Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 27. Click here to see this page at full size. |
- Use the Sunday Comics tag to read Bronx Angel from the beginning, including the Born Leader ashcan that was this story's original #0 issue. Most everyone likes Born Leader.
- Or use the PBAM tag to just start at the beginning of Politics By Another Method.
Back in the day, I owned a (very) small press comic company called Proletariat Comics, along with my friend Jerry. But PC LLC had two basic problems. One, our business model was about seven years ahead of the technology curve, which is to say that we were good at making comics and marketing them digitally but terrible at printing stuff and doing anything with what was printed. And two, we were underfunded, all things considered.
I personally had a flood in my basement, and that was pretty much it for PC LLC.
After that, I kind of bounced around. I wrote for Paperback Reader for awhile--that's where Friday Mad Science was born--and I did that E-How video that you've probably seen. Everybody has seen that thing, it seems like. And Jerry and I both wrote for Platinum Studios for a while. In the process, I managed to get on a bunch of reviewer's lists and basically realized that the difference between writing comics and writing about comics is that writing comics is frustrating and expensive, and it essentially makes you the enemy of everyone in the industry who's already working. Whereas writing about comics is free, and it gets you free stuff, and you get to meet writers, artists, and editors--and they like you!--and if you do it well, you might actually even make a little money with it. That stuff is all excellent.
Jeez, I'm practically talking myself into starting a new comics fan-site here.
But seriously, working at PBR not only paid a little, it also got me piles of free comics, got me into the NYC Comic Con for free a time or two, and I got to meet a ton of awesome people, the most famous of whom was Jim Starlin. Eventually, however, that wasn't an asset, it actually became a problem. Because folks kept sending me their stuff, and the piles kept growing, and really, if I'm being honest, most of what they were sending me was crap. In fact, it wasn't even crap, it was terrible, horrible, God-awful garbage. Even editors that I liked and respected would send me stuff that was literally a chore to read. And that's when I realized that reading comics was no longer a hobby or a pleasure.
It had become a job.
I left PBR shortly after that. It's awesome to be able to say that I got paid to read and review comics, and I'll be the first to admit that the perks were nice, but reality is that no one gets into comics because the pay is great. Bottom line, if the medium itself starts to lose its luster, that's the time to cash out.
So I cashed out.
It was like two years between the end of my stint at PBR and the next time I set foot in a Local Comic Shop. And really, if it wasn't for my kids--and my wanting to share my love of comics with my kids--who knows if I would've gone back in at all.
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And now we've come full circle. I still have these stories that I like, that are nevertheless totally forgotten. The blog seems like a decent place to share them, so here they.
Thanks for stopping by.
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