GROUP-MINDED Pt. 5
While Neil’s departure was unfortunate, it was necessary. Neil had become a shadow, never truly making his feelings known, just staying in the background where, once, he had been in the forefront. Neil blamed us for his misfortunes, his lack of money, food, and his suicidal tendencies. And, for this, we’ve been “blackballed.”
The subject still makes me very angry. How can someone blame another human being for choices they failed to make or made? I would like to stay home and write all day, but I can’t. Even before I wanted a family, I wanted a life. I like eating. I like having money in my pocket. There is no reason in this day and age, or yesterday’s, for a “starving artist.” If you decide to travel that road, it’s your choice to do so. Neil may have been “incapable” of working a small job for cash, but that was his choice, and everything that came from that is on him, not me, or us.
Despite that, he was right, we did fail him.
That left three of us to carry on DMS and take it somewhere. Here is where I should have stepped up to the plate. My connection with Bloody Pencil and Merlin were a little bit stronger because we shared many of the same interests. Neil was always one foot in and another out of the geek world. But, Bloody Pencil, Merlin, and I were all the way in. Bloody Pencil was the heart of DMS. No one believed more than he did. Believed so much he put a few thousand dollars in the business account we started. Here I was, the “founder” and I hadn’t put in a dime. I tried to stop Bloody Pencil; I knew what would happen, I would almost foresee the road ahead and I knew asking or even accepting the money was a gross manipulation.
I was always doing stuff like that and I wonder if it made me seem schizophrenic. I knew what we had been getting thinner by the moment. It was only a matter of time before it vanished before our eyes. Magic had been lost. A fire that we thought was unquenchable. And, in it’s place, was pragmatism and procrastination. Saturday nights saw us meeting at my place, buying comics, food, dvd’s, and spending the evening talking a little business and a whole lot of pop culture. My wife didn’t even know what to make of these “business meetings” and told me on several occasions that I needed to get serious.
But I didn't listen; even though I knew she was right. There were times I tried to take the reigns. Those small-unexpected times when I would gain strength from some unknown place, but it never lasted too long. I'd damaged my own credibility.
Bloody Pencil was going through his own hell at the time, courtesy of yours truly. Being around artists for most of my teenage years and young adult life, I felt I had a smidgen of artistic know how. But, this perception was misguided by my own grand delusions. I dreamt of stories, my stories, drawn by people like Andy Kubert, Jim Lee, and Tom Raney. That's who I compared Bloody Pencil's work to every time I saw it. If it didn’t match up, I'd get upset - very upset. This built up a low artistic esteem that was never missing before. There was also the subject matter. Dead Souls had changed into Qabbal, and the story became a very dangerous one to tell. As it got better, Bloody Pencil felt the need to succeed at it. Fueled by my anger and dreams of artistic glory, he needed every page to be gold. Deadlines were missed; pages took forever to get done.
It was an unending circle of events, the longer it took pages to get done, the more time I had on my hands. I tried several different projects, but was unable to comfortably switch between the two. I went back to my first script, found holes, and went to fixing them. That led to the first re-write, but with every reading, I found more things, or things I wished I'd thought of earlier. I'd see a movie and walk out with two or three ideas for the book. The longer the pages took, the more I re-wrote the scripts. Pages that Bloody Pencil had already finished had to go back to pencil to make the changes in the script. Things were deteriorating on a personal level too, our friendship and partnership was under fire and in jeopardy.
Before Neil's departure, Bloody Pencil said, after years of nothing, he wanted a relationship. When I worked temp, I met this girl who seemed nice and I set her up with Bloody. This relationship started becoming an unnecessary diversion, and there was nothing I could do because it was my fault. I brought her into the mix. So, on top of everything Bloody was dealing with - his own doubts and insecurities about his art, fears of how the story would effect his strict Catholic family, and a partner who's constantly using him to make real his delusional fantasies - now he has a girlfriend who put him through the emotional ringer not even three months after their first date.
Neil and I were still talking, because no matter what we are still friends, and it became a running gag to imagine twenty years gone by and still no issue one was complete. I'd often joke that the humans of the future would open a time capsule and there would sit an incomplete copy of Qabbal # 1.
In retrospect, I think it was all a symptom of fear and uncertainty from all of us. Here we were on this endeavor with no idea, really, how to get it done without failing like so many others. Every idea we had was a crapshoot. All we could do was follow the rulebook, but others who failed wrote it. The comic industry can be truly frightening. It's not like movies. Movies, no matter how bad, have an audience. Someone will buy it. Hell, some of the worst movies in the world become cult classics. Movies have several lives - theatrical, video, dvd, television, cable, etc. Comics only have one market, the direct market. Everything goes through one guy, the retailer. If he doesn't like it, he won't book it. If he doesn’t book it, no one buys it. They won't even know you exist. And for this, we were willing to risk everything, even money we didn't have, and had no idea how to get. After five San Diego conventions and two rejection letters, it was hard to have high hopes.
