It’s Comic-Con week again, and I’m preparing myself to see people hating on Comic-Con because “it’s not about comics anymore,” and I’m preparing to see people boast about not being there, because of some hipster sense that they’re too cool or not cool enough to go. You can take your pick there. You can see people who are hyped for Hall H and people who are offended that people attend things in Hall H. And I’m already seeing people who are enthusiastically promoting their own appearances and panels that they’re doing.
Here’s my take:
Comic-Con is exactly what you make of it. I’ve been to it three times, the last two times as a professional. And each time, I’ve found exactly what I was looking for. You want comics? There are a ton of creators there that don’t generally appear in the midwest. There are booths and booths and booths of new comics, old comics, original art, supplies, and anything else you could ever need for the hobby of collecting comics. There are multiple panels going on simultaneously, with information being given out by experts on everything in the field. I was privileged to participate in three of them in my pro days, which if you haven’t put it together yet, are over.
My favorite Comic-Con experiences came as surprises, like the first time I went. Back in 2004, my wife and I visited her sister and her husband when they lived in San Francisco. My wife had asked me if there was anything else I wanted to do in California during the time we were scheduled to be there. I joked, “Well, Comic-Con is going on that week…” She laughed it off and nothing more was said about it. It was just a pipe dream. As it turned out, my brother-in-law was actually going to be away from home for part of the week for that very reason. I was jealous. He was working for Industrial Light and Magic at the time, and was actually working on Star Wars Episode III. He arranged a visit to Skywalker Ranch for us, and even snuck me into ILM itself, which was against the rules. It wasn’t in the Presidio back then, but in a strip mall across from a Circuit City in a completely unmarked building. Super cool. When it came time to say goodbye to him so he could head to the airport, my wife told me to pack an overnight bag. I didn’t understand. She said, “You’re going with him.” Without my knowledge, they had planned the whole thing from the beginning!
We caught our plane at 6 AM, landed in Los Angeles at 7:30 AM, and Jeremy rented a convertible to drive the rest of the way down to San Diego. We got there, found a hotel (those were the days) and hopped a bicycle cab to the convention center. Jeremy was an industry pro, and registration was not quite as stringent as it is now, and he got us passes for two days based on his credentials. I was in heaven. The first thing I did was, of course, say hello to all the people I knew in Artist Alley. Jeremy was impressed that I seemed to know everyone, and that they knew me. It wasn’t quite that extensive, but it was a lot. Then he introduced me to someone he worked with at Blur Studios, Chuck Wojtkiewicz. I sputtered, “You drew Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes!” I thought poor Chuck was going to crawl under his table. He had also drawn Justice League of America for a bit, but I mean, who’s going to remember that? I got to meet Chris Claremont, writer of my favorite X-Men comics, and I bought a hardcover of that book for him to sign. But the key person I was thrilled to meet was Brent Eric Anderson.
Anderson, who drew my favorite comic book series of all time, Astro City, was all by himself with no line. I gushed like a fanboy and told him that I had several of his original pages from Astro City. I asked him for a sketch of The Confessor and Altar Boy, and now that sketch sits right in front of me in a place of honor on my art wall in my office.
Jeremy met with other Blur Studios alumni while he was there, including the owner, Tim Miller, who took his entire group, including me, to lunch. Now, if the name Tim Miller sounds familiar, it should. He directed Deadpool. So yes, thanks to Jeremy, I get to say that I was taken to lunch by the director of Deadpool. And if Chuck Wojtkiewicz’s name didn’t sound familiar before, it’s only because he was an unsung hero working on Deadpool. Chuck storyboarded the entire “12 Bullets” sequence of that movie.
What a trip!
I didn’t get to go to Comic-Con again for several years. The experience had been a little overwhelming, to say the least. The convention had dwarfed all the others I had attended. But it only got bigger as time went on. The next time I went was in 2016, when I was working on Solution Squad. I applied to present a panel there, and was accepted. I participated in another panel, as well. And as an all-ages author participating in panels, I was invited to the Scholastic party being held on the rooftop of a nearby hotel. It also served as a release party for Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts graphic novel. If you don’t know Raina’s name, she is the queen of American graphic novels. She is also one of the most down-to-earth people you’ll ever meet. This whole experience was another surprise! I got to pitch Solution Squad to an editor there, but it wasn’t something they were publishing at the time. I was disappointed, but not too surprised about that.
