Category: Raoul Vezina

His Name is Raoul

This is Part 3. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

Monday morning, November 14, 1983, Tom Skulan calls me at FantaCo and asks me whether Dee had called me. I thought this was a peculiar question. Dee, who was Raoul’s ex-girlfriend but still friend, had never called me to that point. Tom told me Raoul had died the day before, and I said, “Okay” and went back to work. About 10 minutes later I decided I should call my ex-girlfriend Susan and tell her. After letting her know, I realized, “Oh my God, Raoul died,” and I never mentioned it again that day. You would think that would be difficult, given the fact that I was going to be working the front of the store that day, but Raoul was working a Tuesday to Saturday schedule, and most people would not have expected him on Monday. They didn’t ask; I didn’t bring it up.

The next day we were faced with how to let people know that Raoul was deceased. While he was actually on vacation, most people would figure he was scheduled to work. Fortunately, his obituary had appeared in that morning’s newspaper. So as I sat at the front counter and people invariably asked me where Raoul was, I could point to the obit which I had taped to a piece of black construction paper and had hung on the wall opposite the counter.

Invariably, the first thing that came out of almost every person’s mouth was “You’re kidding!” Naturally, they didn’t mean that literally, but I heard that phrase a whole lot that day. It was so much easier just to point than to have to say the words again. But I attempted to comfort the customers who needed to process this awful news. Later that day, Raoul’s mother Betty and Raoul’s sister Maria came into the store along with Maria’s boyfriend. Maria hugged me for about four minutes, which felt like a LONG time. She and her mother asked Tom and me to be pallbearers at the funeral.

Raoul’s Nostromo Cap poster, recently discovered by Bill Anderson
Thursday evening was the wake. Fantaco employees Broome Spiro, Bill Anderson, and a number of others went over to the funeral home in Troy. Open casket. Damn. Eventually I made a quick pass at the lifeless body, but mostly talked to people as far away as I could from that part of the room.

Friday, the store was closed, of course, as we attended the funeral. The priest gave a homily that, while pleasant enough, didn’t seem to have anything to do with the Raoul we knew. He talked about Raoul drawing pictures of Christ and other fiction. But worse, he kept getting his name wrong. He repeatedly referred to him as Ralph. Ralph did this, Ralph did that. We all grimaced. Finally someone, and I didn’t even know then who it was, yelled, “HIS NAME IS RAOUL!” The priest continued, but at least he got the name right. After the ceremony, I went with a number of people from the band Blotto to a restaurant in Troy and we swapped tales about our friend Raoul.

ROG

ROG

Raoul Vezina, Part 1

Raoul Vezina was born in January 1948, I believe, in Troy, NY. As far as I can tell, he was always been a very generous and very talented soul.

Here’s a picture that he drew back when he was in high school, which he gave to his friend, Jim Strickland dated 12/13/65.

He was also a musician, playing keyboards and harmonica; these are photos of RV from 69/70 around Lemoyne College, also provided by Jim.

Eventually, he found his way to New Paltz, NY, a small college town about halfway between Albany and New York City. Michael T. Gilbert recalled that he played some kind of “electronic piano gizmo with a band that gigged at St. Blaise bar/restaurant” in town.

Michael and Raoul often collaborated on stories. Here are a couple of nice pieces that appeared in 1973 in the first issue of Michael’s New Paltz Comix underground.

Michael noted that he and Raoul “either met at the local drugstore (fighting over the latest comics!) or at the school newspaper office, where we both contributed cartoons. We hit it off and decided to collaborate on a page for the first issue of New Paltz Comix, which was originally to be published by the school paper. When they dropped the ball, I took over and printed it myself. I later published three more issues, and Raoul and I collaborated on a neat sci-fi story, “Rubber Soul”, for the second issue. Raoul’s work appeared in all four issues, and he was my favorite contributor to those comics.”

I first met Raoul in 1973 or 1974. When I first started collecting comics a couple of years earlier, my friend Mark and I used to have to hop into his car and drive five miles to a newsstand trying to find a copy of our letter four-color fix that wasn’t totally wrinkled from being jammed into the spinner rack. Then a guy named Peter Maresca opened a comic book store right in downtown New Paltz called the Crystal Cave. Oddly, Peter wasn’t all that interested in comic books. He was much more interested in comic strips and would diligently clip strips from the Sunday paper and put in protective coverings. This is, by the way, the same Peter Maresca who’s involved in publishing Little Nemo in Slumberland and other comic strip books.