But, I was the leader. It was my job to keep hope alive. Instead, others had to keep me afloat. If the leader is afraid, the army runs for the hills. Merlin's departure was inevitable.
The subject still makes me very angry. How can someone blame another human being for choices they failed to make or made? I would like to stay home and write all day, but I can’t. Even before I wanted a family, I wanted a life. I like eating. I like having money in my pocket. There is no reason in this day and age, or yesterday’s, for a “starving artist.” If you decide to travel that road, it’s your choice to do so. Neil may have been “incapable” of working a small job for cash, but that was his choice, and everything that came from that is on him, not me, or us.
Despite that, he was right, we did fail him.
That left three of us to carry on DMS and take it somewhere. Here is where I should have stepped up to the plate. My connection with Bloody Pencil and Merlin were a little bit stronger because we shared many of the same interests. Neil was always one foot in and another out of the geek world. But, Bloody Pencil, Merlin, and I were all the way in. Bloody Pencil was the heart of DMS. No one believed more than he did. Believed so much he put a few thousand dollars in the business account we started. Here I was, the “founder” and I hadn’t put in a dime. I tried to stop Bloody Pencil; I knew what would happen, I would almost foresee the road ahead and I knew asking or even accepting the money was a gross manipulation.
I was always doing stuff like that and I wonder if it made me seem schizophrenic. I knew what we had been getting thinner by the moment. It was only a matter of time before it vanished before our eyes. Magic had been lost. A fire that we thought was unquenchable. And, in it’s place, was pragmatism and procrastination. Saturday nights saw us meeting at my place, buying comics, food, dvd’s, and spending the evening talking a little business and a whole lot of pop culture. My wife didn’t even know what to make of these “business meetings” and told me on several occasions that I needed to get serious.
But I didn't listen; even though I knew she was right. There were times I tried to take the reigns. Those small-unexpected times when I would gain strength from some unknown place, but it never lasted too long. I'd damaged my own credibility.
Bloody Pencil was going through his own hell at the time, courtesy of yours truly. Being around artists for most of my teenage years and young adult life, I felt I had a smidgen of artistic know how. But, this perception was misguided by my own grand delusions. I dreamt of stories, my stories, drawn by people like Andy Kubert, Jim Lee, and Tom Raney. That's who I compared Bloody Pencil's work to every time I saw it. If it didn’t match up, I'd get upset - very upset. This built up a low artistic esteem that was never missing before. There was also the subject matter. Dead Souls had changed into Qabbal, and the story became a very dangerous one to tell. As it got better, Bloody Pencil felt the need to succeed at it. Fueled by my anger and dreams of artistic glory, he needed every page to be gold. Deadlines were missed; pages took forever to get done.
It was an unending circle of events, the longer it took pages to get done, the more time I had on my hands. I tried several different projects, but was unable to comfortably switch between the two. I went back to my first script, found holes, and went to fixing them. That led to the first re-write, but with every reading, I found more things, or things I wished I'd thought of earlier. I'd see a movie and walk out with two or three ideas for the book. The longer the pages took, the more I re-wrote the scripts. Pages that Bloody Pencil had already finished had to go back to pencil to make the changes in the script. Things were deteriorating on a personal level too, our friendship and partnership was under fire and in jeopardy.
Before Neil's departure, Bloody Pencil said, after years of nothing, he wanted a relationship. When I worked temp, I met this girl who seemed nice and I set her up with Bloody. This relationship started becoming an unnecessary diversion, and there was nothing I could do because it was my fault. I brought her into the mix. So, on top of everything Bloody was dealing with - his own doubts and insecurities about his art, fears of how the story would effect his strict Catholic family, and a partner who's constantly using him to make real his delusional fantasies - now he has a girlfriend who put him through the emotional ringer not even three months after their first date.
Neil and I were still talking, because no matter what we are still friends, and it became a running gag to imagine twenty years gone by and still no issue one was complete. I'd often joke that the humans of the future would open a time capsule and there would sit an incomplete copy of Qabbal # 1.
In retrospect, I think it was all a symptom of fear and uncertainty from all of us. Here we were on this endeavor with no idea, really, how to get it done without failing like so many others. Every idea we had was a crapshoot. All we could do was follow the rulebook, but others who failed wrote it. The comic industry can be truly frightening. It's not like movies. Movies, no matter how bad, have an audience. Someone will buy it. Hell, some of the worst movies in the world become cult classics. Movies have several lives - theatrical, video, dvd, television, cable, etc. Comics only have one market, the direct market. Everything goes through one guy, the retailer. If he doesn't like it, he won't book it. If he doesn’t book it, no one buys it. They won't even know you exist. And for this, we were willing to risk everything, even money we didn't have, and had no idea how to get. After five San Diego conventions and two rejection letters, it was hard to have high hopes.
But, I was the leader. It was my job to keep hope alive. Instead, others had to keep me afloat. If the leader is afraid, the army runs for the hills. Merlin's departure was inevitable.
posted by QABBAL at 2:34 AM
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