"Goodbye To Comics": An Introduction

Goodbye To Comics #0:
"What The Hell Happened To Your Blog?"

Welcome to "Goodbye To Comics," a “theoretical” memoir of what *might* have happened in the life of a woman in the field and fandom of comics. You know, just like how OJ’s “How I Might Have Done It” is theoretical. Actually, I found OJ’s latest venture (not his previous venture, the one with all the blood in it) very inspiring. I think if you can get away with a theoretical memoir about multiple murder, then certainly you can get away with one on being female in the comics industry. In fact, the only person I think who really can’t get away with theoretical memoirs is that “A Million Little Pieces” dude, and, well, he has too much money anyway.

A question I get asked from time to time by young female comic fans is, “how do I break into the industry?” They ask me this because, theoretically speaking, I worked for two comic companies and I guess I should know. By the time I was working at my second comics gig, I knew exactly what to tell those girls: “try Marketing.” But now, as I am a bit of an old hag, all of 32, I am restless and the old answers no longer suffice.

The last email I got from a young woman -- asking how she could break into the comics editing and what my experiences were like in the field -- literally broke me. I was recovering from a broken vagina, which I sustained right around the time I almost finished recovering from a broken career. “A Million Little Pieces” indeed.

I never answered that email. Instead, I forwarded it to a woman I used to work with in the industry and asked her just how the hell I was supposed to answer such a question. I inquired if there was an official “talking point” I should use that would make everybody happy. Of course, my email was also never answered, continuing the chain of silence, ignored questions, and theoretical “never happeneds” that seemed to dot the landscape of my 30 years in comics like fly specks on the wall of a comic collector with OCD and bad hygiene.

I was sure at this point that I just had to have some sort of cute festering tumor right under the soft layer of fat and dermis that covered some squishy part of my body, being a firm believer that unaddressed anger and bitterness is a cancer-generator. And if not already so inflicted (and if I was, without health insurance I’d just as soon let that fucker grow and explode rather than pay the bill--obviously I see no movie adaptation of my inspiring graphic novel starring Cate Blanchett any time soon) I soon would be.

Enter OJ.

Actually, enter a lot of things. Britney booting K-Fed and Bushie booting Rums-Fed within a day of each other actually gave me a bit of a vicarious boost. With the Dems taking Congress and six years of insanity, lies, cover-ups, and crimes finally getting interrupted I felt there was actually hope in the world again. I believe the phrase that entered my mind was “the worm has finally turned.” I think Uma Thurman in Kill Bill had a different saying for it.

Actually, at my darkest moments I found “Kill Bill” to be a very inspiring movie, perhaps even more inspiring than OJ’s theoretical murder-memoir. Certainly, I hardly have the strength to pick up a genuine Hattori Hanzo much less use it to take out half of the Yakuza. But I do have a new Mac Book that I spent every last penny on.

:-)

Some odds n' ends for anybody who has followed this blog previously or are just plain fucking confused regarding everything I just said.

1. I've written about 20 posts in advance for this blog. So I have at least a month of solid narrative & updates. I'll update sometimes once a day, sometimes every few days.

2. Eventually, these posts will become a book and my intention, with a bit of editing magic, is to publish it.

3. Yeah, I'm deleting everything else. I'm just tired of that "I'm a spunky female writing about comix!" crap. That is soooo far away of the reality of what I am right now. Which is just a woman that wants to "write it all out" on this blog and find some nice obscure safe niche for myself.

4. Yes, I really have suffered the injury to my nether regions as described on this blog. However, names and certain bits of chronology have been altered either to make the narrative flow better or to not get sued.

5. Anybody who was inconsiderate, evil, or just plain fucked-up to me who reads this blog and thinks it's about them and gets angry can go on "Dancing With The Stars" and jitterbug their way to Hades for all I give a damn.

6. There is a line of thought, quite popular, um, well just about everywhere, that it is distasteful to bring up any bad things that happen and one should only focus on the nice things. Tried it, it's a psychotic way of looking at the world and it doesn't work.