So it fell to the guy running the front of the store, Raoul Vezina, to create an atmosphere of welcoming and information about the comic book scene. And he did. As a customer, I always felt welcomed and understood at the Crystal Cave, and that was largely Raoul’s doing.

And when I left New Paltz for the Capital District, I would find myself again in the Raoul’s orbit.

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FantaCo Chronicles: Webslinger, si; Freak Brothers, No

FantaCo was the comic book store/publisher/mail order center/convention house where I worked from May 1980 to November 1988. It opened August 28, 1978, 30 years ago today. And it closed on August 28, 1998, 10 years ago today.

The Chronicles were comic-book-sized magazines about various comic book characters. I’ve previously talked about the X-Men Chronicles, how much I liked working with Raoul Vezina, but hated having to retrieve the wet cover from Dave Cockrum. I’ve noted how Jim Shooter screamed at us for using the Jack Kirby interview in the Fantastic Four Chronicles. I’ve mentioned how Marvel appropriated parts of the Daredevil Chronicles for its Daredevil Omnibus; I tend to agree with the criticism that it leaned too heavily on Frank Miller’s period, ignoring Wally Wood and other DD history.

Next up, the Avenger Chronicles, edited by Mitch Cohn. I always thought the George Perez cover was a bit lackluster, but it was a decent enough book. It features a lengthy essay by me about the Avengers/Defenders War, detailed nearly as much as one would have described the Peloponnesian War.

Which brings us to the Spider-Man Chronicles. This is my favorite book in the series. I loved the varied layout that I instituted, which I though gave it a clean, modern look. I felt that I had finally developed a good line of contributors I could count on, and I felt for the first time that I really knew what I was doing. My favorite feature might have been humor cartoonist Fred Hembeck interviewing Spidey scribe Roger Stern, complete with illos.

The mag was almost hassle free. Well, except for two little things. One, of course, was the cover; it’s always the cover. I had, or more likely Mitch had contacted Frank Miller about drawing it, as he had done for the Daredevil Chronicles, and he had agreed, but at the last moment, he had to beg off, leaving me very much in the lurch.

I couldn’t use the back cover done by Joe Staton, because it wouldn’t have worked design-wise. Let me mention here Joe was possibly the sweetest man I’ve known in the comic book industry and who I would see from time to time in the store.

So, what to do, what to do. Pretty much in desperation, I called John Byrne, who had done the Fantastic Four cover. He whipped it out so quickly that it did not negatively affect the production schedule we had set with the printer. Say what you will about John Byrne, who apparently has been known to say some controversial things, but he saved my bacon — twice. I will never say anything bad about John Byrne.

The other problem was a drawing that Raoul Vezina had done of Spider-Man upon which he had put on the lyrics of the Spider-Man cartoon show. Rather like this:

We had contacted the copyright holder, seeking their permission to use those lyrics, and waited. And waited. And waited. We were even willing to pay them a reasonable amount of money for the rights. But ultimately, their response at the 11th hour was that we couldn’t use the lyrics at all. Ultimately, Raoul changed the words so it merely said “Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,” which we believed to be a copyright fair-use solution.

After having dealt with Marvel, sometimes with some great difficulty, FantaCo decided to go in a different direction with the series. We put out the Chronicles Annual, an overly broad history of what else was being published at the time, which Mitch and I edited. Then we decided to look to the “independent publishers” and put out Chronicles based on their characters. The first one we were going to do was the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Chronicles, which Mitch was going to edit. It was announced in our monthly newsletter, Fantaco Nooz, and Mitch reminded me that we even had a Gilbert Shelton cover, which looked a lot like this, obviously later used instead for a Freak Brothers anthology: But for reasons that now escape me, that book never saw the light of day. After that, I was supposed to edit the Kitchen Sink Chronicles, and there was even passing conversation about getting a Will Eisner cover. That too never got off the ground.

Well, *I* forgot the reason those magazines didn’t come out. Fortunately, an THE authority on FantaCo publications remembered. That would be Tom Skulan, founder/owner/big kahuna of FantaCo, who I’ve been in touch with for only a couple weeks after a nine- or ten-year hiatus. He noted that the Freak Brothers was never done because FantaCo did not receive enough material for a full issue; I guess some potential contributors were, like, too laid back. The Kitchen Sink Chronicles was never done because the initial feedback FantaCo got about it indicated that, unfortunately, it would be a very small print run, which broke my heart. Thus, as a magazine series, the Chronicles came to a bittersweet end, though one much later FantaCo BOOK was always thought of as a continuation of the series.

