*Just Say Yes*
                                
"Transfer?"

Sure. I'd like to transfer _Groo_ to Image and Jeff Smith to
Disney.

"Get in the back of the bus, asshole."

I'm sitting here at the blood bank wondering if they'll care
about my _Just Say Yes_ reefer button. The only drug I've
been on _this_ morning is a hefty dose of caffeine. The
drugs _are_ beginning to take effect, and thoughts of the
upcoming day charge across my synapses in search of a trash
icon.

_Are_ non superhero genres making a comeback? Or are the
superhero genres simply losing raw numbers, allowing the
'scavengers', as Donna Barr described them, to increase in
simple percentage of the market? The audience for _The
Desert Peach_ should be relatively static. No one has to
worry about Donna Barr switching over to Image and doing
_Glory_ pin-ups. Hm... _Spawn_ in tight riding breeches?
_There's_ a high concept. Donna's stint with Phil Foglio may
have unsettled _him_, which must be a hard thing to do to
the master of cartoony cheese.

Today is the _Jack Kirby_ tribute and the _Spotlight on
Grant Morrison_. There will be no dearth of strange
creatures from other planets at _this_ convention. I've
already seen the Huss soliloquizing out over the Terrace
with the Forever Men. Or is that simply caffeine-crazed
madness? The espresso at Mekka Java is a controlled
substance in the Fourth World.

Harlan Ellison attracts middle-aged fanboys, some of whom
give blood. They must have fudged on the question _Have you,
in the last 8 years, read or had read to you any_ Dangerous
Visions _anthology_? Sorry, leave the line. We can't be
passing _that_ onto already beleaguered accident victims.
And if the brightly colored dinosaurs on the Terrace stop
arguing with the Geomancers and wade into the crowd, the
blood bank will pay its way at this convention.

This _always_ makes me nervous. I _need_ my blood. When
Granny's Furies burst into my bedroom late at night,
strength is _paramount_. Oh, God, I _have_ to lay off the
licit drugs.

You can see them through the window of the truck. Sitting
reading a book as the life is _sucked_ out of them. You have
to be over 109 pounds to give blood, and they take every
last bit of that extra weight. The medium, not the message.
_They_want the message.

I don't see Jeff Smith here. Perhaps he's in the next truck
giving a marrow donation.


*Are Nonsuperhero Genres making*  a *Comeback?*
"All games used to be equal," *Doug Murray* said. "In the
crash of the fifties, we lost some of that. In the crash of
the seventies, we lost some of it again." Part of it is the
reliance on the direct sales market. _The Nam_ was the
number 5 seller for Marvel. They went to direct sales to
increase the per-issue profit, and halved the sales.

*Barb Raush* hopes that comics such as Barbi are laying the
groundwork for a better comics future. "Maybe merchandised
comcis are not the most _creative_ of opportunities, but
they are making a niche, bringing in the little readers that
got forgotten. Maybe if we catch little girls now, in a few
years we can have _creative_ little girl comics." _Some
comics, little girl?_ Mommy! That's enough, miss. _Angel
Love_ is a controlled substance in this town.

*Larry Marder* pointed out an interesting trend towards
_perennials_ in comics--the trade paperbacks and hardcovers
that enjoy multiple print runs and remain available when the
month is gone.

At issue 10 of Cerebus, Dave Sim was offered _Howard the
Duck_.

People love the comic book _medium_. The superhero genre is
simply what's available.

At this point, Len Wein runs in (didn't this happen last
year?) "I'm late, I'm late... I'm late and I'm damp. I'm Len
Wein. I'm late."

"What's the topic?"

"Are nonsuperhero genres making a comeback? Yes. There, that
was easy. Let's go."

"It's a slow process. I think saturation is starting to
occur. Topps is bringing Zorro and the Lone Ranger out."

Sandman is the biggest seller in the Vertigo line, and
outsells some middle-range Marvels. "Great, a lesser form of
leprosy."

Barb laid the baby boom to rest. "There's not going to be as
many fourteen year old boys as there used to be."

Larry disagreed: "Since 1992, teens have been growing, and
will until 2007 or 2009."

"That's not very far away."

