Comics Artifact/Reminiscence: Gilbert Hernandez After-Party Invite Flyer (SDCC, 1987)

I've written before about the first time I ever attended the San Diego Comic Con in 1987, and how much more informal and relatively easygoing things were back then. I was 22, traveling with friends to another state for the first time in my life (not counting summer camp in New jersey, which I'm not counting), staying in a hotel room without my parents for the first time, debuting my first solo creator-owned comic (Pirate Corp$! #1, Eternity Comics), exhibiting in Artist's Alley, and meeting creators and publishing professionals who I only knew from their work, their reputation, and selling their stuff to customers at The Fantastic Store. 

I met and got sketches from Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez (nervously shaking, like, actually shaking), met Bob Burden (who I ended up assisting for a week or two on a Flaming Carrot issue in 1988 or 1989, that's a story and half, one aspect of which I'm still not sure how to ever discuss publicly). I met Bob Schreck and Diana Schutz who were with Comico at the time, Bob Chapman of Graphitti Designs, Chris Warner who was a hot property from the first DHC Predator series/Dark Horse Presents, a young and absolutely mind-numbingly obnoxious fanboy Ed Brubaker (oh, yes, there are stories of the alternative comics Bat-Mite/future Winter Soldier creator Brubaker, a sometimes self-admitted fuck-up and industry joke, until the joke blew up and he ended up becoming one of the most successful writers in mainstream comics, holy good night). And I tabled next to the Slave Labor Graphics crew, meeting my future publisher Dan Vado) and Scott Saavedra (creator of the It's Science With Dr. Radium comic series). And I drove Dan up a fucking wall because there was more than a touch of the obnoxious in me as well. I just didn't go overboard. I also didn't do the career path thing so well, so, that's a good joke, too. 

Funny aside: there are several people in the entertainment industry that I verbally put on full blast in my life, to their face, and all three of them became wildly successful. Well, one was already a comics superstar, that's a story, but another is a former fellow NYU film student who went on to become an honest-to-gosh Hollywood mogul, before he crashed and burned spectacularly). Anyway, all three became big names, successful, well-heeled (incredibly so, in two cases) and even powerful. And I'm writing about party flyers. It's funny, I'm not complaining. I'm doing all right for what I expected in life, which was not much more than drawing back-up stories for Marvel by the time I was 30.  So, I really can't complain, I mean, look at it this way -- I outlasted back-up stories!

Anyway, speaking of obnoxious, I stole a desk bell from a San Diego copy shop to ring after selling anything at my table, and I had brought a wind-up cymbal monkey (with a pointed hat and blue vest) to try to attract attention to my table. The bell, the cymbal clapping monkey and my constant anxiety-fueled chatter drove Dan Vado up a fucking wall, as he he told me the following year when he agreed to publish Pirate Corp$!. At the time, we were on our backs on the floor of a hotel room during a party in the middle of the night, drunk as hell. Scott Saavedra made us shake hands on the deal. There's a bit more to that story, but since this post was supposed to just be me posting a flyer and saying a few words, you should be happy I'm doing the rambling thing. Again. It's all bonus material, my life. But only bonus material, the main thing the bonus material was supplementing never showed up. That doesn't make a lick of sense, probably. .

So, yeah, that's another story for another time, but, like the Gilbert H. flyer above, it all points to how laid back, unassuming and personable SDCC was, especially in comparison to just a decade later, let alone what the event is like now, with everyone segregated and striated, dozens of exclusive parties and meetings, people never seeing people they mean to see and everything super-commercial, hyped, restricted, overcrowded, depersonalized, difficult and exhausting. 

In 1987 there was no official party of any kind. Bob Chapman, Bob Schreck and people from Comico and DC threw a party in a hotel suite, invited a bunch of folks, filled the tub with beer and ice, and got Gilbert to draw a goofy picture for the flyer. Bob Burden read his infamous "fan letter", a pages-long diatribe from a Vietnam vet angry at him for something or other, I can't recall. Burden would rad this at parties for a few more years, iirc. There was a mix of mainstream, indy and alt-types. I snagged an invitation because Bob and Diana had taken a shine to me. It was a big deal for me and I had a great time, I was hanging out with real, actual comic book people and they made me feel welcome. Or at least no one pointed at me and said, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" (I've been at convention gatherings where fans just wandered in and sometimes even caused problems, everyone just assumed they were with someone else. The guy dressed in Robin cosplay who walked into Jim Hanley's party in 1988 was a sterling example, along with the punk rockers who barged in, insulted everyone while drinking our beer, and wouldn't leave until Chris Warner challenged them all to a fight). I mostly huddled in corners and off to the side, watching (and drinking) and trying not to be obnoxious.  

The thing is, now that I think about it, even then there was the "exclusivity' issue, because, low-key or high-falutin', parties generally have a cut off as to who can come. And my two friends, Brian David-Marshall and Tony Eng (from Eternity Comics, my publishers/friends and still friends to this day) weren't invited. Which made me feel lousy. I did ask them if they were okay with me going, because I didn't just want to disappear on them or not let them know I was invited. They were cool about it, and understood it would be good for me to go. I still felt bad. Most of the con was spent with the three of us drinking at the hotel bar get-togethers (Robbie Busch and Greg Benton was at the show that year, we were all kids!) or walking around downtown San Diego until nearly dawn. The downtown area was super-seedy at the time. People warned us not to stray too far from our hotel or Horton Plaza, but we went anyway. Times Square in NYC was a lot worse and we'd go to Playland at 3 in the morning to play pinball  and video games. And the weather at night was amazing in San Diego, and we didn't know anyone, really, and we hadn't traveled much, so, why not? Nothing dramatic happened in the least. We saw drunks and arguments and tattoo parlors and dives and pool halls and it was swell. Sailors dressed like movie sailors, with tattoos outside the YMCA. We stumbled across a dive with pinball machines, so, we were very happy. That was a great night, too. 

A few years later, Bob Chapman (with co-sponsors, iirc) started up the Graphitti Dead Dog after-party, which grew out of the kind of get-together that took place in 1987. They became the main con party to get invited to, and a tradition that I was happy and grateful to be part of for some years. I once went to a Fantagraphics hang-out in the seedy basement of the Hotel San Diego, which was fun. Dark Horse started throwing a regular party, which I was invited to, and where the infamous "beer-spitting" incident took place (because I wasn't above obnoxious idiot stunts myself). That was the thing that got me threatened (lightly) with an added behavior clause to my contract for the Predator penciling gig in 1991. I'm an idiot!

Last funny thing before I post this and literally get back to the drawing table. I don't think Gilbert actually attended the 1987 hotel room party. I don't want to trust to my bad memory, but it was a single suite, and if either or both of the Hernandez Brothers were there I feel like I would have remembered it. They might have been down in the basement at the Hotel San Diego. or playing pinball somewhere, or just avoiding everyone.  

Anyway, 1987 Gilbert Hernandez flyer. 

Of course I kept it.