Do You Hear That? I Don't Hear Anything. Exactly!

It's quiet here at The Fies Files.

Partly, I haven't been much inspired to blog lately. Nothing's sparked. Oh, I could make something up, but neither of us would enjoy that. My blogging output has slumped before and, if history is an indicator, I'll probably come up with five exciting topics tomorrow.

I almost did one about my kids, but decided they might someday apply for a job or meet someone who'd google them, and that intended post (and photo!) would be the last thing they'd need. People ought to be able to control their own online destinies.

On Facebook, my friend MK demanded more photos of our pup. Here's one. Not much to say about Riley right now except she continues to be adorably dog-like and doesn't like going out in the rain. She seems to regard each drop that hits her back as a freshly astonishing insult.

 

Another drag on my blogging output is that I'm writing and drawing comics again, for the first time in a while. Today I'm drawing page 1, panel 1 of Mystery Project X, which I've been hinting at for months (years?). Daunting. As I've said before, I think sitting down to put the first mark on a piece of paper knowing you've got hundreds more to go is one of the braver creative leaps of faith. Also, Mystery Project X is the story that I pencilled 110 full pages of before deciding I didn't like how it was going and abandoned it for a new approach. Same basic characters and theme, different plot and style. I'm literally turning over the pages of the old story and drawing the new one on their backs. Quality paper's expensive.

I'm not sure Mystery Project X is any good, nor do I have a contract or commitment in hand. All I know is I need to get it out of my system before I can move on to other things--that seems to be the way I work. Editor Charlie and I keep in close, friendly contact and I know he'll look at anything I send him, but the graphic novel publishing industry is leaner and meaner than it was even a few years ago. The idea of doing it as a webcomic appeals to me--a return to my roots--but I wouldn't start posting it until I had most or all of it finished. That'll take a while. I have a naive faith that if something is good it'll find an audience and things'll work out.

Doing the Adventures of Old Time-Traveling Brian (still two copies of the zine left!) was very helpful, both in inspiring me to take Mystery Project X in another direction and reminding me that making comics should be fun. Otherwise why bother? And after working pretty hard at my day job the last quarter of 2012, I'm approaching 2013 with the resolve that if I'm serious about this comics thing (I think I may show some potential) it's time to get crackin'. Just do the job and then do the next one and the next one and the next one, and maybe that's what a career looks like. No idea if I have that many "next ones" in me.

What an unusually self-reflective blog post. Won't make that mistake again. To atone for it, here's another adorable puppy pic.



New Year's Tapas

As I get back to work and normal routines, some odds and ends to start 2013.

* * *

Washington Post writer and comics champion Michael Cavna wrote a lovely essay naming his "most compelling cartoon of the year," and I can't argue with his choice. I'll spoil the reveal but encourage you to read it anyway: it's a drawing cartoonist Richard Thompson did of his own brain while he was undergoing brain surgery to treat the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, which forced him to retire his great comic strip "Cul de Sac." I posted my own appreciation of Richard and his work (which I was thrilled to learn Richard saw and liked) shortly before the last "Cul de Sac" strip, and Cavna's piece retells the story leading up to that decision as well as events since.

While I'm on the topic: Team Cul de Sac, the effort organized by Chris Sparks via the Michael J. Fox Foundation to help fund Parkinson's research, raised more than $53,200 last year. Matching funds from the Fox folks boosted that sum over $100,000. The bulk of the money came through sales of the Team Cul de Sac book, for which cartoonists drew their own interpretations of Richard's world and characters, as well as an auction of the book's original art. I helped. That's a good amount of money for a good cause.

* * *

Occasionally I read something that perfectly captures my own thoughts, and sometimes thoughts I didn't even know I had, better than I could myself. This Gawker piece, "Journalism is Not Narcissism," is one. Here's the lede:

"Every year, thousands of fresh-faced young aspiring journalists flood our nation's college classrooms, in order to learn how to practice their craft. What should we tell them? This, first: journalism is not about you."

