FantaCo Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Writer/artist Steve Bissette is 70

more than Swamp Thing

I first met writer/artist Steve Bissette in the backroom at FantaCo Enterprises, 21 Central Ave., in Albany, NY, probably in 1987. Steve had come from Vermont to talk with Tom about contributing to the comic book Gore Shriek. I worked primarily on shipping the publications and mail orders.

I tried to be cool because I didn’t want to appear like a fanboy. “Oh, I love your Swamp Thing!” even though I did love his Swamp Thing. He also does some great dinosaurs.

We developed an easy rapport, partly because of his genial nature and because I was impressed by his intellect. He has a historian’s and librarian’s mind.

Steve showed up at FantaCo maybe a half dozen times before I left the company in November 1988. He also worked on a horror magazine called Deep Red, founded by the late Chas Balun (d. 2009), who was as wonderful as Steve said.

I lost track of Steve for a bit, but I started regularly commenting on his blog around 2008. Then, I would link to posts Steve wrote in my blog. I found over 100 references to Bissette, some of which were comments on his Facebook pages.

“If you work in a brick-and-mortar retail establishment, and if you tell me when I ask if you have something that I can only get it online, then you have lost me forever as a customer at said brick-and-mortar retail establishment.” I quoted that verbatim because I agreed with the sentiment.

“I always thought Bob Marley HAD to have seen or heard the BANANA SPLITS theme. Compare Bob’s ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ riff; —c’mon, don’tcha think so, mon?” I had never given any thought before, but he may be right.

IP

His thoughts on intellectual property tended to align with mine.: digital music; Disney/Marvel, SONY, and copyright overreach; can you defend public libraries and oppose file sharing?

Likewise, “As my buddy, Steve Bissette ranted – I think it regarded a policy by Adobe or Microsoft: ‘We can afford them once, and that’s what we can afford. We want to own almost all the things we buy. With few exceptions, we don’t wish to buy or support those things that do not wish to be purchased outright. We do not need more monthly bills. We do not wish to interact with you regularly for permission to be permitted to use what we purchase to use.”

His comments on boycotting Marvel/Disney movies, such as The Avengers, because of the treatment of Jack Kirby, HERE and HERE, informed my thoughts, which is why I didn’t see the Marvel movies from 2012 to 2019.

Stephen Bissette‘s open letter to DC on Facebook about NBC’s Constantine.
“My friend Steve’s dissection of DC is so deliciously understated and addresses the issue of common courtesy.”

He solved a movie mystery for me!

FantaCo

Our overlap with FantaCo is important. Even though Steve stopped working with Tom in the early 1990s, Steve and I need to ensure the record is straight. We spent some time trying to fix the FantaCo Wikipedia page, which contained much egregious misinformation, some of which has been rectified.

When I wrote about FantaCo, Steve would link to me, and vice versa, such as here.

Steve drew the cover of a book called Xerox Ferox, which debuted at the FantaCon 2013 in Albany. I got him, Tom, and several others to sign the book. Maybe I am a fanboy.

Bio

You can read his frankly meager Wikipedia page, but he worked on much more than is noted, some of which I own.

Steve attended the Kubert School and wrote the lovely To Joe, With Love: A Sad Farewell to the Man Who Opened All the Doors. He taught at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT, for about a decade and a half.

There are several Steve Bissette interviews I linked to:

You can NOW hear him blather [his word] with Robin at Inkstuds: PART 1 and PART 2.

Stephen R. Bissette: comics pioneer & evangelist from Radio New Zealand

Deconstructing Comics Podcast: #500 – Stephen Bissette: Comics, Movies, and Creator Credits.

The Stephen Bissette Shoot Interview! A Career-Spanning Chronicle!

Interview with Swamp Thing Comic Artist Stephen Bissette.

Stephen R Bissette – CCS instructor, monster-maker for Next Up Vermont.

Steve is one of 21 individuals selected to be inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame for 2025.

He’s written a LOT of pieces, particularly in the past several years, some of which are catalogued here. However, this Facebook page is a better source of his recent work.

On his Facebook page, he’s mentioned life difficulties, such as the devastation caused by the Vermont flooding in 2011, HERE, HERE, and HERE, and other stuff, which I won’t go into.

For some birthday of mine, I swiped this from Steve’s Facebook page at least a decade ago – he’s a fellow March Piscean, of course – and I thought it both appropriate and true, though I’ve never seen the film:

“You think grown-ups have it all figured out? That’s just a hustle, kid. Grown-ups are making it up as they go along, just like you. You remember that, and you’ll do fine.”
– Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), MATINEE (1993)

Peace and joy and love to my friend Steve Bissette.

