Story Time: Early SDCC Memories and the Unfortunate Beer Incident (Patreon)

I went to the San Diego Comic Con for the first time in 1987. The show was small enough back then that you could, if you wanted to, meet just about any of the professionals. The floor was a looser affair, basically tables and small booths, not much going on that was anything like what you see now. It was held in the old convention center that was across the street from the Westgate hotel, it was puny compared to the Logan's Run cosplay city they have out there now for events.

The industry was also small enough that many of the professionals intermingled in a way unseen at larger shows these days (if seen at all, anymore, really). There were fewer guests, fewer attendees, fewer publishers and fewer social barriers and cliques. People seemed to know one another from marvel, DC, Comico, Dark Horse, etc. I found this out largely because I ended up at an after-party thrown by Comico and Graphitti, iirc (somewhere I have the invite flyer that was drawn by Gilbert Hernandez, to give you an idea of the synergy at the time. If I'm using that word correctly. If  I'm not, oh well, that's why I don't write novels). During the course of the convention I ended up hanging out with Bob Schreck and Diana Shutz who were with Comico at the time – I think it was because of some wisecrack I made during an industry panel during the retailer stuff that happened before the con. I think that was what Wednesday was, some retailer/industry-type stuff that no one ever learned anything from, really. I do know I piped up and said something sassy at some point during the panel, supposedly to Gary Groth, which endeared me to Diana. That's how that story goes, I don't remember it, myself.

But, I did a lot of dumb or obnoxious or loudmouthy things back when I was younger, screwier, and at SDCC, hung over (daytime)  if not drunk (at night). That con was my first real trip “on my own”, with friends Bran marshall and Tony Eng, who published my first solo stuff at Eternity (we're still good friends, and I'm actually working with Brian on something these days). I was a pretty naive 22 year-old, socially anxious and in the same hall as people like the Hernandez Brothers. And I saw Lux Interior and Poison Ivy buying comics at the show! This was heady stuff for a nerdy little Evan Dorkin.  My friends Brian, Tony and I discovered Corona beer and things were cheap and people bought you drinks and no one had to drive home or worry about what time you got in or anything. We drank until dawn and did the show after a couple of hours sleep and that's what you do when you're young and no one cares what you do. Everything was new and exciting, even the absolutely sordid state of downtown San Diego (which didn't have a lick of NYC's sordidness), so we walked around to the “bad areas” to play pinball and ping-pong and people thought we were out of our minds to go that far away from Horton Plaza and the Westgate Hotel. I'm not tough or anything, but none of us were scared in the least. It was warm out and pretty quiet and we were interested in everything because we were on the other side of the country seeing different things. We saw real sailors getting tattoos and stuff! It was a lot of fun. I even remember a little of it all.

So, yeah, basically, while I had fun as far as that part of the trip went, I was a fucking nervous wreck on the floor and at the convention bar scene and anything having to do with the “comics industry”. The first issue of Pirate Corp$! debuted at the show and I was tremendously unhappy with my first solo effort. I knew what a good comic looked like, and I knew my comic wasn't it. The work wasn't up to snuff. The bad coloring job didn't help, either. The best thing about it was Kurt Hathaway's lettering. It was the best I could do at the time, but it depressed the hell out of me because I couldn't believe I thought I should have this stuff published. I actually walked off with the first printed copy out of the box and looked over it and burst out crying because I thought it was terrible. True story. The good thing is I got better at comics. There was a ton of garbage and amateur hour stuff printed back then and only a few of the amateurs hung on and got better and stayed around. I'm proud of that. But at the time, holy shit. I wanted to shrivel up and blow away.

I got really drunk that night. Hell, I got really drunk every night. Hell and heck, I got really drunk every night at San Diego every year I went for the next four or five years (pre-Sarah). I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but it was definitely a coping mechanism in dealing with people. I was afraid of everyone in the industry that I recognized, even if I didn't like them or their work. I felt like I didn't belong in the least. I was a fan and a comic shop clerk who lucked into a free hotel room (bunking with Brian and Tony) and a paid flight (my parents). I was all over the place, emotionally. Nervous, elated, tongue-tied, motormouthed, I was anxious-obnoxious at my table working a stolen bell and a cheap wind-up monkey to attract customers – I drove Dan Vado nuts that first year and he told me later that he wanted to throw the monkey in the trash (I was sitting next to the SLG table, that's how we met, the following year Dan became my publisher for PC$!, and eventually Milk & Cheese, et al). But, I digress for the twelfth time this post. It's after 7 a.m. And I'm loopy. I should never have started this, because I knew I'd turn it into fifteen paragraphs instead of two.

So. Because Bob and Diana took a shine to me I got invited to that Comico/Graphitti party. It was in someone's hotel suite, maybe theirs. There were people from Marvel there, from DC, indy creators, retailers, a big mix of folks. I heard Bob Burden read the “Vietnam vet angry fan letter” for the first time. The bathtub was filled with beer. It was not like the parties they throw now, which no one can get into, and they try to pretend like they're some big deal Hollywood outfit. It was more like a frat party, although I've thankfully never been to a frat party. House party. Yeah. Hotel room party! Duh, that's exactly what it was. Anyway, I was starry-eyed and got plastered and had a great time. I felt bad because my friends weren't invited, but they were cool about it. I met a lot of people and for once in my life mostly kept my mouth shut and listened and observed and drank a lot of free beer and went back to the hotel feeling pretty great. Like, life had promise.

