The convention center was full of the Sunday blues on the last day of Rose City Comic-Con. Saturday night bar-con engulfed comic industry professionals like the satanic panic. Not many of us were straight that morning while the rest were hunched over juggling Gatorade, pain relievers and coffee in a crucial balancing act. At the entrance I passed by a Marvel editor dry heaving in the bushes and gifted them a bottle of water that I left on the sidewalk. Let it not be said that despite being a wet-blanket, I am bad at networking. The facade of the center was dull, brown, and full of convention maps and signs. Cosplayers this way! Artists entrance here! Vendors over there! Sellers Sellers Sellers! We were a world that existed for a few days and left, a subculture that probably should be destroyed.
I worked as an editor at a Portland-based indie press—a job meant to be a stepping stone to Marvel, DC, Image, or something even better. I was ecstatic to not have to travel this year and hold myself up in a hotel room watching garbage like Storage Wars or Gee Whiz I’m in Europe with Rick Steves to decompress, instead I could go home to sleep in my own bed and forget the whole ordeal.
Before I had the chance to sit down with my coffee, there was a line at my table—two prospective artists with their leather cases holding their 11×17 pages to showcase their art, storytelling techniques, coloring, and whatever else they think might land them a dream job. A job that will pay $120-$260 a page, and that page can take anywhere from seven to twenty-four hours to draw, depending on how much shit there is in the background. Modern comics are twenty-two pages so that’s like four grand for something that can take over 200 hours to create.
Also, it’s all on freelance so get ready to be reamed by taxes every four months, and you have no health insurance. But this is a prestige job! You should be glad to be doing what you love! I saw a famous creator showcasing his retirement plan on social media—pages and pages of vintage comic art he had collected and planned on selling. This is what you have to do unless you want to drop dead on the drafting table. I’m making 40 grand a year but at least I get benefits.
My job today is to tell these kids what they need to improve on. I’m good at it but Joan, my coworker, has a better bedside manner for reasons that I’m not clear on. I’ve seen her get harassed on social media, get assignments added to her workload like an afterthought, credit taken away from her for good ideas, and be shouted over on panel after panel. I went to our “HR” guy to complain–the same guy whose job seemed to be to pay the electric bill, order snacks for the breakroom, and talk people out of complaining to state agencies.“I just want to keep the lights on,” he said. “Tell her not to sue.” I stopped pushing when they gave me the shitty work. That’s wrong, I know, but I’ve seen friends blacklisted after making complaints to the Bureau of Labor, of having their careers ruined. I will not be forced out.
“Sorry,” I said to the guy. “Just need a few minutes to set up and then I can take your contact info down.”
“What?” the young man said. He held his portfolio over his lanky frame covering his chest.
“I take your name and contact info and you sign up for a slot for a portfolio review,” I said, and slid him the sign-up sheet.
“But I’m here now.”
I kept my head down and stocked the table with books to sell.
“I can do it now,” he said, landing his folder gently on the table.
“Sorry, man,” I said. “Sign up for a time.”
“I can’t go until you look at this,” he said, his lips twitching and his eyes watering. “I have to be at work.”
If I took the one guy, I would have to take the other, but we’ve had very few reviews this con.
“Fine,” I said. “You’re lucky it’s slow.”
I brushed my hand across the linework, the sensation of the slick vellum coating of the Bristol board raised the hair on my arms. It’s like the smell of a new book, that slippery feeling that indicates some kind of elusiveness that you can’t ever truly grab. First there was a splash page—a single image without any panels meant to grab the reader’s attention. Spider-Man was punching a dinosaur. I flipped and there was Spidey swinging like Tarzan. The perspective was off. Our hero appeared gigantic even though he was coming from far away. I told the kid and he frowned so I complimented the linework which was clean and precise. His panel usage was confusing. I showed him how it’s hard to follow what’s happening from the dinosaur climbing up the building, and how a T-Rex can do this? I suggested replacing him with an ape or a mutated dinosaur, something with a prehensile grip. I balanced each fault with a strength. I wanted him to do better.
He looked like a wet dog when I finished. The guy who was waiting behind him asked what happened and the kid whispered something. Soon I was alone again. Joan got here just as they slinked away.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I’m a nice boy.” I said, smiling.
