Unmade, Unseen: What Might Have Been

So, here's some things I've never shared before. 

I like to joke that I knew Frank Cho back when he was still a human being. Anyone who follows the comics world more closely than is necessary will probably have an inkling of what I'm talking about. 

Sarah and I -- along with David Mazzucchelli -- all met Frank at the second SPX in Bethesda, Maryland. I think this was back in 1995. We had set up at the first SPX, which had just enough exhibitors to fill up two booths at the local diner. The following year we persuaded David to come, and we drove him to the show. At some point Frank had introduced himself to David, and David introduced us to Frank. He was young, soft-spoken, pleasant and enthusiastic. And he was talented. Whatever people say about his personality and behavior, most of it warranted, he is a very talented artist. Even back then you could see the influences of people like Frank Frazetta, Mort Drucker and others. He had several ways in to the page. He could draw in an illustrative fantasy style, a muscular he-man adventure style, a female pin-up style, he could do funny animals,, Drucker-like caricatures. His variety and facility reminded me of Kyle Baker to a degree, but he did everything tighter. If he had any deficiencies, they were the same as he still has -- a narrow focus, a tendency towards sameness in faces and figures owing to an overall laziness in thought, an inability to mature as an artist (or as a person, as it turned out). 

But at the time, Frank was a pleasure to know. He was in nursing school at the time, he was eager to make comics and break into the industry. His college strip Liberty Meadows was already getting noticed through collections, eventually he would get a syndication deal for that. So he never really broke into full-time, steady comics-making the way he initially intended, because as it turned out he never needed to. Newspaper syndication was a terrific reason to not have to play the comic book game.

But Frank sort of, almost got involved with regular old stapled comics earlier on. Frank used to send us his Liberty Meadows collections and keep us informed of his other projects. We stayed in touch through the mail. I asked him to do some tryout stuff for the Mask series I had sold Dark Horse on (The Hunt For Green October). Initially enthusiastic about the idea, Frank had to beg off, because he was concentrating on studying for his nursing school finals. Dark Horse was a little annoyed at Frank because he never turned any sketches in after I had hyped him. It's not a great way to introduce yourself to a publisher, but, as we all know, if you're good enough, things like that won't hurt your reputation. And Frank was very good, at least as an artist (I never liked his writing). It wasn't long after this that Liberty Meadows became a known quantity in the industry, and then syndication called, and things went on from there. 

But before that, I had talked to Frank about teaming up to pitch a horror/adventure series to Dark Horse. The project was something I had developed back when I was doing Pirate Corp$! with Eternity, over late night diner hangouts in the late 80's with Brian David-Marshall and Tony Eng. The high concept was basically Kolchak the Night Stalker-style occult investigation mixed with Crime Story, a mid-century period TV series running at the time. An occult team, suits and ties, dames and gangsters, vampires and mad scientists. It was very pulp, although I didn't realize that at the time, and it was inspired by some of the things that led to The X-Files and other well-known series. By the time I felt ready to tackle the "occult-fighting organization" project, it was already out there in enough recognizable formats to make me bury it. The X-Files, Buffy, the B.P.R.D. and everything that followed made my project feel redundant and exploitative, even though I'd been adding notes to the file since 1988. Timidity will get you nowhere, and let's not forget having an idea doesn't mean you'll get it going anywhere, or do a successful job with it. And writers are all influenced by the same things found in older pop culture. 

I actually did 'sell" the project to Stela when the online publisher first contacted Sarah and I about developing a series for them. But when Sarah had the idea for Calla Cthulhu, we asked to go with that. The reasons being that my project was super-involved, with a ton of characters and world-building that would have been a tough haul for a single storyline. Calla was more focused, had a set-up that involved us to lean on the Cthulhu Mythos for world-building, and, more to the point, seemed more exciting and fun to do. I loved Calla and still hope there can be another shot at telling her stories someday, somehow.

Anyway, while the project itself never happened, it lives in Beasts of Burden and Blackwood. Without being aware of it at the time, as Beasts developed it began incorporating some themes and ideas that were baked into my old project (unnamed here, because you never know, I might fit it into something someday, somehow). And Blackwood is even more influenced by it, since we're dealing with human characters. The more pragmatic and prosaic approach to magic and the supernatural, the almost workaday dealings with ghosts and monsters. While I haven't transplanted any plot points or characters, the old project could fit into the world of either Beasts or Blackwood, albeit as flashback stories, as Sarah and I rejiggered the timeline for the series for the Stela pitch.

Anyway. The character design sketches presented here were done by Frank Cho in the 1990's. They were tentative steps towards a series pitch. Frank got popular before too long and, like the Mask series, things never went any further. But I have these nifty drawings, and some good memories. As time went by, Frank became, well, the Frank Cho some of us know and, in my case, avoid. Frank did a heel turn, I won't blankly say success went to his head or if he was just playing possum with his ego, I didn't know him well enough to figure anything out. But he went from someone I was looking forward to seeing at a show to someone I actively avoided. I won't get into the personal stuff too deeply, let's call it a mix of attitude, ignorance, swagger and saying some objectionable things on multiple occasions. We ended up on humor comics panels a lot and I found myself bolting afterward to duck out of dealing with him. if I knew him better I would have had a straight talk with him, but neither of us wanted to deal with him anymore. And then there's the public, industry incidents, voting for himself in the Ignatz Awards when he was a judge, the lunkheaded stuff he would say and do (often to get a rise out of people), his mistaking people's reactions to his art shenanigans with prudishness because of his inability to see what a maroon he was being. And doubling down, always doubling down. 

I mean, look, I've had problems with my behavior, I've said stupid things, I've upset people, I've screwed things up. I'm sure there are people who avoided or have avoided me in the past because of my behavior. But I've tried to learn to do better, to check myself, to understand where my social and emotional issues and failings were and are coming from and to...well, just try to do better. I'm still not where I want to be, but I'm not the same person I was thirty, twenty, even ten years ago. Mistakes were made, stupid stuff said. I used to say Frank was a cartoonist who needed a manager to talk for them, like a wrestler that was great in the ring but wasn't good on the mic. But he thinks he's great on the mic, even if he keeps digging holes. All you can do is get out of the way. There's friends, and there's people you're friendly with. You can only run, or screw up, your own life. I have done both, but unlike some people, I am trying to improve how I deal with other people.  

It depresses me, because, like I said, I knew Frank when he was human. And the boy could, and can, draw. But he'll always be a boy. A talented boy, but a very immature boy. 

Hopefully the next post touching on an industry figure (Will Eisner) will be done as a video. I have a mic, I just have to test run the video thing. It's been a busy month. I'm juggling a lot of small things with the commissions, book sales and Beasts of Burden. Benjamin Dewey is taking a breather from comics pages so I put the script aside but need to get it done because I need the dough, if nothing else. And I want it to be really good since, well, I always want Beasts to be special. 

More soon, later.