92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

This is odd to me, because, you know, we don’t much make a secret of the fact that we don’t accept submissions. It’s not that I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people with a dream to pro duce comics. It’s not that your query email wasn’t politely phrased. It’s not that your comic book isn’t the best thing I’ve ever read.

It’s that we don’t accept submissions.

Now, most folks understand this. "Thanks for the prompt reply," some say. "Can’t blame a gal for trying," another will add. These people are human beings. Then there are those subhumans who feel the need to vent their anger at me, at the injustice of the world in general and of me in particular, because I won’t publish their obviously brilliant twelve page dissection of Kant’s philosophical writings, illustrated by the writer’s fourth grade brother.

"Do it yourself," I say.

"Sputter, belly-ache, excuses, whine," they usually say. The words are always different, but the meaning is the same.

So, after receiving a very interesting ream of correspondence from one such earnest soul, this topic was very much on my mind as I rode my faith ful Yamaha Riva 200 over to my good friend Kieron Dwyer’s house for lunch. Kieron is the new artist on Avengers , although he may be better known as the guy at whom Starbucks decided to throw its corporate might. Kieron and I have been pals for a few years, now, and he’s seen my mete oric rise in the comics world from humble Internet presence to the Fifth Premier Vendor. In fact, the K-Dog supplied a mighty two-pager for my first miniseries to lend his fine talent and reputation to our fledgling enterprise, and was even further not-embarrassed to do flip covers for my second miniseries. Point is, Kieron has seen all of the trauma and vindication of putting out comics first-hand. Heck, he even dips his toes into self-publishing every once in a while, himself. He knows what happened to me when I was shop ping around the first Astronauts in Trouble: I put together a five-page graphics-heavy teaser in order to get across the tone of the story I wanted to tell. I think it’s not bad, really, considering there’s only one piece of actual art in all of the five pages...

Many of the folks I sent the proposal to were very encouraging, including

123