I was a newspaper reporter for a few years, fresh out of college, and my ideal for how I hoped to do the job could be summed up in two words: impartial and invisible. Neither is perfectly attainable, but if you're aware of your biases you can counterbalance them. Watch for assumptions and insinuations. Convey every responsible side of the story fairly. If I did my job right, no one would ever detect which candidates I liked or which issues I supported (although I hoped some might notice that this Fies fellow's stories read a bit more clearly and elegantly than most). Honestly, that was one of the existential burrs of journalism that chafed my hide: at the boneheaded age of 25, I could foresee a time when I'd rather do than write about those who did.

Gawker writer Hamilton Nolan goes on to skewer the notion that writers' best subjects are themselves.

"Left unsaid in most discussions of this sort of writing is the fact that most people's lives are not that interesting. Certainly, simple math will tell you that a 20-year-old has only a limited store of really compelling personal stories to tell. Most people who decide to base their writing careers on stories about themselves end up like bands that used their entire lifetime's worth of good material in their first album, and then sputtered uselessly when it came time for the follow-up."

Yes. Though not directed at comics, the Gawker piece bullseyes my gripe with a ton of comics and graphic novels, which somehow--and I don't know why, although I've done some thinking about it--lend themselves to overwrought navel-gazing by putative Voices of Their Generation. Unless you're a refugee from Revolutionary Iran, you're just not fascinating enough to support one book, let alone the cottage industries that some creators mine from their lives. Benjamin Franklin didn't start writing his autobiography until he was 65 because he wasn't sure he'd accomplished enough to merit one. What a maroon!

This may sound like an odd complaint from the guy who wrote Mom's Cancer. But Mom's Cancer isn't my story, it's my mother's. Although I'm necessarily a character in it, as a writer and editor I ruthlessly cut everything that didn't advance my Mom's story, including much (not all) of my personal whiny angst. In fact, I approached writing that book very much as a journalist, determined to report what I experienced as honestly as I could. To the extent it works, I think that's what readers respond to and what still makes it different from similar stories.

You could name some counterexamples of fine young memoirists doing great work, and I'd concede there are exceptions, but I think Nolan reminds writers of something important that's out of style and being forgotten. Less looking inward, more looking out.

* * *

I didn't know what to expect when I printed up 50 zines collecting the "Adventures of Old Time-Traveling Brian" and offered 45 for sale, but I'm pretty sure I didn't expect to only have two copies left two weeks later. Fantastic! My mailing list reads like a "Who's Who" of my favorite people (and I am keeping a list of which numbered limited-edition copy goes to whom, so that when they start showing up for enormous sums on eBay I can finger the culprit).

Numbers 44/45 and 45/45 are still available. After that, there'll be no more ever. Many thanks to everyone who supported my work by sending a few bucks my way, I don't take it for granted and hope you found it worthwhile.

But no returns.

Moondance

If you've been outside after dark the past month and had clear skies to the east, you must have noticed the planet Jupiter, the brightest nighttime "star" right now. It's near the red giant Aldebaran, which makes for a pretty pair. On Christmas day the Moon swept close to Jupiter in the sky, and in fact observers in South America could watch the Moon actually pass in front of the planet. Astronomer Rafael Defavari had his telescope set up to record it. The first part of the video shows Jupiter disappearing behind the Moon, while the second part shows it emerging from the other side.

This sort of alignment, called an "occultation," isn't especially rare. The Moon and planets lie on roughly the same plane in the sky so they line up occasionally (though not exactly the same plane, or similar occultations would happen several times a month). Still, I found this video unexpectedly beautiful and moving. For me it drives home the truth that we really are sitting on a round rock in space watching other rocks and balls of gas circle the Sun in a cosmic dance. Though the video is silent, I couldn't help but hear the soundtrack from "2001: A Space Odyssey" in my mind (specifically, Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, though another piece may pop into yours).

Look up once in a while and enjoy the dance.

Harum Scarum Five Alarum

Long-time readers of my blog know what's coming, a Christmas tradition here since ought-six. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all, and thanks for being my friends and reading my stuff.

And now, a reading from what for my money is, pound for pound, the best comic strip ever (yep, I'd even put it up against "Peanuts," and it'd be rude of you to argue with me during the holidays): "Pogo" by Walt Kelly:

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker n' too-da-loo!
Hunky Dory's pop is lolly
gaggin' on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloup, 'lope with you!
Chollie's collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarum bung-a-loo!

