-eye-towards-remedying the perceived ills of the comic book industry. When I first started writing, editing, and producing Comix Experience’s in store newsletter, Onomatopoeia , which I did every four weeks for two months shy of five years straight, I took Brian’s mandate to promote the store perhaps a little too seriously. I was so relentless and omnipresent online about extolling the many virtues of CE that my good pal Matt Lehman, owner of the excellent Boston store Comicopia, tried to take the stuffing out of me by derisively but good-naturedly referring to me as Hibbs’ “minister of propaganda.” So.

“Well, that’s a perfect job title if I’ve ever heard one,” I thought. And so it stuck.

Last Friday, I came home from CE and checked my email, and was sur prised to find that one of my old college buddies was thinking about open ing his own shop. He asked me what I thought would be the Very Most Important Thing he could do or say or offer in his store to guarantee suc cess. This is a cleaned-up version of what I wrote to him:

So, you want to open a comic shop.

The best guesses show that there are about 3000 specialty retail stores in the country that sell comic books and related merchandise. And you want to jump into the fray... Oh, sure, you can go to the library and check out some dry business tome for advice, but chances are those books will not

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address the specific and unique problems that you’ll run into on your sprint towards opening day. You might even be able to get up on to the Internet and find some resources that you can consult. In fact, there are many areas in which you can call upon for answers and expertise. It seems that many of the more savvy retailers are online in some capacity, and it’s easy to find ‘em. But.

The biggest pitfall that you can run across is actually listening to any of these people.

Even the most successful comics retailer has been so for idiosyncratic and possibly even special reasons. You will have to answer and implement questions and solutions for your own situation as it develops. Just as no two snowflakes are alike, no two comic stores are the same; what works like gangbusters in an urban area, for example, might spell a quick death in a rural location. So pick a good spot, sure. The most important thing is for your comic store to have an identity. Too many shops are just extensions of someone’s collection; one day, a guy looks around and realizes his stash of books is taking over his house, and he decides to open a store to maybe make a little money, and have a club house to sit around with his pals and talk about comics. Without further thought to how your store presents itself to the outside world, this lack sadasical approach may very well spell doom for your fledgling outfit. The first thing to consider is how you want to present your shop to the real world. Too often, shop-keepers ascribe to the Field of Dreams philosophy; that is, naively believing that “If you build it, they will come.” Nothing can be further from the truth in today’s economic climate. The comic book industry is fundamentally no different than the professional sports or motion picture industries, really; all are multi-million dollar businesses predicated on selling entertainment to the masses. The comic book is in direct competition for dollars spent on any other form of entertainment. However, it is the comic book’s unique position to be able to offer a meld ing of capital A Art and literature: painting and prose, individually, lack the power, emotion, and narrative drive that pictures and words have when the two are juxtaposed. In other words, funny books kick ass. In the past, it has been this very separation of capital A Art from the com merce of entertainment that has relegated comics to a backwater; they’ve been a bit of a bastard child of pop culture in search of legitimacy. But you read Entertainment Weekly ; I’d make the argument that comics are now being recognized as a viable art form that can deliver a superior entertain ment experience on its own merits. A good comic provides value in so many ways: a rollickin’ story, pathos, elegance, poignancy. It can illuminate, inspire, or unnerve. And unlike a movie or a ball game, once you’ve paid

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for a comic book, the experience can be enjoyed again and again, just by re-reading your issue.

And this is what you’ll be selling to folks. Repeatable fun.

But you’ve already come to the realization that comics are a worthy endeav or, and you wouldn’t mind spreading the joy of funny books to the world. But what do you want people to see when they actually look at your store? The comics that you love? Maybe the fixtures you display ‘em on? Well mannered and knowledgeable employees? Well, yes, yes, and yes... but not yet. The first thing most potential customers will see is your store name and logo. Your good name and logo are your first ambassadors out into the rest of the world, and much care and aforethought should be put towards the best use of your identity. First, ya gotta name your store. It should articulate the vision you have for your company. The name should evoke what sort of goods and services you provide, it can tender a message you might want to send, or it can even suggest the way in which your company does business. It can be as sim ple as Brian Hibbs’ “Comix Experience,” which lets the customer know that he sells comics and offers a unique “experience” when shopping. The name can be evocative of a more general, all-inclusive retail situation, such as Paul Howley’s “That’s Entertainment.” The store’s name might be a playful amalgam of words, such as Matt Lehman’s “Comicopia,” which suggests a veritable cornucopia of comics. You might even name your store, as Steve Ginsburg (of Claude’s Comics) did, after your dog. Whatever way you choose to represent your store to the world, you have to remember that your company identity is as important as paying the rent on time. Your identity is not just your name, or a cool logo, or the way you do business. It’s all of those, and a consistency of vision for your shop and an adherence to that vision.