Sunday Stealing: the best thing

irrational

Once more, Sunday Stealing is purloining from How Far Will You Go?

1. What’s the best thing to inherit other than money?

Good health, I suppose. I would say a long life, but if one’s health were awful, that wouldn’t be so great.

2. What one thing would you most like to happen tomorrow?

I’d like to write a blog post. I’m falling behind and my reserves are rapidly shrinking. What should I write about?

3. Who is the person with whom you’ve been most infatuated?

I wrote a whole blog post about this in 2008. And I’m sure there were others, not to mention the ones I knew personally; we won’t get into THAT!

4. In what part of the day does time go slowest and fastest?

It ALL goes pretty fast. My list of things to do doesn’t seem to shrink.

5. Whose thoughts would you most like to read?

djt. What’s really going on there?

6. Who is the person you’d least like to touch?

Odd question. What are they, lepers? I suppose the person others think they ought not to touch would be the person I would be most compelled to touch.

Genes

7. What is the best quality you inherited from your parents?

My father had a good musical ear. My mother was very kind.

8. Who is the friend you most often disagree with?

There is one, who I am not going to name. This week, I shared what I thought was an interesting upcoming musical release but it was pooh-poohed. Whatevs.

9. What’s the best ritual of your daily life?

It’s playing Wordle (485-game streak) and Quordle.

10. What is the most useful job you’ve ever had?

I’ll pick working at FantaCo (May 1980-November 1988), a comic book store/publisher/convention place that became a “third place” for many patrons. I balanced the checkbook, helped order products, wrote and edited a few magazines, et al. A lot of things I learned were useful in being a business librarian (1994-2019).

11. In which year of your life did you change the most?

Lessee, 1972. Or 1974, 1977, 1978, 1983, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004. If pressed, I’ll pick 1978. 1977 was the year I bounced from New Paltz, NY to Charlotte, NC to NYC, and back to New Paltz to Schenectady, NY. In 1978, I got a job I liked at the Schenectady Arts Council in a metro area I have lived in ever since.

12. What’s the best thing you’ve ever gotten for free?

A trip to Barbados, courtesy of the game show JEOPARDY! It wasn’t totally free in that I had to pay taxes on the value of the trip; the trip’s value was $2100, if I remember correctly.

13, What is the thing you are best at?

I can connect numbers with events, such as those years in question 11.

I can walk under ladders

14. What was the luckiest moment in your life?

I don’t know about THE luckiest, but I thought of this event recently. As a college student in New Paltz, NY in the 1970s, I often hitchhiked from my hometown of Binghamton to school and back. Once, I walked just outside New Paltz village and found a white and orange metal sign with 17 on it. To get home, I would take NY-299 W to US-44 E to NY-52 W to NY-17 W to Binghamton. I put up the sign, and about five minutes later, a guy from the CIA picked me up and dropped me at Exit 72 just above my grandma’s house in Binghamton. BTW, the guy was from the Culinary Institute of America, not the Central Intelligence Agency.

15. What is the single most important thing you have ever learned?

People are irrational, motivated by factors they don’t always understand themselves. This week, a person in my neighborhood drove past a Road Closed sign. They must have thought, “Surely, if I can drive past the sign, I should be able to get down the block.” Nope, the road construction was at the end of the road. They had to turn around in someone’s driveway and return to the main street. I got just a soupçon of delight from this.

November rambling: we’re in trouble

notable books

A great cover illustration by Walter Molino, repurposed by Jan Strnad, and used with Jan’s permission

Democracy and the Press: We’re in Trouble

Revisiting the fascism question

Liz Cheney’s new book blasts GOP as ‘enablers and collaborators’ of djt

Why Georgia Republicans Are Protecting the D.A. Who Indicted Trump

In the wake of the Voting Rights Act ruling, North Dakota to appeal the decision that protected tribes’ rights

ProPublica reviewed 12 of the nation’s strictest abortion bans. Few changed in 2023, as state lawmakers caved to pressure from anti-abortion groups opposing exceptions for rape, incest and health risks.

Dollar Stores: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

The Remarkable Biden Economy

You Cannot Rely on the Government to Protect You From Bad Charities

FTC Authorizes Compulsory Process for AI-related Products and Services

Rosalynn Carter, Outspoken Former First Lady, Dies at 96

Chuck Miller: A big toe named Elise Stefanik

NYPL service was impacted due to City budget cuts, including ending Sunday service at the vast majority of locations that currently offer it.