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Art jam

There is a gentleman named Jeff Kapalka, who sent his newspaper review of Fred Hembeck’s new book to Fred recently. With Jeff’s permission, Fred forwarded it to me.

Jeff also attached this item, forwarded by Fred:

Jeff describes it to Fred: “I’m also sending along a scan of a piece you participated in about two decades or so ago. Remember when we’d meet up at conventions, and I’d be toting my big-ass piece of poster board around, getting all and sundry to contribute to a mammoth character jam? Well, it finally got filled up in the mid 1980s, Karl Kesel got roped into inking any penciled characters, and I’ve kept it ever since.

“In the bit I was able to cram into my scanner, we’ve got Cartoon Fred interviewing an Al Milgrom Firestorm (who for some reason is wearing a Clyde Caldwell clown puppet on his hand). Meanwhile, CF is being crept up upon by a Steve Bissette Swamp Thing (“Let’s see if you can grow YOUR arm back.”) with Vince Giarrano’s Haywire lurking in the background. Just out of shot, a Paul Smith Storm is forming a little storm cloud over Firestorm. He doesn’t notice, as he’s busy trying to pal around with a rather disinterested Jughead, a la Stan Goldberg. That’s Brent Anderson’s Shanna in front of a Ron Frenz Spidey, and you can just about see E-Man’s outstretched hand, courtesy of Joe Staton. Can’t remember for the life of me which character from Arion, Lord of Atlantis Jan Duursema sketched, but there’s no mistaking Raoul Vezina’s Smilin’ Ed.”

“Ahh…those were the days.”

Yes, they were. It’s interesting that three people who did work for FantaCo appear in this panel:
Steve Bissette, who was in Alien Encounters, Gore Shriek, Deep Red and other horror projects.
Fred Hembeck, who, in addition to his eponymous series, also contributed to Smilin’ Ed, the Chronicles series, Gates of Eden and Alien Encounters.
And of course, the late Raoul Vezina, who, in addition to Smilin’ Ed, worked on the Chronicles and had stuff in the first four FantaCon programs.

Jeff notes to me: “I loved Smilin’ Ed. (The issue where he heads off to Hollywood, obsessed with cinematic cheese, spoke volumes to me. Even today, when I think of the poster for Angry Red Rabbit, or poor Ray Merrymausen working on his stop-motion project, I smile.)

“We probably have already met, of course. My cohorts and I made many a trip to FantaCo back in the 1980s, and we were always treated right. The feeling there was like the Cheers bar, but with comics. It was there I first found out about the redoubtable Mr. V and his critter creations. Sadly, I have no real memory of any conversations with either him or you, but I do have the sense of having talked comics with fellow fans.

“FantaCo also introduced me to the awe and mystery that is Blotto, but that’s going off on a tangent.” Not really. The FantaCo folks were big Blotto fans, too. I was singing ‘Metalhead’ in the shower just yesterday.

“The piece also features a Dave Sim Cerebus, Wendy Pini’s Skywise, Iron Man by Bob Layton, John Byrne’s Rog-2000, Mike Grell’s Warlord, Walt Simonson’s Manhunter flanked by George Perez’ Starfire and Mary Wilshire’s Firestar, a Totleben Demon squaring off against a Simons Ghost Rider, and an Incredible Vampire Balloon. (The last is a critter from my Cranberry: Certified Public Avenger series. Never heard of it? You’re not alone…) And there’s still more!”

Jeff indicated that if he gets a chance to scan some more, I might be able to share more with you fine folks. Thanks, Jeff.

ROG

ROG

Remembering Raoul Vezina

As I’ve mentioned here before, maybe once or twice, I used to work at a comic book store/publisher called FantaCo Enterprises in Albany, NY from 1980 to 1988.
Raoul Vezina was an artist who worked for and was published by FantaCo, in the latter case, particularly in a series called Smilin’ Ed.
Raoul died 25 years ago in November, and I am looking for all things Vezina so I can write about him: primarily recollections, but also samples of his artwork.

Thank you.

ROG

ROG
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