Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 15:49:46 -0400 From: [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu] (Metroplex) Subject: FtP 537 THIS IS FIT TO PRINT NUMBER 537: We're well into summer now, and the industry is still adjusting to the shocks that struck it earlier in the year. After the sharp, short earthquakes caused by Marvel and DC's new distribution alignments, we have entered what i call the plate tectonics phase of direct market seismic activity. Listen very closely; perhaps you too hear a slow, grinding noise emanating from deep within the earth. If the direct market is the geological sub-stratum upon which comic books distribution is based, i guess i could call comics creators the farmers who till the soil-and hope that it will stay in one place long enough for them to bring forth fruit and flowers in season. One of these farmers is my old friend and co-worker B. C. Boyer. Back in the days when i was an editor for Eclipse, B. C. created, wrote, and drew a wonderful detective series called The Masked Man which had its debut in Eclipse Monthly and then ran for a quite a while in its own title. When The Masked Man came to an end, B. C. dropped out of the comics biz. For a few years he continued to show up at the San Diego Comicon (he lives in California), but then he stopped coming to that event. People loved his work and missed seeing it. During the years he was absent from the industry, the two most-frequently-asked questions i used to field from fans were, "When is the next issue of Miracleman coming out?" and "Whatever happened to B. C. Boyer?" The answer to the latter was simple: B. C. owns a janitorial service that cleans office buildings. When he turned his attention to that and to his family (he and his wife Sandy had just had their third child), he didn't have a lot of time left for writing and drawing comics. Well, life being what it is and time being what it is (mutable and continual, respectively), B. C. has again made room in his schedule for comics. This time he is self-publishing, and despite the aforementioned seismic distribution upheavals, the first issue of his new title is selling well and he has received re-orders from distributors and retailers alike. Now here's where my personal bias enters the story. You see, B. C.'s new series, Hilly Rose, is kinda, well, edited by me. This isn't the sort of job where a line editor for a big corporation hires some artists and tells them what to draw; this is the kind of job where a writer-artist calls a freelance editor like me and says, "I'll pay you to listen to my story ideas if you will point out any plot holes in them, and i'll pay you to read my scripts if you can find and fix my grammatical and spelling errors, and if you're real nice, i'll let you write a few words on the inside front cover." Needless to say, i jumped at the chance to work with B. C. again, but that puts me in a bind. If i tell you to go out and buy Hilly Rose, i could be accused of conflict of interest, but if i don't, i'd be a poor reviewer because i failed to let you know how cool Hilly Rose is. The thing is-it really is cool! Sure, i fixed a few typos before the first issue went to press, but if i hadn't, i don't think B. C.'s fans would have cared all that much. It's his amazing art and the sweet humanity of his vision that captivates folks, and neither at Eclipse nor as his new freelance editor, have i been able to improve on those unique qualities. The story is set in a science fiction world of human beings, sentient animals, and sophisticated robots. It stars a beautiful young woman, Hilly Rose who has newly embarked upon a career as a journalist. Hilly displays so much promise that she receives a job offer from a leading paper on Earth, but her father, "Steeltrap" Rose, doesn't want to let her go. You see, he is a newspaper publisher himself and Hilly is not just his only child, she's his small-planet paper's star reporter! The lengths he will go to keep her under his thumb form the backdrop for the series' first story arc. B. C.'s artwork is as lovely as ever: Doe-eyed Hilly is fetching in her space outfits, and her sidekicks are wonderfully comic. B. C. gets in a few gentle digs at superstars like Rob Liefield, pays homage to colleagues like Jeff Smith, and has a great time wielding that magic ink line he commands so well. And he's doing all of this on his own, while the industry trembles and quakes around him. So do i think Hilly Rose is worth buying? Yes! Would i buy it if i hadn't proofread it? You bet. ==== Fit to Print appears in print each week in Comics Buyers Guide and is available via e-mail. Tell your friends! To subscribe to Fit to Print via e-mail send a request with the words "Subscribe FtP" in the subject header and your address in the body of the message to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] You will be added to the list and receive the next available issue. Back issues are available. FTP to nspace.cts.com and look in the Comics/About Comics/Comics News/Fit to Print directory. FtP is also available on the World Wide Web at http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~91mithra. Responses are welcome and should be directed to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] Fit to Print is Copyright Cathrine Yronwode. All rights reserved.