--Walt Kelly

The Collected Adventures of Old Time-Traveling Brian

 

It took longer than I hoped and more work than I expected, but at last I'm happy to offer a special, limited-edition collection of the Adventures of Old Time-Traveling Brian, the dopey webcomic I began posting to my blog last summer. That's the cover above.

This 20-page zine includes the six comics posted here, a seventh comic I made exclusively for the zine, plus some new art (I'm very proud of the title page!) and surprise bonus features. Its price is $5.95 for deliveries in the United States and $7.95 elsewhere (including postage) via the handy PayPal button below. If you can't or don't use PayPal, e-mail me privately and we'll work something out.

[LATER UPDATE: Sorry, the PayPal button's gone because the zine is all sold out! My thanks to everyone!]

Frankly, although I encourage you to use PayPal for both our convenience, putting that button there terrifies me. I've never tried it before. People who have employed the button reassure me it works fine and won't zap your money into outer space or drain my bank account to the Ukraine. Fingers crossed....

When I say "limited edition" I mean it. There are exactly 50 of these zines in existence. I'm keeping five for me and my family, leaving 45 that I've signed and numbered (in pencil, almost as if they were actual works of art!). There'll never be any more.

Zines are deliberately home-spun, rough-hewn, do-it-yourself publications, with varying levels of sophistication. I guess the prototypical zine consists of a stack of photocopied (or in the old days mimeographed) pages folded in half and stapled together. I tried to class mine up a bit. First, instead of standard 20# 8.5 x 11-inch printer paper, I used a very heavy (32#) legal-sized paper, making the completed dimensions 7 x 8.5 inches (~18 x 21.5 cm). I originally wanted to do the cover in a beefy watercolor paper with terrific texture; after an initial test printing went well I bought two big pads of the stuff, only to find that it didn't want to go through my printer anymore. Instead, I printed the cover on two-ply plate Bristol board, exactly the same paper I draw all my comics on, which seemed very appropriate. It looks sharp.

Anybody want two big pads of watercolor paper?

My zine-making Bible was a blog post by cartoonist Jim Rugg cryptically titled "How to Make a Zine." Jim did something I hadn't seriously considered until I read his post, which was printing the entire job on his home inkjet printer. I assumed that would be prohibitively expensive, but when I estimated the costs and took advantage of inexpensive off-brand ink like Jim did, it became pretty attractive. Best of all, doing my own printing let me use my own paper (which I also got at a close-out price) and maintain total quality control.

Which is not to say they're perfect. A few pages are crooked, a few spines stapled off-center. About 20 copies have extra holes where I had to pull out their staples, swap out pages and restaple them, because that's how many I made before I noticed I'd numbered a page incorrectly. I encourage you to regard such imperfections as "charm."

Zine-making in progress on my kitchen table. Papercutter, interior pages and cover, long-arm stapler. Elmer's glue on the seat back at right, above a few completed zines on the seat below. At lower right is a green 35-pound jug of kitty litter atop a drawing board that I used as a flattening press. And at the left is a roll of Christmas paper because as soon as I move my garbage out of the way this is also where we wrap gifts. It's a good table.

I realize the price I'm asking isn't cheap for a zine but trust me--I ain't getting rich. Because I used such high-quality paper, these suckers are heavy and will cost a lot just to mail. There's a special thing in the book I had to buy 50 of (which helped me settle on the size of my print run). My wastage was unexpectedly high--not your problem, I realize, but the number of pages I recycled for poor print quality or stupid errors like incorrect numbering was large. If I sell every zine, I'll just about cover the cost of materials. My labor is free--my gift to you.

If it's not clear yet, I don't know what I'm doing. But this entire project has been a joy. If you'll permit me (just try to stop me), I'll close by quoting from a little essay I wrote to close the zine:

"In contrast to making a graphic novel, which can take years with little feedback or reward, I could write, draw, and post a new Adventure to the Web in a day. I think of these as 'good honest comics': funny words and pictures, no gatekeepers, no deep strategy or goal. They're sincere. Offering them as a zine is a natural extension of that aesthetic.

