GROUP-MINDED Pt. 7
And then, there were two.
Two of the weakest.
Two of the most misguided.
We were the only ones left to fulfill a dream and we failed miserably. Perhaps I’m being too hard on Bloody Pencil and myself, but this isn’t about more excuses. It’s confession time. And, for my part, I was all talk and no action until it was too late; then I had the gaw to turn my back on a friend guilty of no crime I hadn’t committed myself.
Merlin left, Bloody Pencil and I renewed our vow to a dream. We slammed ourselves full throttle into Qabbal with no hesitations. I triple the number of scripts I’d finished. We put together a proposal that is still the best we’ve ever done. Bloody Pencil invested in a Mac computer for the artwork. We brought in Rob for colors and reconnected with Juan to get our website done, finally.
But it all fell on deaf ears. When the rejection letter came, we had the guts to shelve Qabbal for something more commercial. That was the birth of Lazarus. We talked about joining Marvel’s Epic line, and started developing a Dr. Strange script that still amazes me. We put together a ten page Lazarus story for Digital Webbing. Came up for a web strip series called Sinful Siblings, a mixture of Raggedy Anne and Andy with goth subculture.
For a while, it was beautiful. I developed the Four Month Plan, a detailed outline of what we had to get done each month. In four months, we’d have an operational website, with a blog, forum, and web comics; a ten page story published in a growing anthology, and I was in communication with an editor who coached us through the process to give us the best chance of acceptance. It had taken over five years, but I had finally taken DMS by the reigns.
We failed the plan, not once, but twice.
By this time Lazarus: Immortal Coils was complete. The first story I ever complete from beginning to end, and it looked like it would never get done. I’d pushed away all the obstacles I let getting the way between Bloody Pencil and I. We avoided talking about his wife, and when we did, I didn’t flood his ears with talk of divorce and disrespect. I even went so far as visiting his home, just to squash it. I fell in love with his art again, accepted him for the artists he is, and not who I wanted him to be, fulfilling my own grand delusions. And still we had nothing. My wife was pregnant. I was older. I had to do what I could to get my dream off the ground, but that meant saying goodbye to DMS.
Years earlier, my father had said he would support me in my writing endeavors, but I had to go it alone. He didn’t want his money profiting anyone except me. Especially, not if I could some day have a company I established taken from away. The possibility hung over my head for years, but I never acted because it was a betrayal to me. I couldn’t abandon my crew, but it was also about giving up that security and support, and I wasn’t ready. But this time the offer was too good to ignore. My father remembered his words and agreed to help. Instead of starting fresh, I went to the same person I always did to draw the book, Bloody Pencil.
It wasn’t all me. When he heard my father had approved me, Bloody Pencil put in a bid for the work. $10 per for a ninety-six-page book, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse, and the thought of refusing never entered my mind. It made sense that once I started paying for the work, Bloody Pencil would produce the art in on time. After the first deadline was missed, I extended and re-set to allow for more time, but it didn’t matter. The final straw came when I started looking for an inker. I’d communicated with everyone, including Dani Miki. But it was Dave at Glasshouse that responded to an ad I’d placed. When I showed him the pages, he slammed Bloody Pencils work – hard.
An offer was made from Glasshouse to produce the entire book, and I was temped, but stuck with Bloody Pencil, until, at the most crucial time in our business relationship, he missed another deadline. I didn’t have to fire him, thank God. Bloody Pencil quit for the good of the book. To the very end, he was thinking of DMS.
But DMS was already dead. The very names alone inspired bad memories and misappropriated time. I didn’t want the name. I didn’t want to think about it, or jinx my chances now that I was working independently. Things were good at first. I was real busy, and I took pride in what I was doing, Things were finally looking up. I had a book in production. Professionals were doing it. I was closer than I’d ever been to realizing my dream.
Ironically, that’s when the first sting came, like a fast and sharp jab to the chin, gone before you realize you’ve been hit. I knew something was wrong the first time I went to Comics Ink. DMS was put to bed. I was alone, the first time I’d walk through those doors alone in ten years. The place was full of memories. I went home with two bags of comics and read them by myself. It was midnight on a Saturday, and I was alone. It felt like I hadn’t been alone in years, and I hadn’t. Everything lost its thrill. As the time drew closer for me to reinvent myself, I wondered what name I would embrace. I’d been known as DMS for so long, anything else didn’t fit, but neither did DMS, not anymore.
What would I become?