She rolled her eyes, sat down next to me, and took a swig from her coffee thermos. She didn’t seem hungover like most of the zombies I’d seen lurching around, and she didn’t stink like the X-Men group editor I ran into in the elevator–the same one who had pretended to be Japanese years ago to write for Marvel’s Manga line.
“How was last night?” I said.
“Have you ever been around Scott when he’s drinking?”
“Of course not,” I said. “He’s a monster.” And because I didn’t drink I became the publisher’s cleanup man working on books no one wanted, but I worked. I tried to socialize with him once, really. I got a seltzer at the bar and everything and had to listen to Scott talk about the intern’s tits for 30 minutes and just how incredibly sexy she was and how he was absolutely sure he was going to fuck her. I’m meeting with my friend Harry today hoping for a way out of this mess.
“I just had to physically get in his way to stop him from groping a woman.” she said. “Maybe we can organize.”
“What, like a union?” I said, and laughed. “In the comic book industry?
“It’s a long time coming.”
“No one working here can afford to get fired,” I said. “The best we can hope for is to work for someone who isn’t a shitbag.”
“What do you do when you’re stuck with one?”
“Keep your head down and hope you get out,” I said. “And take others with you. I’m going to take a break in a minute. Supposed to meet Harry to talk about work.”
“Isn’t Harry the guy you were following around at the last convention? God, if you get laid and get a job at DC that’s insult to injury. If you go they’re going to shitcan me. One trouble maker is easy to deal with, two diffuses their focus.”
“I know,” I said, and left.
The convention floor was a miasma of colors, of the rubbery stink from vinyl costumes, of zombies, of obscure characters from Marvel, DC, Image, various anime, and even a few costumes from comics I’ve worked on. One fan stopped by and said hi as Doctor Omega, an amoral bounty hunter, from the Alien comics. She was dressed in combat fatigues with pouches large enough to fit cannons in and holstering a gun bigger than a German Shepherd. I nodded back at her and turned a corner. I was over the moon that something I helped create was popular, that people on forums debated character backstories and outfits in ways I couldn’t imagine. No matter how terrible working conditions were, at least I could reach people who cared. That’s why I stayed where I was. That and I needed to pay rent.
I coughed as I walked down the line of booths. Thanks to the nonstop AC pumped into the convention center I felt like I hadn’t had fresh air in days. When these conventions are in other towns you live in a circuit—the hotel is connected to the convention center so you never set foot outside. When you step outside the environment hits you and it’s like you’ve got some mild form the bends, you’ve got to sit down and reacclimate to the real world–natural lighting and dirt. I couldn’t remember where the concession stand was, so I took another lap around and hid behind a group of Batmen to avoid Doctor Omega again and the embarrassment of seeing the same person in a short amount of time again.
I took out the convention map in front of a seller. Someone haggled over a signed copy of something from the 70s that I couldn’t afford to think about buying. Stan Lee was the publisher’s nephew and got the glory and the big bucks while the rest of us got ulcers and anxiety.
Two days of organized chaos had finally broken down. This was not San Diego Comic-Con and we were lucky to get some of the background Ewoks to attend. A great waft of fried food assaulted me. I sat down in an empty corner–the sensory overload was too much. I felt like a power line about to explode. A guy I had dated taught me how to lower my blood pressure with some basic gentle yoga–mostly breathing exercises. I blotted out the hawkers, the sounds of photos being snapped, the smacking of lips, the shuffling of feet, the congratulations, the kvetching, the oppressive humming lights, all of it by closing my eyes and breathing rhythmically. A security guard tapped me with his foot and said I couldn’t sit there and would be removed if I didn’t get up. I showed him my badge and he said, “too bad” so I got up and walked around until someone slapped me on the back.
“Paste Pot Pete,” Harry said to me, pulling me inward. I was a big guy like him, but Harry’s hands felt like he could cradle me in them. The way he hugged you, and I don’t like to be hugged, where he grasped you on the chest and on the small of your back gave me a jolt as the reality around me melted away. I felt taken care of, his beard scratching against my face.
“Why do you call me that?” I said, fake wincing in his presence. “That’s a low-tier Spider-Man villain.”
“Name another Pete in comics?” he said, breaking his grip on me.
“Off the top of my head, I can name fifteen,” I said. “But if this is a dick measuring contest, we’ll need some privacy.”
