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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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