About 8.2 Million People Moved Between States in 2022

Of special interest to me

Finally — a PROFESSIONAL Comics Magazine! COMICS SCENE 1, January 1982. At this point in the video, there is a discussion about a FantaCo ad. Tom Skulan noted that the ad wasn’t particularly successful, whereas the ads for horror items in Fangoria magazine were much more profitable.

New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2023, one of which was written by an author I actually know

Obit for Bob Maye, who grew up not far from my house in Binghamton, NY

Consumer Value Stores

Boston Globe: CVS pharmacists are at a breaking point, imperiling the company’s reinvention plans. The link may be behind a paywall, but basically: “There are not enough pharmacists in the pipeline, and the ones the company employs are reaching a breaking point. The company… has spent billions remaking itself into a sophisticated healthcare conglomerate. A key goal is turning its thousands of stores into community clinics where pharmacists, doctors, and nurses work together to improve patient health. But none of this works if the company can’t hire or retain its pharmacists. ‘Pharmacists are burned out,’ said a former CVS executive.”

Plans

Warner Bros. Reverses Course on ‘Coyote vs. Acme‘ After Filmmakers Rebel. I don’t understand how a studio makes money scrapping a film it’s completed.

The people who ruined the internet

The Boy Who Captured JFK From His Parents’ Basement

John Oliver – Finding a Place for Satire & Immigration as a Comedian | The Daily Show

Do You Want to Build a Movie? An Oral History of Frozen

How TMZ Became Hollywood’s Grim Reaper

Frances Sternhagen, a two-time Tony winner and television and movie actor, Died at 93. I’ve seen her on The Closer, ER, Sex and the City, Cheers, and the movie Misery, among many other roles.

What Is the Value of a Scenic View?

Medical Malpractice On Law & Order, episode 1, Ft. Legal Eagle

Mark Evanier bankrupted his grandmother in Monopoly, and in life

Greg’s long, strange trip of collecting comic books

There is no such place as Wyoming

Now I Know

How Fake Fish May Save Coral Reefs (And You Can Help!) and Cops of Coffee and The Very Expensive (and Not Very Nice) Surprise Party and The Man Who Bought (And Returned?) Stonehenge and

The Hole in a Swiss Citizenship Application

MUSIC

Peter Sprague Plays Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You featuring Rebecca Jade

Tray Wellington: Crooked Mind

Mr. Big Stuff – Jean Knight, who died recently at 80

The Highwomen: Crowded Table

Jake Blount: Didn’t It Rain

Rhiannon Giddens: You’re The One

Coverville 1465: The XTC Cover Story II and 1466: The 20th Annual All-Beatles Thanksgiving Cover Story

Amythyst Kiah: Hangover Blues

Our Native Daughters: Black Myself

On The Beautiful Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II

Rina Sawayama : Chosen Family

Kara Jackson: Pawnshop

Rossini: L’italiana in Algeri – Overture

Michael Pollack accompanies Billy Joel on “New York State of Mind”

You Were Meant For Me – Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds

Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music, which starts with ten minutes about chess notation

Another sighting

lookalike

Roger.cartoon There was another sighting.

I was waiting for a bus on Northern Boulevard, across the street from Memorial Hospital. A guy comes up to the bus kiosk and sits next to me. I told him the #182 bus would arrive in about ten minutes.

We get into a conversation about the value of mass transit. He said something I’ve expressed to my wife, that he would HATE being isolated outside of access to bus lines. I noted my support for public transportation.

It was a pleasant simpicato conversation. We both got off at Washington and Lark. He introduced himself, and I told him my first name. Then he said, “You look just like…” I get that a lot. It’s often a former teacher at Albany High School.

Bingo!

He said, “You look just like a guy who worked at a comic book store.” Ha! I said, “You mean the comic book store that was over there,” pointing in the general direction of 21 Central Avenue.

“I was around 12 when I went there!” He went to the store when Matt worked there, so in the 1983-1988 period. While I understand why people thought FantaCo was great, I’m surprised anyone remembers me. I only worked the front when the new comics arrived, the store was busy, or covering lunch periods. Mostly, I was in the back room doing the mail order, balancing the checkbook, or writing.

I conveyed this story to someone at choir rehearsal, where I was heading. “That can’t happen too often,” someone said. “You’d be surprised,” I replied.

About a year earlier, I was at the Readers’ Theater, sponsored by Wizard’s Wardrobe, taking place in the new Capital Repertory building. A guy helping set up said, “You used to work at FantaCo!” This was not a question but a statement.

