92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

ly fantastic support system, be it writing or MK12. My friends, my girl, my coworkers, my family all give me the gift of Leaving Me The Fuck Alone when I need it, and kicking my ass when I need it, too. But 'suffer'? Hells no, man, I'm having the time of my life. Your only nourishment for the next three days is a bottle of Seagram's Seven your dad stashed in your luggage for you when you left home after the semester break, and two stale bags of Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO? Hey, here's one for you: you run your show, you know what makes shit tick, and you know how to get The Word out. I'm thinking a lot about this old thinking, and that it seems like-- to pick up a war metaphor for a sec—it seems like everyone's fighting all these different wars, on all these differ ent fronts, and even the generals are clueless as to when the air support shows up. What I'm saying is, everyone is blaming everyone. How essential are these old, tumor-ridden dinosaurs anymore? Well, I think that the reason you have so many different factions fighting the war on so many different fronts is because no one knows who "the enemy" is. Now you and I know "the enemy" isn't other publishers or video games or cheap drugs and loose women; "the enemy" is capital-B Boredom. Not everyone producing comics gets that you can't just do a words-and-pictures story and cash your check and expect people to care. It's like the dinosaurs trying to blithely pretend that they didn't hear that big impact and that they don't notice the sky's turned to nuclear winter and just lumbering along their way, anyway. Part of the dinosaur thing is the investment in inertia. Why do something different that may not work, when we can do The Same Old Thing That Always Has? At least we know where the files are for that, right? MF: Write. Like a bastard.

MF: Could you Kick Out The Jams without Diamond?

Well, maybe, but why would you want to? Diamond's doing yeoman's work with what they have to deal with. If there's an unfairly beaten-upon whip ping boy in comics, it's Diamond. Those guys are carrying their share of the load, believe me.

MF: If the Big Boys croaked tomorrow, would there still be Comics?

Sure. As long as there are people with instruments who make marks on a flat surface, there'll be some kind of Comics.

133