Raoul Vezina Archives - Page 3 of 3

Jaquandor’s Too Many Lists

Before that, though, I need to note a couple things

1. This Steve Bissette article, the part after Christian matchmaking, where he talks about FantaCo and its publications Gore Shriek and Smilin’ Ed.

2. The passing of Sydney Pollack, who not only directed Tootsie, one of my favorite films, but was one of those hyphenates as well known for his acting as his directing. He was a quite good actor, even in some mot so good scripts.

Jaquandor went quiz crazy. I’m answering the ones I feel like answering, having answered similar questions too recently .

Feet size: 10, although that can vacillate a bit depending on the brand of shoe in question.

Age you act: Thirty-seven. That was, in some ways, my favorite age.

Where you want to live: Don’t know, but living in upstate New York, given the rest of the country’s propensities towards fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes, as good as anywhere. And when global warming really kicks in, it’ll be as warm here in 20 years as it is in Virginia now.

Favorite Saying: “That’s doable.” Actually that’s fallen into disuse of late, for some reason.

Favorite Ice Cream: When I went to Ben & Jerry’s for free ice cream last month, I asked for rum raisin; they had none. Have they discontinued it?

Favorite Alcoholic Drink: Any rum drink.

When Do You Go To Sleep: Generally between 9:30 and 10 pm, except on Thursday night, when it’s between 11 pm and midnight.

Most Embarrassing Moment: Too hard to narrow down.

Stupidest Person You Know: I’m a snob. I tend to avoid stupid people.

Funniest Person You Know: Probably Tim, though most of his comments are groan-worthy.

Favorite Food: Chicken, I suppose.

Favorite Song: Impossible to determine, but I’ll be working on that very topic soon.

Wedding song: “At Last” by Etta James, for cause.

Pets: Only stuffed.

5 years from now? I used to have to do that years ago, and there was almost never a correlation between the aspirational and the actual, so I don’t bother.

10 years from now? Or, conversely, if I looked back 10 years would I said, “Now is what I thought it’d be”? No.

Have You Ever…?

Done Drugs: Even inhaled.

Run Away From Home: Briefly.

Hit A Girl: No.

Lied: Anyone who says they didn’t is probably a liar.

Stolen Anything: Not in a long, long time.

Broken A Bone: No.

Cheated On A Test: Answered before, yes, 9th grade bio.

Gotten Drunk: A few times in my 20s, but not in at least a decade.

Fell asleep in the shower/bath: No.

Gone to Church: Yes, on most Sundays.

Never slept during a night: The last all-nighter was in 1981, when a bunch of my grade school friends all got together.

Ever been on a motorcycle or motorbike: Yes. Didn’t like it.

Been to a camp: Every summer for about a decade growing up. Didn’t like it.

Sat in a restaurant w/o ordering: Probably not.

Seen someone die: Nope, I missed that fine honor by about an hour on two different occasions (my great uncle, my father).

Gone a week w/out shaving: A heck of a lot longer than that.

Didn’t wash your hair for a week: Probably in February 1975.

Broken something valuable: Possibly.

Thought you were in love: Or at least open to persuasion.

Streaked the streets: Interesting question.

Screamed at someone for no reason: well, not for NO reason. The reason may not have had anything to do with that person.

Said I love you and meant it: Why, yes.

Been hurt by a guy/girl you loved: Oh, God, yes.

Stayed up till 4 am on the phone: If so, it was so long ago I can’t recall.

Pulled a prank: Mostly surprise birthday parties.

Which Is Better…?

1. Coke Or Pepsi: I suppose Pepsi, though both are probably poison.

2. Cats Or Dogs: Cats.

3. DVDs or VHS: DVDs because you can get to a section easier.

4. Deaf Or Blind: I suppose blind, because I’d miss music and the sound of my daughter’s voice.

5. Pools Or Hot Tubs: Neither.

6. Television Or Radio: TV

7. CDs Or mp3: CDs, still.

8. Apples or oranges: Apples – macs.

9. Strawberries or Blueberries: I prefer blueberries, but eat more strawberries.

10. Gold or silver: Gold.

11. Vanilla or chocolate: Vanilla, a choice that traumatized me in the 6th grade.

12. Video or Movie: Movie.

13. Park or Beach: Park.

14. Hot or Cold weather: Hot.

15. Sunset or Sunrise: Sunset.

When is the Last Time You…?

1. Took a shower: Yesterday morning.

2. Cried: Yesterday, listening to music.

3. Watched a Disney movie: Some years ago, unless you count Pixar, in which case it was three months ago.

4. Given/gotten a hug: From the daughter last night.

5. Been to the movies: Sunday.

6. Danced: I dance a lot. In my office chair, especially.

7. Did a survey like this: Last week.

What Is…?

