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The Bum's Rush

by Paul Milligan

The Bum’s Rush #4 Free Comic Book Day (or Werewolves With Guns and the Hairy Human Torch)! It feels as if a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Oh sure, it started off simple enough. We decided that we were going to attend Free Comic Book Day. The initial plan was to hand out more copies of the Twilight preview book. I’d even worked on some new designs to make it look better. Then someone came up with the idea of doing something unique for Free Comic Book Day, something exclusive. A dime novel of sorts. We’d do an ashcan sized illustrated prose story about Cookie, one of the two main characters from Twilight: High Moon. What the hell right? We had over a month to do it. Dana came up with a great idea and we took it and fleshed it out. Then I started writing it. And writing it. And writing it. What was initially intended to be a 15 – 20 page story ended up being 50 pages (!) and was a bitch to write considering I was trying to fit it in between doing my real job, which has been busier than normal. As with everything we do, the project became a bit more ambitious than we had originally planned. So there I was, less than a day to go until the FCBD and I was still trying to lay the book out and get it printed. Kev, Dana and I stayed up until about 6:30 in the morning putting all 100 copies of it together. It was a tiring end to a tiring ordeal. But the book looked awesome. We got up on Saturday morning, bleary-eyed, tired, somewhat pissed off, and headed for Titan. Aaron was already there when we showed up, sitting behind the table with some of the other creators. There were our names, typed up on little name cards and taped to the desk where we would be sitting. It was kinda neat. The turn out was . . . well, it was moderate. I was really hoping for more people. But still, we had a blast talking to some of the other creators that were there, especially Michael "Myk" Friedman (http://www.solidideas.com) and the creators of Some Big Lumberjack. Myk was sitting next to us and listened to our insane rantings and even ended up drawing several pictures based on those rantings (like the werewolf with the gun). Aaron drew several $80 dollar sketches, including, but not limited, an Amish Wolverine, a werewolf on fire (although Aaron insisted it was fur and not fire) and a hairy Human Torch (which Aaron insisted was on fire and not actually hairy). Amazingly none of the $80 dollar sketches were purchased. Kevin did some sketching too, my favorite was the Anakin Skywalker he drew for this little kid. James O’Barr was there. I didn’t get to talk to him much. He and Myk started a jam-piece that O’Barr wanted to auction off. It was a “Looney-Toons as the Justice League”, I think. Kevin was the only other guy there that participated in the jam. I didn’t want to because, well, I really didn’t want to put my crappy drawing on a piece that looked so cool, but now I’m kind of regretting it. I could have at least tried I suppose. The insanely talented Dave (http://www.subweird.com) and his wonderful wife Melissa (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sheenapr) showed up at some point and grabbed several signed copies of the Free Comic. Then we walked around the store and chatted, which was a nice break. They also got to look at the whole first issue! Kevin brought all the pages with him and so we were able to show those off. I think people were impressed. Things really began to slow down as the day wore on. Less and less people walking through the door. A few creators here and there drifting out the front door. I found myself with a case of diarrhea of the mouth, owing to my worn out brain, and had to constantly apologize for saying things that normally would not have made it past the “if you don’t have anything nice (or smart) to say” filter. Eh, I don’t think anyone really noticed except me anyway. I hope. For the last few hours we chatted with some of the guys at the table with us, like Some Big Lumberjack writer Chris Peel and Greg Gatlin from Viper Comics. It was cool to meet such friendly (and funny) guys who actually seemed into what we were doing. It was long and tiring day but I think it was worth it. We turned out a great product and hopefully we’ll get some feedback on it. This is definitely going to be our last gig for a while. Now we’ll be gearing up for the November WizardWorld show. Stay tuned. Burn Out It’s been a really grueling and busy month. I’ve been getting the site together, writing this 50-page story for the dime novel and coordinating all of these things to make sure they get done. Not only that, but there were quite a few “events” this past month. Like the 24 Hour Comic Day thing. And all this on top of work, well, hasn’t really been much time for a lot of other stuff, like sleeping and so on. I really think all this effort is going to pay off in the long run. It’s going to get me where I want to go. It’s going to make people sit up and pay attention. That’s the goal. But that said I am really glad that I’m taking a break. Not from the site or the column or anything. But there’s not much to do for Twilight at the moment. No pressing projects at all. I’m just gonna chill. Until the next big thing. Which will probably hit next week. Quick Bits • DC’s got a new logo. I love it. Every who doesn’t can eat me (I mean that in the nicest way) • Smallville was one of my favorite TV shows . . . WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO IT?! I’d rather it get cancelled than keep pumping out shit episodes. • Remember when Image used to ship comics late all the time? I could almost understand it cause they were a little joint. Where does a big multi-million dollar company like Marvel get off shipping so many titles late? Constantly! Unprofessionalism seems to be the word of the day at the House of Ideas. • Marvel’s releasing an Omega The Unknown comic? Why? I promise you that absolutely no one demanded it. Am I the only one who sees this as Marvel’s latest attempt to rip off a new popular DC book (in the form of the new OMAC series)? • Ed Benes draws a kick ass Superman (http://www.comicon.com/pulse/images_05/1edb5.jpg) • Seriously, Marvel rips off DC all the time. Identity Disc? Are you kidding me? It even came out the same week as Identity Crisis . . . every single time! • No more $2.25 comics? These comic companies are like drug dealers, they know they can keep upping the price and we’ll come back for more. Bastards. • Really, I’ll bet you five bucks that next week Marvel says they’ve got a new logo too! Five bucks. • George Perez signs a five-year contract with DC? Alan Davis quits Uncanny X-Men and is probably jumping ship to DC. Rumors of Mark Waid going exclusive with DC. Woo, the exclusive wars are heating up again. • Read Comics! NEXT WEEK: Graphic Design and Comics! Send me hate mail at thesuperleezard@yahoo.com Read more stupid crap I write at www.livejournal.com/users/superleezard End of Line