I suppose it helped that my hairline hasn’t appreciably changed. The picture of the duck represents my look in 1983.

It’s so weird. Pleasant but weird.

The Raoul Vezina Chronicles

I am calling these the Raoul Vezina Chronicles because these are bits and pieces about the life of Raoul Vezina. He worked at Crystal Cave on Main Street in New Paltz, NY which I frequented, in the mid-1970s. He was working on New Paltz Comix and other artistic and musical pursuits.

Then he worked at FantaCo at 21 Central Avenue in Albany, NY from 1978 until his untimely death in November 1983. He co-created Smilin’ Ed Comics, made the store signs, and other creative work. Not incidentally, you can find Smilin’ Ed Comics: da complete collection on Amazon.

I had sometimes a great notion of creating a Wikipedia page for Raoul, but I now realize, after a decade of trying on and off, that wasn’t going to happen soon, if ever.

Still, I have gathered a lot of material from several of his friends. In honor of Raoul’s passing 40 years ago, here are some bits, in no particular order except being the oldest in my email. There will be more pieces soon. I will try not to replicate what I wrote here or elsewhere. (Most of my links here still work.)

Here’s Naturalist At Large, a book by Don Rittner and Raoul.

Raoul created cover art and/or lettering for some records. here’s his comics bibliography.

Bio

The bulk of this will come from Raoul’s younger sister, Maria, the Chief Nursing Officer at a major hospital and a keeper of the Raoul flame.

Raoul Francis Vezina was born on January 12, 1948.

His father was Raoul E. Vezina MD (1913-1975), a General Practitioner physician in Troy NY. He grew up in Springfield, MA. He went to The College of The Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and Tufts School of Medicine in Medford, MA.

His mother was Elizabeth Pitaro Vezina (1912-1999) was born in Calabria, Italy and came to the United States when she was 12 years old, settling in Troy, New York. She graduated as an RN from the Samaritan School of Nursing in Troy, NY, in 1935. [I really liked Betty.]

Raoul went to St. Peter’s Grammar School, graduating in 1961, and Catholic Central High School in Troy, NY, graduating in 1965. He drew and sketched his way through school, always leaving behind many notebooks filled with original artwork rather than schoolwork.

He attended Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY, in 1965 and then transferred to the State University of New York at New Paltz, majoring in art. Raoul was a naturally born artist and musician who never formally trained in art or music.

Art

Once the front of 279 Fair street in Kingston, NY, owned by the late Bruce Talbott, of New Paltz. Provided by Jim Abbott.

A natural born artist , as a young child, Raoul used to draw on the TV set at home during “Squiggle Time” for the rabbit Freddie Freihofer on the “Bedtime Stories” TV show hosted by Uncle Jim Fisk. Later, as an adult, Raoul drew advertisements for the Freihofer Bakery in Lansingburgh, the northern section of Troy, New York. In 1987, Friehofers was sold to General Foods.

Raoul was fascinated by animal art and super heroes and science fiction early in life while composing many sketches of Mighty Mouse and Superman at a very young age. Never taking any art or music lessons, Raoul had a natural inborn talent for both art and music.

Raoul’s art matured to cartoons and political satire, publishing “Naturalist at Large” environmental cartoon with Don Rittner. Raoul admired Lenny Bruce, a social critic and satirist. Watching That Was the Week That Was (TW3), Laugh-In, The Twilight Zone, and the Smothers Brothers in the 1960s became his weekly favorite TV shows. Raoul’s early childhood exposure to animal art influenced his original creation of Smilin’ Ed Smiley, the rascal rodent who became the mascot for FantaCo.

Music

Raoul played electric piano and harmonica for several local bands in upstate New York, including Love’s Ice Cube with Paul “Piper” Rafter, John Randall, Paul Sadowski, and Gary Grimaldi. Original Art showcasing this band’s logo, designed by Raoul, was last seen in the River Street Beat Shop in Troy, New York.

He also performed with Witz End in New Paltz, NY, writing original music and jamming with many local musicians, again playing electric piano and harmonica. He became an early music aficionado of blues and rock n roll admiring Bob Dylan, The Band, The Byrds, Theolonius Monk, Randy Newman, Paul Butterfield, Mopy Grape, Canned Heat, Spirit, and local upstate band -NRBQ, to name a few.

Raoul tragically died of status asthmaticus, a severe acute asthma attack, on November 13, 1983. He was 35 years old.