1. Your Fondest Memory Of This Year: the ships at Jamestown.

2. Your Most Prized Possession: my signed copy of Abbey Road.

3. The Thing That Makes You The Happiest: having someone be excited about info I’ve shared with them.

4. Your Favorite Food For Breakfast: pancakes with real maple syrup.

5. Your Favorite Food For Dinner: lasagna.

6. Your Favorite Slow Song: “Slow Song” by Joe Jackson.

7. Your Ideal BF/GF: Smart, more sensible than I am.

What Do You Feel About…?

1. Bill Clinton: I never got how great his Presidency was supposed to have been. Much better than his successor though. He’s really annoyed me during his wife’s campaign for POTUS. And though he didn’t come up with it, HATED that First Black President moniker.

2. Love at First Sight: I suppose it’s possible. Never happened to me.

3. Abortion: Legal, safe and rare.

4. Smoking: If I get on an elevator with someone who had been smoking recently, I practically pass out.

5. Death: Even more inevitable than taxes.

6. Rap: I LOVED early rap, but when it got all misogynistic and all, it lost me.

7. Marilyn Manson: I never think of Marilyn Manson.

8. Premarital Sex: What two consenting adults do is none of my concern.

9. Suicide: NOT painless, especially for the survivors.

ROG

What Hast Moss Wrought

Lynn Moss, the wife of Fred Hembeck, has posted pictures of the second FantaCon back in 1980, before she WAS the wife of Fred Hembeck, if I’m remembering correctly. (EDIT: I wasn’t remembering correctly: they were married the year before.) The convention was put on by FantaCo Enterprises, the comic book store I worked at from 1980 to 1988. The pictures feature Fred, Lynn, Bill Anderson, Joe Staton, Wendy and Richard Pini, Dave Simons, and John Caldwell, plus FantaCo artist/front man Raoul Vezina, FantaCo employee Mitch Cohn and FantaCo owner Tom Skulan. The pictures also feature the “art jam” drawing done by Fred, Raoul, Wendy Pini, Berni Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Simons, Caldwell, and Staton, a drawing Fred described on November 28, 2003.

BTW, 21 Central Avenue, Albany, which was FantaCo’s location for its 20 years, has been several things in the years since it closed in 1998. Currently it’s a bazzar (their spelling), a convenience store that sells halal meats and other items.
***
R: You really ought to plug Fred’s upcoming book again.
R: Well, I have all of those FantaCo publications in the Smilin’ Ed and Hembeck series. In fact, just came across them in the attic this weekend.
R: Yeah, but there’s over 600 MORE pages, some of which you’ve never seen.
R: Really?
R: Yeah, and all for about $25.
R: WOW! But I need a new angle.
R: How’s that?
R: I need a new way to plug the book again.
R: How about the cover, with the color scheme they chose NOT to use?

R: That’d work.
***
A bunch of Jack Kirby stories that have allegedly never been reprinted. (Thanks, Dan.)
***
Fred and Rose talk about commerce, of a sort.

ROG

Second Saturday in October

That was one busy Saturday eight days ago. Some of you will understand the need (of my wife) for us to clean the house in anticipation of someone coming over to clean the house; that was the post-breakfast activity. And we were also trying out a new babysitter, Annie, to replace our old sitters Anna (who went to college) and Anne (a busy HS senior).

So the babysitter came, the housekeeper came, and I got picked up by my friend Rocco. Rocco was a kid who used to be a FantaCo customer who became a FantaCo employee in the early 1980s. We traversed over to the Elks Lodge in Troy to go to a comic book program, organized by former FantaCo customer Dave Palladino.

We went to the artists’ table and talked to three guys with a strong FantaCo connection:
John Hebert was the artist on a book I co-wrote, Sold Out and worked at a couple FantaCons, before moving on to fame and fortune. He’s getting married next year, and herein is the proof:

Fred Hembeck, who I saw for the third time this year (yay!), was doing the big reveal of an anthology of his seven books published by FantaCo, plus over 600 MORE pages, news that would soon be wildly and exuberantly cheered by the comics blogisphere. He had on hand a binder that featured the black and white version of the color cover:

and
Bill Anderson, who I see more often than the others, worked at Fantaco, off and on, between 1984 and 1996, but even before that, embellished some of Hembeck pages, before becoming the inker extraordinaire.

Rocco and I had great conversations with them and with Fred’s daughter Julie, between her stints reading homework. She told me she likes doing these trips because it gets her out of the house and because Fred “really needs a navigator,” which even he would admit is true.

I also had some lengthy conversations with other former customers and employees. Talked at length about the late Raoul Vezina (a post for next year) and FantaCo’s founder, Tom Skulan, who has gone into a different line of work.

At some point, I returned to the artists’ table, and a couple little kids asked me to sign a Mars Attacks mini-comic that FantaCo had published. I didn’t have anything to do with it, except shipping it to distributors, and escorting its writer Mario Bruni a Capital Cities Distributor show in Madison, WI back in 1988 so we could promote it. But I signed them anyway.

I now remember why some folks find comic book people really weird, as I heard a number of stories, including Golden-Gate, some debacle involving Michael Golden and a Doctor Strange drawing. It’s interesting in a very bizarre way.