Harry laughed and grabbed onto my shoulder, overemphasizing the joke I made and seemingly flirting with me. Maybe I don’t know how to gauge romantic interaction anymore. A Batman and Robin stopped and gawked at us for a second so he must have been holding onto me just too long.
“I didn’t see you at the bar last night or the night before,” he said.
“I don’t drink,” I said. “And you forget that everytime I tell you.”
“You should at least get a seltzer and hang out. It’s going to hurt your career,” he said.
“What career?” I said.
“Things not going well?”
“No,” I said. “We’re losing the Aliens franchise and are going to be left with nothing but fighting robot trading cards. I can’t spend my days ranking the powers and abilities of alien robots. I’m going to kill myself or go to law school.”
“I’ve heard some things,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Sexual harrasment, bullying.” he said. “Companies are pulling their licenses because you all are toxic as shit.”
“Great,” I said. “It’s just going to get worse there.”
“Do you have an updated resume?” Harry asked. “I can at least help get you out of there.”
“You have some work for me?”
“Maybe,” he said. “You were always a good writer. I was talking about you last night to a couple of editors.”
“They stopped buying my scripts. Why couldn’t I have been born with a modest trust fund? ” I said. “God. Remember when I got to do that Excalibur fill-in?”
“Everyone was doing those,” Harry said. “But you sent me and everyone else you knew an autographed copy.”
“It was good!”
“You know who’s in artist alley today?” Harry said to me.
“No,” I said.
Hands in his pocket, Harry smiles and leans back and forth seesawing. I worry that he’s going to fall over or trip someone but don’t do anything.
“Fletcher Stanton!” he said. He did a little skip and threw his arms open like a middle-schooler ending a talent show. “He was supposed to be here Friday and Saturday but was sick.”
I thumbed through comics pages in my head and ran past Kirby, Shuster, and then Everett and placed the name. Fletcher created a superhero, a woman (rare in the 50s), whose head turned into a flaming skull like Ghost Rider when her powers activated. She was all muscle, bulky like a lumberjack, and ensconced in black cloak with a silver skull pinning it at her neck. She would fly around and beat up men. Fletcher’s work was more dynamic, with rubbery bodies bending natural law and so many tiny panels on his pages. His work was clear and violent, guiding the eye from box to box with the greatest of ease. He was a legend that only the kind of person who would spend hours sifting through greasy back issue bins for his work knew anymore.
“Wow,” I said, thinking back. “He did some work for the big two in the 70s, right?”
“Yeah, I have some of his Moon Knight issues.”
“What is he? Ninety?”
“I think he’s younger than that,” Harry said, as walked. “He lied about his age to get his first work published. I think he was 13 or something?”
“They used to just let anyone do this, huh?”
“It was a newer form,” he said. “There were possibilities. Can you imagine just scamming your way into the comic industry, creating this medium at such a young age, and then being put on a shelf like that.
“Yeah,” I said. If someone like Fletcher was punted aside, what hope was there that I could leave my mark in this industry? He was abused and had his work taken away from him and I’m just some schmuck.
Harry shrugged and people pushed him aside.
Artist alley was like a train station at rush hour—established artists charging for sketches, legends, newcomers, and a cavalcade of fans flipping through sketch books other artists had drawn in with the hopes of adding to their collection. Most of the artists supplemented their income here to pay the bills.
All of the pros down there looked like my extended families, old Jews who let me complain to them about bullies at school, how my parents wouldn’t let me see r-rated movies. It felt like home. Superhero comics were inherently Jewish, to me and a lot of others. Superman was an immigrant trying to assimilate. Spider-man was the most nebbishy superhero ever created. Art Spiegleman and Will Eisner taught us that the medium could sing and tell the story of our people. There could be a place for me. There should be a place for everyone.
“Jesus,” I said. “Is that the guy who created Spawn? He’s loaded.”
“Guess he wants a second addition to the house,” Harry said, grabbing my arm, and leading me to a modest line at the end of the hallway. Surrounded by empty tables was a small man with cropped white hair, bulky shoulders, and a determined look of happiness—Fletcher Stanton. He could have been anywhere from seventy to a hundred years old. There were around fifteen people ahead of us and he pounded out sketches in 15 minutes with alacrity only someone who went through the Depression could have. It was like watching Mozart compose.
“I haven’t used this since I was a kid,” Harry said to me, taking out his sketchbook. “I used to go to these conventions and spend all my money having artists draw Wolverine. What should I have him draw?”
