srbuell

Publishing fan mail is a staple of the comic book industry, a strange phenomenon that seems exclusive to this business. Maybe the periodical aspect of the medium, in addition to the strong sense of community us nerds feel the need for, combine to make the letter column a natural fit in the pages of a comic book. I'm too lazy right now to wikipedia the origins of the comic book letter column, but it seems to be the one entertainment business where the publisher/creator actually publishes and then responds directly to their fans/detractors in a public forum, certainly in a tangible form. Obviously, the net has opened this up for musicians, moviemakers, actors, etc to respond to fan letters in public, but it's long been an important community-building exercise for funnybook makers.

So, every once in a while, even yours truly gets some feedback on my comic books, and today, much to my delight, I got an email from a guy that bought a copy of my graphic novel Video, and I figured I had to publish it (for the two people who may or may not read this thing), if for no other reason than to boast that my stuff is better than Guitar Hero! Well, to this guy, for a brief moment in time, it was.

Hi, I don't ordinarily do this but I have to take a minute to apologize
and gush, yes gush over your series "Video."

I met you at Emerald City Comic Con, you probably do not remember me,
but I'm the guy who wandered around your booth for a bit, commented that
I liked the art style, and told you that my girlfriend would really like
it also. We came back twenty minutes or so later and bought a copy. The
apology part comes in when we didn't even ask you to sign our book, and
not knowing that you were the actual writer/illustrator. It was our
first con and we were both completely and utterly culture shocked (I
think that's the right words) by the whole experience, it was amazing.
So that gets the apology out of the way, now for the praise and general
ego stroking session.

I started reading the book last night, and got up to around chapter 3
before I put it up for the night. Well long story short, I came home
from work tonight with a big ass UPS package waiting for me and without
even giving it a second glance, I grabbed my copy of "Video" and a hot
pocket, and started reading. Depending on whether you are a gamer or not
you may or may not get the significance of this but, the contents of the
UPS package was Guitar Hero 2 for Xbox360 with the fancy new guitar
peripheral. (oooohhs and ahhhhs a plenty) so you see, I decided to
finish reading your book rather than playing the carpal tunnel inducing
goodness that is Guitar Hero.

So as you can see, I really enjoyed the book, the concept, the art, all
of it. I look forward to reading "American Juice" once it's released and
will keep my eye out for more of your work in the future.

Thanks for taking the time to read this rant, shit, for my girlfriend's
sake, replace most of the "I"s with "We" so she doesn't feel left out.

-Chris and Tracey


Seriously, reading that, it all melts away and I remember just why the hell I'm doing what I'm doing. Telling stories that resonate with people is eternal. Even if I never decide to infect this world with my spawn, an incredibly likely proposition, I'll always have the stories I tell and the pictures I draw, and really, that's alright. Thanks, Chris and Tracey. (Incidentally, I drew them a couple of sketches to make up for the fact that they didn't get the book signed, so, y'know, it pays to speak up.)


Anyways.

I can watch Dwight Howard dunk all day long...



Ok, here's a random page sans dialogue of what's been keeping me busy these nights:




It's called Elephant Cage, and it's a superhero internment camp story. If all goes well, it'll be my first color work. We shall see!