"Comic book generations are still 3 years long. That's four
to five generations."

These new generations, however, cannot find collecting
"nearly as much fun as it was for us. There's always
something making you want to buy the book other than the
book."

Larry also sees a light on the horizon, however. Some
creators have been taking money from mainstream projects--he
took the opportunity to plug Dan Simpson, Steve Bissette at
Image--and putting the money into their own projects.
"Things are really promising now."

Why did this loss of genres occur in the United States, but
not in other countries? Larry thinks it's because of
television. You get westerns better on television. You get
romance better on television. One thing television couldn't
give us was Kirby's imagination. "When you guys have eighty
channels coming in every night, you won't have any comics
either."

Doug Murray blames a lot of it on a bad school system.
People don't read." Everything kids like, an audience member
pointed out, is viewed as not good for them."

Barb Raush _has_ taught. When she was teaching, "kids were
either running home to watch television at three, or running
home to read Judy Blume, and her stories about children
dealing with living in a dysfunctional family. Kids just ate
it up. Maybe Archie isn't relevant to kids anymore." And
Barbi, too?

Larry clarified his previous statements. "I'm optimistic
about the future of the _medium_. I think the industry is in
sorry shape." The industry's shape is getting way trashed at
this convention. "We abandoned the newsstand for the direct
sales market. People still want to tell stories in this
medium. _Jar of Foods_ has everyone in the alternative
market raving. The re-order situation is still god-awful,
but it's getting better."

Retailers are seeing that people like the collections. "They
appeal to the casual reader, who doesn't want to take part
in the Thursday afternoon feeding frenzy." But since
retailers buy to sell out, they're out of the heavy sellers
on Saturday.

Doug brings up another form of perennial: retelling stories.
The _Marvel Action Hour_ includes a _Fantastic Four_ series,
which is a re-telling of the old Fantastic Four. And there
will be a new _Fantastic Four_ series based on the _Action
Hour_.

*Friendly Frank* distinguishes that alternatives have a
shelf life. They can stay on the shelf and eventually get
sold. Superheroes, if they don't sell out in a few days, are
worthless. If they don't increase in value in a few days,
they're worthless.

Larry Marder _tricked_ his customers into buying the strange
stuff. "We put Sandman over in the Alternatives section, so
the superhero audience who bought it hard to go over there.
They bitched and moaned (_we have to go over_ there?) But
sales of alternatives went through the roof. We also racked
the last five issues" of things like Hate, Eightball, Yummy
Fur, so that customers could buy entire collections at the
same time. "The basic superhero customer is there for three
to four years. We want the customer for life." So they use
"gateway books" like _Sandman_. _Nexus_ was a _big_ one. But
it "takes a commitment. Risk. It's _hard_."

There's a danger for the future if Larry's television theory
is true. "Up until now it's been guys flying around with
strings. Now you _can_ inexpensively do Jack Kirby in the
movies. We don't know what that means yet."

Comics will always have "the space between the panels", Barb
said, quoting Scott McCloud. "Nothing else has that."

Doug continued playing Devil's advocate. "Radio had it until
forty years ago. Now radio's gone."

Frank asked Larry if it might be harder to do a virtual
reality _Beanworld_ than a _Spawn_. Larry doesn't think so.
"I think an interactive _Groo_ would do far better than any
superhero. My stuff's simpler to do than _Spawn_. And it's
all starting from nothing. We have no idea where this will
take us in the future."


*Tribute to Jack Kirby*
Jack Kirby has always been a major part of this convention.
He and Will Eisner have been the icons that you expect to
see in the halls and at the dinners. Jack's death left a
void which hasn't been filled, but needs to be addressed.
This panel was a step towards doing that.

The panel members were Julius Schwartz, Greg Theakston,
Frank Miller, Scott Shaw!, Steve Rude, and Gil Kane. Mark
Evanier hosted from the floor. Shel Dorf and Roz Kirby
remained in the audience.

"Jack Kirby" was always a two person operation. When they
started out, Roz inked some of his work. They've been
married 50+ years, and even when she stopped inking, she
made all the rest of his work possible "in terms of taking
care of Jack, getting him to the board everyday." Mark's
introduction brought Roz a standing ovation.