I had a surprisingly good time, though I didn’t buy anything, except for some food. Check Fred’s October 20th post for his take on the event.

Rocco dropped me home long enough to go back out to the drug store and grocery store, before a second babysitter came. We’d NEVER had two babysitters in one day, EVER, but we really wanted to go the 30th anniversary party for our friends, Paul and Mary Liz Stewart, as it turned out, at my church. After a wonderful dinner, there was a short segment of singing to and telling stories about the Stewarts, MCed by me (I learned about this at 10 a.m. that day), thus once again ruining my self-image as a shy person.

It was a good day.

ROG

Why A Duck?

When I did my Simpsons avatar a little while ago, the T-shirt had a duck on it. As a kid, and even now, I like to make sounds like various fowl. One sound is like an even more incoherent Donald Duck. I suspect that I was doing this back in my FantaCo days, because when Raoul Vezina drew me into a Smilin’ Ed Smiley story, I was portrayed as a duck.

But it wasn’t a story in one of the four issues of Smilin’ Ed comics that FantaCo published; it was the story in X-Men Chronicles entitled “If Smilin’ Ed Smiley bought a Case of X-Men #94 When It Was Brand New, What Then?” “What Then” was our way of saying “What If” without actually being in violation of Marvel’s copyright or trademark.

Now, I should acknowledge why FantaCo put out the X-Men Chronicles when it did. It was to beat to market the X-Men version of a series of Marvel Indexes compiled by someone named George Olshevsky. The X-Men Index would be No. 9A (for some reason) and was scheduled to come out later in 1981.

I had forgotten this: FantaCo, probably Tom, had asked Wendy Pini to do the X-Men Chronicles cover. Wendy and Richard Pini were known for doing the Elfquest comic book, and had done a number of in-store signings. She called back on May 21, 1981, to decline, but she gave us Paty Cockrum’s number at Marvel so that we could contact her husband Dave, who had drawn the X-Men. From my journal: “Dave agreed to do the cover for $200-250. I told Tom, but I was less than enthused because Fantagraphics’ book [the Marvel Indexes were distributed by them, I guess] is also going to have a Cockrum cover. My attitude was incomprehensible to Tom.” (The actual cover I did really like, and was a lot more interesting than the Index cover.)

So we got our Dave Cockrum cover, got some local, and not so local people, to draw and write some pieces. I commissioned Arro Verti to put together our own index, short on graphics, but long on text. Oh, who am I kidding? *I* was Arro Verti; Arro=R.O.; and Verti for Green.

While we had published previously (Smilin’ Ed, Hembeck 1980, John Caldwell’s Mug Shots), we had never done a commentary book before. While I now know that we almost certainly didn’t need Marvel’s permission to do what we were doing, we sought it then. And Marvel was…cagey.

On the day I went down to pick up the Dave Cockrum cover, July 15, I met with Paty, then briefly with Marvel editor Jim Shooter, who said that there was no need to license the X-Men Chronicles if we were doing a journalistic piece. Then he said: “If you violate our copyright, we’ll just sue.” He was so matter-of-fact about it. I wrote later that I really liked Paty; Jim, not so much.

Another heretofore lost detail: Dave’s cover wasn’t ready on the 15th; in fact, I think he had just started it. So I took train to Philadelphia, visited friends, took a train back to NYC on the 17th, got the cover from Dave, a bearded fellow with what I described as a “soft Southern accent”, THEN took the still-wet painting home on a bus to Albany. The first copies of the magazine came out July 31.

As the editor of the X-Men Chronicles, one of my great disappointments about the book was the type size, which was 6-point type (don’t remember the font), which I thought was too small, but who our typesetter thought was fine. He was the professional, so I yielded to his judgment, which was, as it turns out, WRONG.

This had created another problem: we were five pages short for our 32-page publication. Enter Raoul Vezina, who, in a remarkably short time, cooked up with Tom Skulan a story about greed and hubris. Raoul’s story ended up to be six pages, and we had to bump something, as I recall, but this tale was my favorite part of the book.

When Tom came back from vacation sometime afterwards, he brought back these polished stone animal figurines from Mexico. Mine, of course, was the duck.

Which brings us to the picture above, which Raoul drew for my friend Lynne late in 1981. It’d been hanging on her wall for a quarter century when I e-mailed her and her husband Dan for a copy. Dan scanned it, Lynne made it into a PDF, and I made it into a .jpeg. ADD had something to do with the process, too.

Seeing it again just makes me smile, and sad, too, for Raoul died in 1983. At least I have his art to remember him by.
***
Hi, Eric and Joelle! By coincidence, I ran into a guy named Eric who used to work at FantaCo doing mail order yesterday. He kindly said I was “a little grayer”; it was good to see him. His sister Joelle, I believe, was the first female to be on the FantaCo payroll, and, according to him, is the more computer-savvy of the two.
***
This story says there were only a “handful” of FantaCo Publications; not true, as this roster will attest. Many were published after my tenure there, but FantaCo, in its time, and, especially in its later horror comics niche, was quite prolific.

ROG