"Producing these silly little stories stretched new creative muscles and made me a better cartoonist, and I appreciate your indulence. It was fun."

THURSDAY NIGHT UPDATE: I've now mailed off all the orders I received (except for a few I'll be delivering in person--you know who you are), and they should fight their way through the holiday mail in a few days. If you think you ordered one and it hasn't arrived in a week or so (longer outside the U.S.), let me know. The response has been terrific. Still got a few left. Thanks again!

Graphic Meds: Brighton in July

Organizers of the Fourth (!) International Conference of Comics and Medicine have now set a time and place, and issued a Call for Papers. The date is July 5-7, 2013, the venue is Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the U.K., and anyone interested in presenting a paper or running a workshop needs to read the Call for Papers available here.

My six loyal readers will recall that I was a keynote speaker at the first Graphic Medicine Conference in London, then joined the committee that organized the second and third conferences in Chicago and Toronto, respectively. After each conference we worried that we'd be unable to recapture "lightning in a bottle," only to make the next one even bigger and better. Guest speakers have included Darryl Cunningham, Scott McCloud, Phoebe Gloeckner, David Small, Joyce Brabner, Joyce Farmer, and Paul Gravett, who's attended every one so far. They're pretty great events!

Which makes it hard to explain why I resigned from the organizing committee after Toronto. As I told the others on the group, each of whom is a great person and friend, it just seemed like the right time. The committee had grown to an unwieldy size--just try finding a good conference-call time across eight time zones!--and I thought I'd contributed all I could. When I first signed on, there'd only been one conference and nobody knew what they were doing; after three very successful conferences, the group had several people with invaluable on-the-ground experience, and I wasn't one of them. I had some personal reasons related to time and expense, including the unlikelihood I'd be able to make it to England next summer. Like I said, the time seemed right.

Notwithstanding our extremely amicable separation, I enthusiastically endorse these conferences as a terrific way to spend a few days, meet good people, and charge creative batteries. I'll continue to support them however I can, including an occasional news update here, and wish those still doing the heavy lifting nothing but the best.

www.graphicmedicine.org.

For The Children

I've been remiss, and almost forgot to keep a promise.

Back in September I was a guest on Jordan Rich's late-night radio talk show on Boston's WBZ and the CBS Radio Network. I mentioned afterward that Jordan had asked me to contribute to his annual For the Children fundraising booklet, which he's produced for 13 years to benefit Boston Children's Hospital. It's a collection of recipes, inspirational essays, poems, artwork and such provided by Jordan's guests and friends. Jordan asked if he could reproduce a page from Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow. Instead, I put together a new piece that I think distills its optimistic message. Here's a teaser:

Actually, that's less a teaser than pretty much the whole thing. I stink at marketing. But the booklet's got 27 other pages of stuff from other people, too, and as you're distributing your holiday charity among various kettles and barrels please consider this good cause as well. For the Children 13 is now available here: $20, with all proceeds going to the Boston Children's Hospital.

Thanks again to Jordan for letting me be a part of it!

Amazon's Got My Number

Atop this morning's e-mail stack were some helpful recommendations for books that, based on my shopping and buying habits, Amazon thought I might like:

Yeah, I hear that Underwater Welder is pretty good.

Funny, having my own book recommended to me. Also a little spooky how well their computer algorithm knows me . . .

Yes, Virginia, There Is A WHTTWOT Bookplate

I don't know how it happened so quickly, but it's again that time of year when I beg friends, family, fans, and random passers-by to consider picking up Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow as a Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/Solstice gift for the Space-Age Boomer or curious kid in your family. The new paperback is a real bargain!

(Of course I also appreciate it when someone gives Mom's Cancer as a gift, but I can't bring myself to crassly flog it. That would be wrong. However, I have no such qualms with WHTTWOT. Crassly flog away!)

But wait, there's more!

As I have since the hardcover came out, I'm happy to offer a signed bookplate FREE to anyone who asks, giving you an autographed book without you and me going to the trouble of actually mailing a book back and forth. Just e-mail me your postal address via the "About Me" profile box at upper right, tell me if and how you want it inscribed, and I'll put it in the mail for you the next day. Stick the bookplate inside the front cover (or wherever) and you can have a signed book wrapped and under the tree in a week.

