San Diego (or, Things can change a lot in 17 years)

Well, things have been proceeding apace at the Chambers homestead. Olivia's getting bigger, the twins are kicking the heck out of their mommy, and I had a job interview with a mortgage lender last week that went very well. For anyone who knows me, that should inspire at least a few chuckles: "You? But you SUCK at math!" I know, I know. The thing is, if I can get this job, I'll actually feel like a grown up and be able to contribute in a more tangible way to our little burgeoning family. It's amazing how quickly things change in such a short time. About this time 17 years ago, I was being told how I stink and would never work in comics.

Let's set the way-back machine for 1987. I had just graduated from high school the year before and I, my friend Jeremy and a friend of his whose name I can't remember had taken the Amtrak from LA down to San Diego for the San Diego Comic Convention, one of the largest comics conventions in the country. At the time, I was trying to break into comic books (although now I can look back and say that I was only doing it half-heartedly), and I had brought 6 samples to show.

Now, for the uninitiated, the San Diego Comic Con is also a trade show of sorts, a means for aspiring cartoonists to show their work to publisher's reps and (if you're lucky) get some work. I took my samples to two booths, both smaller comics publishers, as I didn't have the courage to go to the DC or Marvel Comics booths.

The first one was for Comics Interview Press, which put out a magazine called (surprise!) Comics Interview. It also put out a superhero comic called The Southern Knights which was a title I collected. I got some favorable response from them, including a request to see me draw their characters.

Then there was Eclipse Comics and Cat Yronwode.

Ms.Yronwode was the Editor-in-Chief of Eclipse, which at the time was one of the bigger independent publishers and was primarily responsible for bringing the Japanese manga titles Mai the Psychic Girl, Xenon, and Lone Wolf and Cub to America. She was also a sponsor of a APA (amateur press association) that I belonged to called YHAPA, who counted among its alumni Rob Liefeld (a.k.a. the Art Adams wannabe), so I thought that Yronwode would be receptive to my work - heck, if she'd read any of the copies of the APA books we sent her, she'd seen my work.

Yikes. I had never had a more thorough butt-reaming in all my life!

After looking at my work for a grand total of 1 minute, she looked at me and said "Is this supposed to be a tree? I'm not an artist and I can draw a better tree than that! Where the hell did you learn proportion?! Did you draw this with the pencil clutched in your fist?! Jeeezuz, learn how to use perspective! and this is wrong, and this, and this.......etc. etc. etc."

Now, one could look back and think that this discouraged me from ever doing anything in comics ever again. Nope. I got pissed off and drew more and denied Eclipse the honor of seeing my work. I eventually realized that I liked making people laugh more than I did drawing pictures of people flying through the air and benchpressing Volkswagens, so that's what I decided to do. A natural evolution, as it were.

Like I said, a lot can change in 17 years. By the way, Eclipse went belly up in 1994.

Okay, I'm done. Talk to you all later! :)

~Rob