I received one of the gift bags that they had set aside at the party, and it contained an uncorrected proof copy of the book. My daughter, who was 10 years old at the time, was a near-celebrity for having a copy before any of her friends did. I had fun just hanging out with my dear friend Tracy Edmunds, with whom I worked on so many projects. I had lunch with Tracy and her daughter Shelby, who I was meeting for the first time. Shelby went on to color some stories for me. She’s very talented!
Another pleasant surprise occurred when I got to meet my favorite Superman writer, Elliot S! Maggin, whom I didn’t even know was going to be at the convention. He was there to receive the Bill Finger Award, which is given to writers who have not previously been recognized enough for their work. Elliot was not only my favorite Superman comic book writer, but had also authored two Superman prose novels that meant a lot to me (and still do, actually) when I was young. I was thrilled at the opportunity to meet him.
Me with Elliot S! Maggin, Comic-Con 2016
I got teased about wearing a Batman shirt when I took a photo with him. If I’d known he was going to be there, I would have worn a Superman shirt!
At this same convention, I got to meet Steven E. Gordon, who had long been a Facebook friend, but also created the cover for my first comic book! Steve was the character designer for X-Men Evolution, one of my favorite cartoons.
The main cast of X-Men Evolution
When I initially started pitching Solution Squad, I described it as “X-men Evolution meets Numbers.” So it seemed natural to ask him to do the cover of my first comic book.
The cover of Solution Squad #1, drawn by Steven E. Gordon and colored by Eric Gordon
It was also a nice time seeing friends from the old Clobberin’ Times amateur press alliance, a publication I belonged to 30 years ago.
Me with my buddy Tim Watts, before he went all grey!
The last time I went to Comic-Con was in 2019, a year ahead of the pandemic. Out of the three panels I submitted, the one I was least prepared to give was accepted. I went with my two buddies, Scott Wiles and Jon Loftus. I did have a good time, but there was definitely a damper on my enjoyment. At that point in my comics career, I was beat. I was tired of doing conventions. I was tired of travel, and I was tired of pretty much everything to do with it, especially the crowds.
The line to get into the main convention floor, 2019
That said, I made the most of the convention. It’s often said, “Comic-Con isn’t about comics anymore.” Well, it is if you make it about comics. I spent the majority of my time among the comics dealers in the vendor room, and found a ton of comics I wanted. There were comics, old toys, original art, you name it. It’s all there if you look for it. I got to see my friends Chuck, Steven, and Elliot again. I got to pick up merch from my friend Katie Cook, supporting her web comic Nothing Special, of which my daughter is a huge fan.
Katie Cook is always easy to find at a convention. Look for the longest line!
I also made a point to pick up con-exclusive merchandise that I could re-sell later at a premium to help pay for my trip.
Never in my life did I imagine there would be an action figure set like this!Thanks to Tim Watts and Aaron Storck for being at my panel!
Again, seeing friends from the Clobberin’ Times was great. Tim Watts and Aaron Storck were on hand for my panel. It’s always great catching up.
When I returned home, I was exhausted. Of course, that was the last convention before the pandemic happened, so I’m sure it hasn’t been the same. I know I have no desire to go again. The pandemic changed me permanently. I don’t like traveling by air anymore, and I don’t like large crowds at all. But I sure enjoyed the times I went and I don’t regret any of those trips!
It’s funny how the simplest thing can trigger strong memories. It happened to me again today. I went outside to the front of the garage to grill a couple of hamburgers and it started to rain. The drops were slow, but pretty big, and next thing I knew, it was a soaking torrent. So much for grilling!
I went back inside, and rather than dig a George Foreman grill out of storage, I just took out a frying pan and turned a stovetop burner on. Just as soon as I dropped the patties in and they started sizzling, the combination of sound and smell transported me back to the summer of 1986. I was living with five young college women on West Dutton Street in downtown Kalamazoo. It was what they called the “student ghetto” back then. They were all friends of my fiancee at the time, and I was subletting my fiancee’s room for the summer while she moved back home with her parents. I just needed a place to stay between semesters at school, because I lived in the dorm all four years. Believe it or not, it was cheaper for me to do so because of my financial aid. The house was, shall we say, not nice. I spent a good many evenings catching mice with homemade traps made out of grocery bags and string.