This offer is good anytime (not just Christmas) while supplies last, which at the rate I'm unloading bookplates will be about April 2037.

Just about the best compliment I can get is when a reader likes one of my books enough to buy it for someone else. My sincere thanks.

Pedagogy

I'm seeing little geographic clusters in my visitor count and have received a couple of e-mails that tell me some college students are reading Mom's Cancer in class. You might think I'd already know that, but I really have no way to track who's reading (or assigning) my book unless they tell me. My ignorance is fathomless.

Anyway, it's an honor--one of those neat honors I never get used to--and I just wanted to mention that I'm readily available to answer questions about my book(s). My e-mail link is in that "About Me" profile box at upper right, or you can leave comments on the blog. I won't write your entire essay for you, but I'll reply as honestly and completely as I can.

Thanks, and thank your teachers for me. I appreciate it.

Drive to Obsolescence

To assuage my gnawing guilt for not blogging enough (day job, worked all weekend, etc. etc.), today I reach back to a little obscurity I posted to the Web in 2007. I did this comic for a website started by a friend in the hopes it would build a neat community where creative people could share their work. It didn't. Probably fewer than a dozen people have seen this.

This sketch of an actual conversation with my girls dates to their freshman year of college. They've since graduated (with honors!) and I wonder if they remember it at all. Regardless, it still holds true.

 

From now through the end of the year, I'll likely be huddled deep in the Work Cave. Just want you to know it's not you, it's me. BTW, I still have every intention of making a fun little zine of "The Adventures of Old Time-Traveling Brian" but need to string together a few hours to finish my last bits on it. Soon, I hope. That would be a satisfying accomplishment.

 

Thanks!

 

Breaking In Redux

I recently got an e-mail query that prompted me to look up and repost this piece from March 2010 on "breaking in." I think it's still a good answer. Best of all, the links and embeds still work.

This is just about all the advice I've got. Do whatever it is that only you can do; be persistent and lucky. If there's more to the secret than that, I don't know it.

* * *

Comic book writer Kurt Busiek penned a great essay on breaking into the writing business. His main point is that most successful people make their own paths without following the rules, many of which (like submission guidelines and such) exist to weed out people rather than usher in new ones. Also, that "overnight successes" usually aren't. He writes:

You don't need a map. You need to figure out what you've got and capitalize on that. Instead of bemoaning the fact that you can't mail in something that a publisher wasn't going to read and wasn't going to buy, try to figure out something else, something that builds off your skills or knowledge or contacts or whatever . . . Make comics, not just proposals—even making crappy comics that convince you that you never want to draw another background again in your life will teach you more about telling a story in pictures on paper than a zillion proposals in the slush pile.

Kurt's a zillion times more experienced and successful than I, but my observations match his. He offers examples of how colleagues of his got published--each unique, none following any formula. Same for the writers I know. When people ask me for advice, I sincerely don't know what to say. I can describe how I did it, but that's nearly useless because it's not replicable for anyone else in any other place or time. I'm reminded of Carl Sagan's line, "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." If you want to do it my way, you're starting a few decades too late.

All I can suggest is: First, do the work. It's surprising how many "writers" never actually write and how many "artists" never draw. Having an idea for a thing is not the same as sitting down and creating an actual thing! The latter is orders of magnitude harder. Then get it out into the world any way you can. Print it up, show it to people, send it to editors, put it on a website. Find communities of people doing the same thing--easier than ever on the Internet--and share work with them. One of those people in your favorite web forum could be looking for a writing partner or content provider five years from now. Plant a hundred seeds and two or three will bloom--and they'll probably be the ones you least expect.

Also, don't take without giving back in return. Don't expect or demand favors. No one owes you anything. Few people are as tiresome as a newbie who pops up to announce, "Hey, everyone look at my great stuff," argues with well-intentioned critiques, insults pros whose work is obviously worse than theirs, and then vanishes into a billowing cloud of entitlement. Bad form, and people have long memories. If you're polite, thoughtful, professional, and take the time to show others you care about their work, some will bend over backwards to help you.