It’s what we call around here “pick a pitch and swing.”

Welcome to comics.

All Access Pass February 8, 2001

I was on the phone the other day with Chris Schaff, the Brand Manager over at Diamond Comics Distributors who handles the solicitation and traf ficking of all things related to AiT/Planet Lar, which, as you’ll recall, is the publishing house I run. I’ve had the opportunity to have dealings with quite a few folks over there at Diamond, and I have to say, ol’ Chris is the guy

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who really keeps up his end of things the best. He’s always got a good idea when things look stale; he makes the cockamamie marketing plans I have happen somehow; he’s got a good joke or two when things get tense, and he’s always looking for ways to make things run smoother, work better, and be as painless as possible.

Chris knows what time it is without looking at a clock, and if I were his boss, I’d give the guy a raise.

But the point of all that background isn’t to shine Schaff’s shoes, it’s to explain what I was doing on the phone with him after we’d done our pub lishing-related business. If you’ve been reading these columns so far, you’ve probably been able to figure out that I’m mostly a no-nonsense guy. As my father says, “I laugh, joke, take a little dope; but I don’t play.” No, I don’t really know what it means, either, but as near as I can figure, it’s along the lines of “Sure, I’ve got a sense of humor, but when it’s time to get down to business, I roll up my sleeves.”

Lotsa colorful metaphors and homespun witticisms around the Young homestead when I was a lad. ‘Splains a lot, I guess.

So, back to Schaff.

We’d finished up our business, and Chris lets slip that he’s coming to San Francisco for the Alternative Press Expo, and starts belly-aching that he’s going to be working and glad-handing the whole time, and he’s sorry he won’t be able to catch a Demons game even if they were playing at home that weekend, which they aren’t.

“The XFL team?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah,” Chris says. “I’ve been following the whole thing. Can’t wait. Looks like a good idea. They just need a team closer to Baltimore than New York/New Jersey.” So we talk about the XFL for a while, and the sheer brilliance of the mar keting of the league. By October of last year, well before any player had been “drafted” and five full months before the first kick-off of opening day, www.XFL.com had logged over 250,000 unique visitors. Before they had anything to talk about, people were interested . According to Business 2.0 , 40,000 season tickets had been sold by early November, with well over half of them coming from sales on the web. Now, say what you want about the XFL appealing to the lowest common denominator… you have to admit that’s just good marketing… and the tar-

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get demographic is obviously web-savvy.

Hmmm, I think.

Chris and I talk about the pros-and-cons of launching any new business, much less one designed at the get-go to compete, if not exactly head-to head with an established brand, at least playing on the same field for the same dollars from an under-served audience. I start to see so many paral lels with the comics industry that I have to just come out and ask Chris what the one thing is that makes the very concept of the XFL so appealing to him. “It’s the all-access pass you get to see the games,” he says. “All the cam eras on the field, the miked players and refs… there’s a camera crew on the field during plays. It’s like you’re really there. You can see it all.” And what Chris pointed out in his, frankly, quite charming enthusiasm is pretty much the broad appeal of the XFL, it seems to me: you can see it all. As the good guy says, “Magic ain’t nothin’ but a bunny and a hat” and there is an undeniable appeal to seeing behind the curtain and knowing how the tricks are done. This appeal is obviously shared by those web-savvy cats who bought all the XFL season tickets, you can be sure. Folks who use the Internet are early adopters of nascent technology, which is just a fancy new-media way of saying they like to be in on The Secret. To see behind the curtain. To be First On Their Block. But I can’t help but think that the XFL’s in trouble, in the long run, because I’m pretty sure this is what happened to comics. Right around the time the Internet started becoming a way to get instant information, the marketing of comics started to lose its luster. The sources of information on comics news shifted from print sources like The Comics Buyer’s Guide and Amazing Heroes to websites like Comic Book Resources and Digital Webbing. It’s the way we were raised; the way we were marketed to as kids.