I was broke and hungry for the first half of the summer. I was taking a summer class up on main campus, and I needed to commute every other day to get there. I bought a bike to help with the commute. My brother had destroyed my beloved 10-speed when I was gone on vacation one year while I was away, so I had to buy a new bike. I bought a new Huffy for about $100 at Toys R Us, where I worked, and I rode that up to campus and back. I assembled it myself to save money, and while doing so, I twisted off the nut that held the wire for the brake calipers in place. It was cheap, soft metal, and it just snapped. I took the bike back. Rather than just giving me a new nut, they replaced the entire bike, and I had to put another bike together all over again. I was very careful with the tightening that time.
I rode the Huffy up to campus on Mondays and Wednesdays, and I worked part-time at Toys R Us on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and some Saturdays. My housemates were generous enough to give me rides to work, because no one wanted me riding a bike down the busiest street in Kalamazoo at 9:30 at night. I was only working 20 hours a week at minimum wage, but that was more than enough to pay my share of the rent and to pitch in for food. My request each week was two pounds of ground beef and a pack of hamburger buns. And my caloric intake was a bowl of community cereal with milk in the morning and about a 1/3-pound hamburger each afternoon. One of my housemates taught me how to season and fry a hamburger, and I was good to go.
Not a lot of food for a 21-year-old, but it was enough to sustain me. I had the occasional box of Meijer brand macaroni and cheese. I had grown up eating that, after all.
I spent most of my time in the house reading, because I was stupid enough to take an English class on 20th century American authors. The books were long and boring. The other time I spent drawing, which paid off for me in an unexpected way. When the young women saw that I could draw, one asked me to draw a sketch of her. I had drawn from life in my freshman year, and I wasn’t bad at it, so I agreed. What I didn’t realize is that she wanted me to draw her in her underwear for her boyfriend. I tried to be professional about it. The model I had drawn in my studio art class had been nude, so I didn’t act like a total dork, but I was still nervous because this was someone I knew. When the rest of the ladies saw the result, I suddenly had a steady stream of customers. I guess that’s really the right word, because I exchanged my art skills for free rides to work. So, that made for a truly interesting summer, that’s for sure. I’m not sure how their boyfriends took having me see their girlfriends in their underwear, but they never mentioned it to me. Who knows, maybe the sketches weren’t really for them? The exposure didn’t only go one way, as I got walked in on while showering more than once, and we didn’t have a shower curtain.
At Toys R Us, I truly was in my element. I quickly became known as the “King of the 300 Aisle.” The 300 aisle was where the action figures and Barbies were stocked. I knew every toy line and I knew them well. Because there were few superhero shows at the time (can you imagine?), I watched the various cartoons that went with them. There were Transformers (Generation 1), GI Joe, Masters of the Universe, Warlord, Dungeons and Dragons, Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos, Thundercats, Silverhawks, Super Powers, Secret Wars, Star Wars Droids, and there were even some carded Mego Hulks still on the pegs, most of them with at least one broken leg.
A common sight back then…
I collected the Super Powers line myself, and had a complete set of every figure released, except one. I had never seen a Cyborg figure myself. I opened every case of Super Powers that came in that summer and still never saw a Cyborg figure. I started to suspect that it wasn’t real.
Someone got one somewhere, but it wasn’t Kalamazoo, Michigan!
This was where I first started dabbling with toy scalping. On certain weekends I was helping my friend Marc Newman do comic book conventions. Marc had awful night vision, and in exchange for comics and pizza, I drove him to and from cons, also providing raw muscle. Back then, I thought nothing of carrying two long boxes at the same time. Boy, those were the days! At one such convention, I noticed that two GI Joe figures, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, were selling for $20 apiece. I didn’t understand that, because I was still shelving them regularly in my evening job. The dealer said that they were hard to find in the wild, as he put it. I asked Marc if it would be okay if I grabbed a couple from work and put them up for sale at his table. he said he didn’t mind at all. So, the next week, I went to the back of the store, opened up two fresh cases of GI Joe figures, and spent $16 of my meager paycheck to buy two Snake Eyes figures and two Storm Shadows.
And sure enough, that weekend, I sold them for a total of $80! Bear in mind, I was making minimum wage, $3.35 an hour back then, so the $64 I earned in profit was the equivalent of 19 hours of labor! I couldn’t believe it. I did that for the rest of the summer. At least I could finally eat better!