While determination is important and admirable, I'm not a huge proponent of the "winners never quit" school of success. Busiek writes about a guy he sees at every convention who's been trying to break in for decades and will simply never be good enough to make it. I know people like that. I've also had times when I've wondered if I'm that guy. It's a fine line, deciding whether to keep slugging away versus recognizing that maybe that brick wall isn't budging and you're better off trying another angle or something else entirely.

My criterion is external evidence of progress. At first, probably no one will respond to your stuff at all. Then maybe you'll get a nice note from a stranger. Then maybe some encouragement from a pro. Then maybe an editor invites you to send some material. You sell a little thing to a little client, then parlay that into selling a bigger thing to a bigger client. Look for signs of advancing toward a goal rather than running in place.

The last time I touched on this, Friend-of-the-Blog Mike Peterson replied with a quote by Mark Twain that I can't top (and Twain's entire essay on the subject of advice for aspiring writers is funny and worth reading):

Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers pay within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for.

Just One More, I Promise

After this, I'll give it a rest...

Saturday was Neil Armstrong Remembrance Day aboard the USS Hornet Museum. In addition to a full afternoon of programs, the event featured the reopening of the ship's Apollo Exhibit, documenting the Space Age and Hornet's service recovering Apollos 11 and 12. See the previous two posts to understand why I care.

I surprised my daughters, Laura (the museum collections manager) and Robin (Hornet volunteer and loyal assistant), by driving down for the big unveiling. The Apollo Exhibit was scheduled to open at 3 p.m. I showed up around 1 p.m. and poked my head in the door; they were startled and happy to see me for about 10 seconds and then put me to work. They still had a lot to do. We polished everything as best we could, grabbed a quick lunch on the historic carrier's Flight Deck while watching a series of impressive ceremonial flyovers by vintage aircraft, then ran back down for the ribbon-cutting.

Some of the ceremonies in honor of Neil Armstrong. The speaker is Apollo Flight Surgeon Dr. William Carpentier, who later did us the honor of cutting the ribbon on the Apollo Exhibit.

About an hour before the grand opening: Chad sweeping up while Laura, friend and fellow museum master Erica, and Robin caption photos, arrange artifacts, and clean cases.

The exhibit entrance, with the 8-foot Saturn V model in place.

Laura and Chad giving a pre-opening tour to a cameraman from one of the Bay Area TV news stations that covered the event.

Finally! Open to the public!

Some of the first real-life kids to try my Gravity Box, comparing the gravity of the Earth and Moon. Folks seemed to have fun with it and get the point. I kept waiting to hear a metallic "sproing-kaboom" as the box broke and possibly exploded, but it never did. Success!

Robin and Laura. The slips of paper on the octagonal case are artifact labels yet to be placed. Stop dawdling and get to work!

I shot two videos. The first is of the ribbon-cutting remarks by Museum Trustee Ken Winans (I missed the first few seconds). My favorite part is the audible gasp among the onlookers when the big doors open. The second video--worth watching only for those who really care, trust me--is a seat-of-the-pants tour of the exhibit I did 10 minutes before it opened.





I know one eagle-eyed viewer (sigh...Jim) will catch something that isn't in the video: the two iconic wood signs attached to the Mobile Quarantine Facility during the Apollo 11 and 12 recoveries (which I wrote about a while back). The custom acrylic case ordered to house them did not arrive in time. Those signs are in my opinion the Crown Jewels of the Hornet's collection, and will be displayed at the very back of the room so that visitors see them from the entrance. Just a bit disappointing, although the "Hornet +3" sign was on display in a case out on the Hangar Deck, so all was not lost.

Saturday was the exhausting culmination of months of work by Laura and her co-worker, Curator Chad, along with other volunteers and the occasional family and friends. The public seemed excited and satisfied, the museum staff and trustees I spoke to seemed ecstatic, and I'd say it was a total triumph. Especially impressive is that they did it all on a budget of about $600, so had to innovate and reuse as much as they could. As in all museums, their work will never be done, and a lot of great ideas will have to wait for more funding, but Laura and Chad created a foundation that the Hornet can build on for years to come. I'm very proud of her and proud to be a small part of it.