Why provide in-depth analysis of an art form, when you can break news about it as fast as you can type html?

But delivering instant gratification will callous your audience, eventually, if not initially. Glen Gordon Caron probably calls this “The Moonlighting Effect” as he mutters around the house in his pajamas.

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The XFL boasts of the complete access its fans have to the grim-and-grit ty; putting the folks in the stands right there in the middle of the action. The cameras sweep every vantage point; the players are interviewed on the JumboTron during the game; at the Las Vegas Outlaws game last Saturday, it looked to me like cheerleaders were in the stands giving lap dances.

And that’s the comic book industry in 2001.

The comic book industry is so desperate for media attention, they’re doing lap dances in the stands.

Comics fans have an unprecedented access to the folks who make the comics, and the folks who make comics have instantaneous feedback if they want it. I was contemplating a bit of this article, and I thought, “I wonder what some smart comics fans think about all this?” So I went on the Warren Ellis Forum on www.delphi.com/ellis/chat, to see who was awake at that hour and talking about comics. If you’re on Warren’s chat, you’re a smart comics fan, and that’s a fact. So, since these chats happen in real-time, and are limited only by how fast you can type, I wrote quickly, “How do you feel about the unlimited access you guys have to comic book information? To other fans? To pros? To news?” Here’s what I got: Jacob Corbin: I could do without the eight hundred thousand news sites and the endless press releases. If I read another press release I shall bleed from the eyes. But I like the sense of community. Andi: I think that the access to information is sometimes far too excessive. You end up having groups of fans who expect to control the outcome sim ply because they have access to certain people.

Silence: far superior to access of other relative "celebrities", decent info about coming events and products, access to obscure items via Ebay etc.

Stuart Nathan: There are some people whose voices I could do without. But one thing about internet use - you very quickly learn that you have to fil ter. Sites like the WEF help sort the signal from the noise. Jacob Corbin: I like the interaction with other readers. I don't know many comics readers in KC aside from my immediate circle of friends. It's nice getting other people's perspectives and recommendations.

So it seems to me that the day is coming soon when fans see the comic book industry get up in the morning, it’s not going to look as pretty as it

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did the night before.

The Internet is a harsh mistress…

All of this may be a little arch from a guy who uses the Internet to his advantage to help put his funny books into your hands, and is writing to you here on the premier comic book news website.

But it’s the beginning of the Time When It All Changed.

And we’re all just sorting out our dance partners.

One Last Adventure February 16, 2001

All right; right off the bat I want you to promise me you don’t send me email extending your condolences about my dead cat.

Everybody’s got things they have to deal with in their personal life; this is just one of those things in the background I have to deal with. You’ve got your stuff; I’ve got mine. Doesn’t mean the world stops; we’re all in it together.

But believe it or not, my dead cat put a fine point on something I’ve long noticed as being wrong with the comic book industry.

But first let’s bring you up to date:

Two weeks ago, the cat I’ve lived with for the last eight years went out through his little cat door, first thing in the morning. Unlike most other days, he didn’t come back at dinner time. This, in itself, was not a panic, because he’s a tomcat. Prone to going out and tom-catting around. Hence the name. It was in his personality, though, for him to not let us know if he was injured, or sick. One legendary time, he lost a fight with one of those roving bands of urban street raccoon gangs that is one of San Francisco’s dirty little secrets. Hard to imagine groups of these smelly, thuggish bastards picking through trash, flashing raccoon gang-signs at domestic cats minding their own business outside… but it happens. I’ve seen it. Anyway, Tom mixed it up with some raccoons out in the world. Back in the neighborhood where we used to live. Where we had our apartment, before we bought the house. He got away, but suffered some puncture wounds on his hindquarters. The next day, by the time the missus and I noticed he

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was on the ropes, a good portion of his skin in the lower part of his body had turned necrotic and had to be removed.