JPG.
Two of the weakest.
Two of the most misguided.
We were the only ones left to fulfill a dream and we failed miserably. Perhaps I’m being too hard on Bloody Pencil and myself, but this isn’t about more excuses. It’s confession time. And, for my part, I was all talk and no action until it was too late; then I had the gaw to turn my back on a friend guilty of no crime I hadn’t committed myself.
Merlin left, Bloody Pencil and I renewed our vow to a dream. We slammed ourselves full throttle into Qabbal with no hesitations. I triple the number of scripts I’d finished. We put together a proposal that is still the best we’ve ever done. Bloody Pencil invested in a Mac computer for the artwork. We brought in Rob for colors and reconnected with Juan to get our website done, finally.
But it all fell on deaf ears. When the rejection letter came, we had the guts to shelve Qabbal for something more commercial. That was the birth of Lazarus. We talked about joining Marvel’s Epic line, and started developing a Dr. Strange script that still amazes me. We put together a ten page Lazarus story for Digital Webbing. Came up for a web strip series called Sinful Siblings, a mixture of Raggedy Anne and Andy with goth subculture.
For a while, it was beautiful. I developed the Four Month Plan, a detailed outline of what we had to get done each month. In four months, we’d have an operational website, with a blog, forum, and web comics; a ten page story published in a growing anthology, and I was in communication with an editor who coached us through the process to give us the best chance of acceptance. It had taken over five years, but I had finally taken DMS by the reigns.
We failed the plan, not once, but twice.
By this time Lazarus: Immortal Coils was complete. The first story I ever complete from beginning to end, and it looked like it would never get done. I’d pushed away all the obstacles I let getting the way between Bloody Pencil and I. We avoided talking about his wife, and when we did, I didn’t flood his ears with talk of divorce and disrespect. I even went so far as visiting his home, just to squash it. I fell in love with his art again, accepted him for the artists he is, and not who I wanted him to be, fulfilling my own grand delusions. And still we had nothing. My wife was pregnant. I was older. I had to do what I could to get my dream off the ground, but that meant saying goodbye to DMS.
Years earlier, my father had said he would support me in my writing endeavors, but I had to go it alone. He didn’t want his money profiting anyone except me. Especially, not if I could some day have a company I established taken from away. The possibility hung over my head for years, but I never acted because it was a betrayal to me. I couldn’t abandon my crew, but it was also about giving up that security and support, and I wasn’t ready. But this time the offer was too good to ignore. My father remembered his words and agreed to help. Instead of starting fresh, I went to the same person I always did to draw the book, Bloody Pencil.
It wasn’t all me. When he heard my father had approved me, Bloody Pencil put in a bid for the work. $10 per for a ninety-six-page book, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse, and the thought of refusing never entered my mind. It made sense that once I started paying for the work, Bloody Pencil would produce the art in on time. After the first deadline was missed, I extended and re-set to allow for more time, but it didn’t matter. The final straw came when I started looking for an inker. I’d communicated with everyone, including Dani Miki. But it was Dave at Glasshouse that responded to an ad I’d placed. When I showed him the pages, he slammed Bloody Pencils work – hard.
An offer was made from Glasshouse to produce the entire book, and I was temped, but stuck with Bloody Pencil, until, at the most crucial time in our business relationship, he missed another deadline. I didn’t have to fire him, thank God. Bloody Pencil quit for the good of the book. To the very end, he was thinking of DMS.
But DMS was already dead. The very names alone inspired bad memories and misappropriated time. I didn’t want the name. I didn’t want to think about it, or jinx my chances now that I was working independently. Things were good at first. I was real busy, and I took pride in what I was doing, Things were finally looking up. I had a book in production. Professionals were doing it. I was closer than I’d ever been to realizing my dream.
Ironically, that’s when the first sting came, like a fast and sharp jab to the chin, gone before you realize you’ve been hit. I knew something was wrong the first time I went to Comics Ink. DMS was put to bed. I was alone, the first time I’d walk through those doors alone in ten years. The place was full of memories. I went home with two bags of comics and read them by myself. It was midnight on a Saturday, and I was alone. It felt like I hadn’t been alone in years, and I hadn’t. Everything lost its thrill. As the time drew closer for me to reinvent myself, I wondered what name I would embrace. I’d been known as DMS for so long, anything else didn’t fit, but neither did DMS, not anymore.
What would I become?
JPG.
posted by QABBAL at 1:40 AM
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