“Batman, duh.”
The line moved. I was flooded with hope, with anticipation. There was something about talking to a forgotten legend. I desperately wanted to corner Harry and pitch to him. I could wow him, I really could. I would leave my abusive company and work steadily with Harry. I could start out small with not fondly remembered characters like Anarchy or Azrael.
Fletcher was small and compact, like a bulldog. There was no one in this line under 40. Fletcher’s pen moved like it was possessed, magic, and before you knew it there was a sketch of the Joker pointing a gun with a smoking bang sign jutting the barrel with the speech balloon: “Jokes on you, pal!”
“Hi, Mr. Thomas,” Harry said. “We’re both big fans.”
“Well, most boys your age are,” he said. His voice was small and sweet. He sounded like a librarian who read to children Sunday mornings.
“I’d like a Batman, please?” Harry asked.
“A specific one?”
“Whichever you’re most comfortable doing.”
“I’ll do Dick Sprang. Always thought he drew Bats as the most swashbuckling,” he said. “I once had a meeting with Bob Kane. He asked me to bring him some designs.”
“Oh wow,” I said.
“He stole them and the characters I created appeared as villains,” he said. “Slightly changed, of course. You might know of them as Deadshot and… uh…whatever that shrink’s name is.”
“Of course,” I said.
In the end, the eyes were a little too beady and the head a little too fat—Fletcher’s trademark cartoon proportions all of his characters looked. They were all a little too big in their skin. His characters lumbered.
I imagined Fletcher drawing a story I had written for Harry. I blurted out, “You know, Harry edits Batman,” before I could cover my mouth.
Harry squeezed my elbow for me to shut up, and shot me a look. I know he wasn’t in a position to hire Fletcher. I know I know I know. I’m tired of being told what we can’t have in this industry. We have no sense of history. A comic comes out one week and is instantly forgotten the next but our characters are built on continuity, on our ancestors. We all deserve better. I squeezed him back.
“Oh?” Fletcher said, not taking his eyes off the paper.
“Assistant editor,” Harry said. “I’m starting next week. Laying the groundwork for the next five years.”
“Well, good for you,” he said, and handed the sketch back. “Best of luck on your continued success.”
Harry paid him with two twenties, and we left.
We both gawked at the sketch. It was crude, ugly, and utterly perfect. It was a dynamic Batman we haven’t seen in print in years. It was off model and full of energy. It reminded me of something I drew that my mother would hang on the fridge no matter how ugly: it was the most endearing drawing I had ever seen.
“You should ask him,” I said.
“For what?”
“To do some work.”
“I can’t just do that,” he said.
“You can bring his name up to your boss,” I said. “And the sketch.”
“I don’t have hiring powers,” he said. “I have to get back to my booth.”
Harry left me at the mouth of artist alley as it was filling up. I looked back and Fletcher had his head back down, nose tip gracing the paper, and kept on drawing. His line got a little bigger but the lines for the more popular artists around him filled out. People bumped into me and apologized. I wanted to go back on the line and ask him why he was doing this, but I already knew the answer. There was no retiring. The industry took what it could from him until his characters appeared in TV and movies giving someone who wasn’t him a payday. No one was going to help you no matter what because we’re too busy drowning each other. Maybe Fletcher would work for me. Maybe I could get him to revitalize some property my boss forgot we had the rights to. Maybe we could start a new revolution and remake the industry.
Back at my booth, Joan was reading.
“How has it been here?”
“Fine,” she said. “Quiet.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s whatever,” she said. “It’s fun being trapped in your own anxieties with a convention full of people.”
We’re all in fear of our jobs, our livelihoods, and of the slightest misstep we make because management will hammer us. Joan and I could get a couple of others together and unionize. We could talk to journalists. Take down our bosses and their shitty behavior, we just needed money to weather the storm. Harry wasn’t the only editor I knew. Others would return my texts. Joan too. She knew people.
“Hey,” a young woman said, holding up her portfolio in front of her face. “I signed up for a review yesterday.”
Joan and I exchanged knowing looks and the woman grinned with hope. What would we do: tell her that this industry is going to eat you alive? We wouldn’t have listened, but we could encourage, mentor, and affect some kind of change if we wanted, if we had the energy to.
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s see it.”