Don’t lose a fight with a San Francisco raccoon without flushing out the puncture, that’s what we’ve learned here, right? So Tom had some interest ing battle-damage on his rear section that gave him a pretty distinctive look. “I’m a good cat,” his features would read. “But don’t mess with me. I’m not the strongest cat in the room, but I can take what YOU can dish out. Look here; I lived through this.” But the march of the clock goes on for us all, and ol’ Tom got to be around fifteen or so. I understand that’s very old for a cat, but the old guy just did n’t seem to mind it very much. Sure, he slept most of the day and night, but he sure did like to lie out in the sun; the six-foot fence surrounding our yard didn’t seem to be a problem for him. Ever hear of a fifteen year old cat that could leap straight up six feet in the air? This one could. And he roamed around the neighborhood, at will. So one day the old cat goes out for his morning constitutional and he does n’t make it back home. Sad, right? But not unheard of; that’s life in the big city. There’re cars and dogs and crazy, maladjusted kids with a gallon of gas in a can. Shit happens. But we sure did love that old cat, so we kept an eye out. Every day we called the Animal Rescue, and the Lost and Found. And it seems that, around ten days after he first went walkabout, a kindly albeit crazy old lady, one of those folks who feeds the wild cats and the strays and takes the sick and injured in to the Animal Shelter… one of those nutty old ladies dropped off a sick and injured cat who pretty much met Tom’s description. He was so sick they had to euthanize the poor bas tard, so that’s the proverbial that, I figured.

Except that old lady who dropped him off… she lived about two blocks away from our old apartment.

Nearly three miles away from where we live now.

And that’s a mighty big coincidence, and one that started me thinking about how the comic book industry is like a good cat on its last legs.

It’s hard not to anthropomorphize what ol’ Tom was thinking, but I swear to God it’s not hard for me to imagine that he woke up that morning and thought to his little cat self, “These guys were awfully nice to me, and the days’s gonna come in the next week or so when I’m gonna breathe my last. And I sure don’t want either one of them to come out and see my unbreath ing carcass gettin’ picked at by seagulls. So I’m going off on one last

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adventure. I’m gonna go over that hill there and try to get back to that old neighborhood where I used to live. That place where I had all that fun; see my old pals; get in to trouble and ride off into that kitty sunset on One. Last. Adventure.” And it sure does seem to me that that’s what the comic book industry is doing. Creatively, the comic book industry seems like an old cat on its last legs. Lost a couple of incisors; maybe can’t close the deal on those field mice like we used to. Seems to me that some comics are constantly returning to the familiar, like ol’ Tom I’ve just told you about. You liked “relevant” comics in 1970? OUR comics are relevant, NOW ! Look! Drugs, swearing, and everything! Hey, you liked “bad girls” in 1995? We’ve got Bad Girls for you NOW ! We’re trying to co-opt your interest in the dis-affected youth… our characters have pale skin, and love eyeliner just like you ! What the comic book industry needs to understand is a simple thing ol’ Tom didn’t get: you can’t go home again. There’s no WAY that a rickety old cat is going to return to those days of greatness, and there’s no way comics is going to be able to recreate those thrilling days of yesteryear. That’s why some of us are trying to do something new.

That’s why some of us are trying a new thing. We’re getting another cat.

I Love Comics February 23, 2001

I love comics. I love comics so much, I have to do my own.

A couple things happened last week that made me realize just how and why I love comics so much. Settle in, and I’ll tell you:

In the summer of 1973, our family moved from Dallas, Texas to rural Vermont. To say that it was a culture shock would be understating the sit uation. In public school in Texas, for example, we had etiquette lessons; the correct way to answer the phone, the respectful way to address your elders, that sort of thing. The first day of school in Vermont, however, both my sister and I ended up at the principal’s office for being extremely sarcastic to our teachers. Our crime? In answer to a direct question, I had said, “No, sir” to my teacher, and my sister had said “Yes, ma’am” to hers.

We got in trouble for that.

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