A comics anniversary. Plus, APES!
Some introspection and rumination but little to no wisdom.
I wasn’t paying attention at the time but it occurred to me last week that March was my 30th anniversary of working full-time in the comic book industry. Look, here’s some proof!
My first paycheck from Marvel Comics, March 30th, 1994. Technically, I had started working the previous year as an assistant, inking backgrounds for Tom Mandrake and Ken Branch on various projects; I also had penciled a comic book adaptation of an HP Lovecraft short story for a long-defunct company but I consider my first ‘real’ comic book work to be the early Marvel stuff. Seeing my name in the credits of a Marvel comic was literally my lifetime dream come true. What a feeling that was! I wonder how many of my fellow comic book jockeys felt the same way.
In a nice bit of serendipity, this first check is also dated ten years to the day my son Jack was born. Two dreams come true on that same day, maybe I should play the lottery on March 30th too!
Neither of my sons has any interest whatsoever in comic books, my career, Marvel/DC movies or what have you. I think growing up around all that stuff, they’ve just learned to tune it out. But when I mentioned to the often-introspective Jack that it was my 30th year in comics (“there goes your entire adult life down the drain, pop,” quipped my 14-year old), he asked me what advice I’d give myself if I could text 23-year old me as I was just starting out in this field.
It took me a minute but if I could, this is what I’d teach myself. Take from it what you will.
First of all, young Keith, making ‘actual’ money for the first time is nice but don’t waste those early royalty checks! Getting $8000 in royalties for half an issue of Wolverine is not the norm and that gravy train (and the entire industry) is about to crash. Buy some Apple stock or Vanguard Index Funds instead of samurai swords and trips to Vegas. On a related note, don’t give away so much of your early original art. It’s OK to save a few pages for a rainy day and Heritage Auctions will someday smile at you.
Second, be somebody that people will enjoy working with. It’s comic books, have fun, don’t be insecure about critiques and collaboration. You can learn so much from these gigantic talents you’re lucky to be working with so always be humble, not precious about the work or scared to listen, in case someone realizes you’re faking it.
On a related note, nobody knows what they’re looking at. Most fans don’t have a trained eye when they look at artwork, even editors (and boy, would we talk A LOT about editors). People either like a drawing or don’t like a drawing but no one will nitpick that drawing the way you (meaning ‘I’) will. So relax. By all means CARE, but don’t care TOO much. Do work that you feel proud of but fight the urge to spend X-amount of hours on a panel of art that someone is only going to look at for 3-5 seconds anyway. Maybe sleep a little more instead.
Which segues into work/life balance.
Working in comics can be more of a lifestyle than a job. An interesting lifestyle, sure, and you’ll share more than one cab ride with Lou Ferrigno or David Prowse but it’s also a deadline intensive, exhausting lifestyle. There will be times when it’s unavoidable but try not to stay up all night. The stress and lack of sleep takes a toll. Get some fresh air, stretch, take a walk. Go out with friends once or twice a week; it’s not healthy to work in isolation 16 hours a day for months on end and while that may seem like common sense, it’s often hard to remember when one’s nose is to the grindstone and the most important thing in your life is THE DEADLINE. It’s not a good idea to work on Christmas either, by the way.
Perhaps importantly, you are not your job, don’t let the industry define your self worth. This is a field that takes full advantage of a creator’s love and passion for the medium and will treat you very poorly in return. Say NO sometimes, no one will remember you cranked out a third book that month to save the schedule. They’ll just remember it wasn’t your best work.
Get as much out of Marvel and DC as you can. Push for raises, use whatever name recognition comes with those higher profile assignments and funnel it into your own books and characters and worlds. You may work WITH the other companies but don’t forget that underneath it all you work FOR yourself.
And 30 years from now, when your son asks you what advice you’d give yourself, he’s going to stop listening after that part about blowing money in Vegas.
DAMN DIRTY APES
First of all, my official media recommendation this time around is SHOGUN on Hulu. Highest recommendation possible, it’s phenomenal on pretty much every level. Just great, sophisticated storytelling.
The only thing that could make SHOGUN better? A talking ape.
Why? Because ever since I was a kid and I saw Charlton Heston screaming at the Statue Of Liberty, I’ve loved PLANET OF THE APES.
Or…have I?
To prepare the for new movie, KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, I’ve been ‘training’ by watching every single Apes flick from start to finish, from Chuck Heston to Mark Wahlberg to Woody Harrelson. Aside from the original film, it’s been the first time I’ve seen the early 70’s sequels since I was a teenager watching Creature Double Features on Channel 56 on Saturday afternoons.
Guys…these are bad movies, right? I don’t mean that in the sense that they’re dated when watching them with modern eyes but just that… they’re just not very good! Sure, Zira is still subtly hot for an ape (Kim Hunter for the win!) but was Charlton Heston directed to snarl every line reading like he’s a giant asshole? Or was that just Chuck being Chuck?
After blowing up the planet at the end of BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, the franchise takes its weirdest creative turn when Cornelius and Zira travel back in time and, like a snake eating its own tail, more or less become the Adam and Eve of talking apes when they birth Caesar and mankind begins walking down the inexorable path towards a world ruled by apes—who don’t kill other apes, except when they do.
I wonder if, after five increasingly poor movies in five years, when John Huston classed up BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES in 1973, audiences had ape fatigue the way today’s moviegoers have superhero fatigue (which I disagree with, by the by).
After Tim Burton comes along to make everything worse in 2001, the talking Apes go silent until 2012, when the absolutely mediocre RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES hit theaters, the amazing Andy Serkis notwithstanding. Even Star Wars has a better track record!
The point of all this stream-of-consciousness babble is to ask all of you: is it possible that, aside from the dubious quality of the original flick and its shock ending, we’ve never had an actual good Apes movie until Matt Reeves brought us Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes?
Because that’s the theory I’m working under right now and it’s making me question who I actually am underneath my ape mask.
THATS A WRAP
That’s all for this newsletter but we’ll be back in a couple of weeks or so with our very first INTERVIEW! Thanks for taking the time to read and if you’ve got any tips for surviving the comic book industry or thoughts on talking Apes, that’s why god invented the comment section.
See you soon,
Keith
The only truly great Planet of the Apes movie, probably unintentionally, was the incredible BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. I remember seeing it in the theater as a kid, and I'd never seen anything that amazingly, outrageously great before! Sure, it had shoddy production values and truly weird dialog, but that only made it better to me. It was supposed to prevent any further sequels, and ended up spawning endless prequels instead. I saw it again recently, and it still holds up for me. It's just the best ever! I haven't seen the recent ones, but BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES is streaming now, so I'll check it out.
I don’t think that I got past the third one of the originals. John Heuston did one? Wow. Must check that out.
The Tim one finishes with a nice nod to the book. The book is very good, in the vein of Gulliver’s Travels.