The only drawback to working at Toys R Us was that I had to walk past the animatronic Teddy Ruxpin teddy bear. It had a motion sensor, so every time anyone walked past it, it began to sing, “Come Dream With Me Toniiiiiight.” And since it was on an endcap, at least 50 times a day, I heard that stupid song until I finally learned how to disconnect the motion sensor.
Bite me, Teddy
The summer passed pretty slowly, and things got heated for a bit, both literally and figuratively. We had no air conditioning. We all walked around in various states of undress as it got into the 90s. That, combined with not seeing our significant others on a regular basis due to crazy work schedules led to a great deal of frustration. I remember one night when we all sat in the living room, reading aloud stories from Penthouse Forum. I think we were all pretty much feeling it at that point, but certain people were sending pretty clear signals to me and some of the other ladies got jealous, even though I wasn’t responding to them. That caused friction among three of the five for some time.
Another point of tempation came when we got robbed. While we were all out of the house, someone broke in through the back French doors, and took the television, the stereo, and…the Trivial Pursuit game. Honestly of all those things, the Trivial Pursuit game hit us the hardest because we didn’t have cable anyway. We played the board game more than we watched the TV. But that sense of violation made us feel insecure. I was invited to sleep with two of my housemates for a week after that. No funny business, mind you, just sleep. Yes, the thought did cross my mind. I was 21 years old and had seen every one of them in their underwear. I have a feeling I could have, but I was engaged at the time, and remained faithful.
I ended up with a B in the summer reading class, and I don’t think I even read the last two books on the list. But I knew I could BS with the best of them and I did on the written final exam, and at the end of summer, I was almost grateful that it was time for me to move back into the dorm. At least I would eat better. All of my possessions put together fit into the trunk of one car. But what to do with my bike? Well, I’m not especially proud of this, but coincidentally, I tightened the brake caliper nut too hard (it was always coming loose) and snapped it again. I still had the receipt, so I returned the bike to the store for a refund. It was obviously faulty because it happened twice, so I got my money back instead of yet another replacement. I basically got the use of a 10-speed bike for the summer for free, courtesy of the Toys R Us where I had worked all summer.
Strangely enough, I was not invited to sublet with the five young women again the next year. Ironically, I sublet a room in the house that their boyfriends rented together. I look back on that summer now, and I’m kind of grateful that cell phone cameras were not a thing then, because I did not share stories of the summer of 1986, except for the fact that I knew how to cook hamburgers.
One of my favorite things about spring and summer was going to the Copemish Flea Market with my Grandma McClain. Held every Saturday, my grandma would always prefer to get fresh fruits and vegetables there from a farm stand, rather than the limited selection available at the local grocery store. They would hold us over until her massive garden started yielding carrots, peas, tomatoes, corn, rhubarb, and blackberries. I only remember growing potatoes once, because they were so inexpensive at the flea market.
I, on the other hand, would be on the hunt for more unusual fare. There was the comic book dealer, who not only sold older comics cheap, but would also trade two for one. But there would also be other stuff, like frog spears, rubber band guns, and other hand-carved toys. I mostly stuck to comic books, always in search of something I missed at the grocery store that served as my only other source. He also had paperback books, something that my grandfather enjoyed immensely.
My Grandpa McClain had his daily routine as a retired ornamental iron worker. He’d get up at 4 AM, make coffee, and then go out to the garage to putter. When my grandma got up at seven, he’d come back to the house for breakfast, and then putter around until lunch at noon. After lunch, he’d lie on the couch, reading a Zane Grey western until he fell asleep in the sunlight, which streamed through the window. He’d still have his cheaters (glasses) on, and his mouth would be wide open. I always thought, wow, that’s the life. He’d go back out to the garage until dinner, then watch the news and whatever show Grandma wanted to watch until bedtime at 11. If baseball was on, everyone was happy, and in the springtime, baseball was on just about every night.
We had a cabinet full of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour westerns. I was free to read whatever I wanted from the cabinet, but I found the westerns to be pretty repetitive. Grandma and Grandpa also had a subscription to Reader’s Digest, which I looked forward to, and their Condensed Books anthologies, which had abridged versions of popular novels of the time. When I found Peter Benchley’s Jaws on the shelf in Volume 98, I knew I had to read it. Just a couple of years before, when I was still living with my mother, we had gone to the drive-in theater, where they played a kids’ movie first, and then a popular movie more geared for adults second in a double feature. The expectation is that the kids would go to sleep for the second feature.