Ha ha. The next year I had no publisher, no book, no real work in comics. But they still gave me a table at SDCC (which shows you how small and relaxed things were back then, at the “big” show), and I went for free via Jim Hanley taking the staff out there for the retailer event stuff and whatnot. This is how I met Fabian Nicieza – at a dinner with Jim, the staff and marketing folks from Marvel. I got drunk (surprise) and acted out and cracked wise and in part this is why Fabian hired me for Bill and Ted when he started editing at Marvel in 1991. Spitting lychee nuts across the table is not how I recommend anyone start a full-time freelancing career, but it sort of worked for me. That and having a comic “with all those bands no one ever heard of”, as Fabian put it at the time.

1991 was also the year I got my first job at Dark Horse Comics. At that point Bob and Diana were at Dark Horse, and while I wasn't a name or anything people knew me at SDCC. I had met folks at most of the companies, because it was something you could do back then. You could talk to Dan Clowes (while your leg shook from nervousness) and then run away when Bob Schreck tries to introduce you to Jack Kirby (stupid Evan). Chris Claremont walks by your table and looks at your pencils and brings you over to talk to Marvel editors about maybe getting work (it didn't happen, but that was pretty heady stuff to have happen). You walk into the hotel room at 5 a.m. and your roommates Pete Dolan and Jim Pernicone from Jim Hanley's Universe are talking to a baked Mark Hamill who's offering you a lollipop (shit you not, and holy yeah, that was a very strange ten minutes of life, there).  Things were small and close and loose enough back then that weird and cool shit could happen.

So, I got a job offer from Diana to pencil the Predator: Big Game series. The penciler flaked on them and went into radio silence with only a few pages done. The industry was way smaller, there were fewer warm bodies with pencils. And Bob and Diana wanted to give me a boost. I did samples and they weren't good but they were good enough. And then Diana told me on the phone one day that I might have to sign a behavior clause as part of my contract to work on the book. Oops.

This was because at the Dark Horse party that year – or was it the year before, I dunno – I kind of did a dopey-ass thing. Nothing huge, but definitely unprofessional. See, the Westgate Hotel has this terrace that Dark Horse used for their parties, which got larger every year and more exlusive because otherwise everyone and their brother would crash. I made the cut because I was kind of grandfathered in from the Comcio party and the graces of Bob and Diana. And I was, uh, kind of nervous and kind of drunk. And I was hanging out with Bob Burden in his hotel room with some other people. His room overlooked the party, and people were going back and forth, and there was the usual beer in the tub with ice going on. Anyway, for some reason, my stupid beer brain thoughtit would...be funny...to, uh, spit beer on some folks down on the terrace. Yeah. And so, I did that. Yeah.

Yeah. I know. Dick move. And not even on a bet! I can't fathom what I was thinking. And, yeah, geez, somehow people found out I spit beer on the party – I guess, like, maybe, they looked up and saw me in the window or something detectivey like that.

No one said anything at the time, but when the Predator gig came up, Mike Richardson and probably also Randy Stradley at DHC were very likely concerned that the beer-spitting jagoff might be a bad look for a DHC freelancer on a Predator book. Or any book. And that maybe I was capable of even stupider stuff at future conventions. This concern was conveyed to Diana, and then, Diana – sounding pretty embarrassed she had to deal with this kind of crap – informed me of this situation. I would have to sign a piece of paper that said I would not be a beer-spiting jagoff if I wanted to be employed by the publisher.

I never actually had to sign anything of the sort. But lesson learned (mostly). The threat was enough.

Years later, when people learned who I had actually spit beer on, my idiot boy act became a semi-beloved funny anecdote. Because apparently no one liked inker/art director Art Nichols and apparently not a lot of folks liked Neal Adam's daughter, Kristine. Not justifying the dumbness. But thankfully I didn't hit anyone popular with the powers-that-be. Mike Richardson brings the story up almost every NYCC, and I always have to correct him because he says I spit on different people. And he argues with me every time. It's endearing.

I've worked on something for Dark Horse almost every year since then, and nowadays they're my publishing home. Things happen. And I'm better behaved now.

But now you can understand why I never had a handy answer when people would ask me how to break into comics. Spitting lychees, cracking wise at panels. Right time doing the wrong thing in the wrong place or something. I dunno. I slipped in sideways and tripped through the door and probably said something nasty I shouldn't have that pissed someone off. Ha ha. 

Anyway, that's the beer-spitting story. Not the worst thing (or the most exciting) especially compared to the real stinkers of comics out there, but definitely not a shining moment for me. And unfortunately not the only time I wish I could rewind and edit my comic book life. 

Oh, well.