We had a station wagon at the time, and we kids were supposed to lie down and go to sleep in the back. When we went to the show and Jaws was playing, though, I could not go to sleep. That John Williams music was so suspenseful, and the sounds I heard played like the most exciting radio show I’d ever heard. So, I kep sneaking peeks over the back seat. I gave myself away during the scene when Hooper was diving on Ben Gardner’s boat and the fisherman’s severed head floats out through a hole in the boat. I let out an audible gasp and I was busted. My mom figured the damage was done at that point, and let me climb over the back seat to watch the rest of the movie. I was 10 years old, and the memories of feeling like a grown up would stay with me for a long time.
My mom had the original novel, but I wasn’t allowed to read it. I argued that it wasn’t fair because I’d already seen the movie, but it was useless. She wouldn’t let me. So, when the opportunity came up to read the Condensed Book version in my grandparents’ cabinet, I didn’t ask. I had been given carte blanche, remember. I was stunned. Hooper and Brody’s wife? Organized crime? Where was all this in the movie? And the ending was, shall we say, radically different from the movie. I have to tell you that this was a whole lot different than the Hardy Boys books I had read just a few years before. It was closer in tone to the Cyborg novels upon which The Six Million Dollar Man was based. I was starting to get the impression that novel reading was a whole lot more exciting than most people made it out to be and they definitely weren’t all for kids.
I still enjoyed my funny books, but the world was suddenly a much larger place, thanks to Reader’s Digest.
It is the summer of ’85, I’m 20 years old, and I’m driving home from my bagger job at Meijer on Westnedge Avenue in Kalamazoo. I’m cruising north on US 131 in my ’78 Buick LeSabre, windows down, the radio on loud. Voices Carry by ‘Til Tuesday comes on over the speakers. I like this tune, and I’m singing along to it:
“Hush, hush, Keep it down now, Voices carry.”
When the music fades, there’s a short pause, and then the song mysteriously plays again. That’s strange, I think, and I listen to it again. As I said, I like it. Then it plays again. And again. And again. I arrive home after the 20-minute drive, and I run upstairs to the attic room that I rent from my grandmother. I turn on my JC Penney stereo that my mom had found for me at a garage sale, and it’s still playing.
The song played 22 consecutive times that night before the station played a commercial. I felt like I had to see the mystery through to the end, but I never found out why. No explanation was ever given, no mention of it ever made again.
It’s easy to get jaded by adolescent behavior when the kids are growing up substantially differently than you did. “These kids spend all their time on their phones!” “They never go anywhere! They don’t even want to learn to drive!” I hear it all the time. But as I was scrolling through TikTok one night before I went to sleep, as I often do, I kept encountering a band called Burn the Jukebox. They were doing a cover of a Foo Fighters song. I thought, you know, they’re not bad. And I watched a couple more of their videos, and I have to tell you that I was impressed by their range. They covered bands like No Doubt, Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, and even A-Ha and Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Then I got hit with a brick. They’re 15 and 16 years old.
Luke, Virgina, Ethan, and Carter, of Burn the Jukebox
Once you reach a certain age, it’s honestly difficult to tell how old kids are, even if you’re a teacher. Some 16-year-olds look like they’re 22. Some look like they’re 12. So, when I saw one video celebrating Virginia’s sweet 16, I was taken aback. These kids have been playing together for three years! They post something new just about every day, and their skills are already impressive. They’ve done tours already, too.
The Internet, being what it is, provides the expected negative commentary: “They reek of privilege!” “That guitarist has a million dollars worth of pedals.” They answer with maturity and unexpected candor. Their parents were musicians, too, and are very supportive. And they’ve bought their equipment with gig money, you know, just like a “real” band would. And believe me, they are a real band. It’s great to hear them honoring the past with the songs they perform. But they also answer their critics who say they should make their own songs. They DO. They have their own original songs that they perform and release. It’s just that the cover songs they produce draw views to their various channels. It’s a successful tactic; it’s what got my attention.
This is the kind of story that makes me happy. It’s kids being kids, following their dreams, not allowing negative people to tear them down, and proving naysayers wrong. Good on these kids!