Mark Evanier and Frank Miller are discussion a very
ambitious tribute which will include everyone in the
business. Oh, except maybe four or five people we won't talk
about.

After Mark had worked for Jack a few years, he asked him
"What was the worst comic book you ever worked on in your
life?" "The Red Raven. I think it sold five copies (and Roz
has most of them)" Captain America, in comparison, which he
also did with Joe Simon, was around a million.

Mark is a mean bastard who wouldn't let Jack forget this.
"He'd show me a new character, give me a long twenty minute
explanation about the character. I'd reply, _So this is kind
of like the Red Raven, huh, Jack?_"

Jack was adding a character to the _New Gods_. A black guy
on skis, called the Black Racer. He spent an entire half an
hour explaining how he'd crossed mythologies of the angel of
death from many cultures. "What you're telling, Jack, is
this is a negro paraplegic on skis."

"No, of course not. I wouldn't... it's not... Okay, it's a
negro paraplegic on skis. But it's nothing like the Red
Raven!"

Mark introduced Julius Schwartz as "the only superstar
editor we have in the business." I think if Karen Berger can
stick around, that may change. Anyway... before Julie got
into comics in 1944 he was an agent in science fiction.
"There was one magazine called _Marvel Stories_. There was a
story called _Queen of Space._ The double illustration
inside wasn't signed, so I had to ask who did it. That was
Jack Kirby in 1940."

At the Atlanta convention where Jack was awarded the
Lifetime Achievement award, Jack was introduced with: "Jerry
Siegel and Joe Shuster created _Superman_. Bob Finger and
Gil Kane created _Batman_. And Jack Kirby created everything
else."

After Julius started working for DC in 1944, Gil Kane would
come in raving about Jack Kirby. Julius preferred more
straightforward stuff. Gil piped in, "they hated it. This
was during the Eisenhour period. The House style was a
washed out Dan Barry for about two decades. Jack's stuff
never stopped being expressive and expressionistic. When he
started working for them again, they didn't know what to do
with his stuff. Whenever he did a job, I would look at the
pencils, and they just knocked me out. After a while, they
put inkers that were diametrically opposed to his sense of
pattern on the page." But he outlasted them, and "they gave
up and let him ink his own stuff. Dynamite! He started using
double-page spreads in Captain America. They had such
vitality we used to trade these things off. It was like
handling Sotheby's material. But Jack was thought of during
that period of very _representational_ drawings as a guy who
was outside of the accepted standards."

Mark pointed out that this was a period in which Roz also
inked a lot of his stuff. Sol Harrison ("who shall remain
nameless") told Mark that "if you have any influence with
him, you should try to get Jack to draw more like Curt
Swan."

When Gil Kane started working for Marvel, they "thought I
was too DC. They used to think I was doing homosexual art. I
liked graceful art. To Stan's credit, he took a bunch of
guys and managed to convert them to the Marvel house styule,
which was Jack's style. It was a Marvel style that was
recognizable. The most constructive thing he ever did
through that period. Another of his contributions to the
field was the Marvel style of writing" which gave a lot more
control to the penciler by taking it away from the writer.

"DC couldn't get their people to draw like the Marvel style,
so they started hiring their people back from Marvel. That's
how DC finally got hold of the Marvel style as well."

The first time *Scott Shaw!* saw a Kirby comic was "Tales of
Suspense with I _created Spoor, the Thing that wouldn't
die._ I was about seven or eight at the time. I bought it. I
brought it home. This was only a few years after the big
comics scandal. My parents were very good about comics. They
never bugged me about it. The only time my mom ever made me
return a comic to the store" was this one. It had one of
"Dick Ayers' earlier ink jobs. Malevolent eyes, the thing
looked like candle wax dripping off of the page at you. Soon
after that, I was drawing everything I saw of his."

*Steve Rude* can't recall the first Kirby comic he saw. "It
had to be over at a friend's house. He collected, I didn't.
He had an allowance, I didn't. I remember seeing this artist
doing things differently than anyone else." One time when he
met Jack, he asked, "why do you do those squiggly lines?" "I
just did them one day and it _looked_ good."

I've heard this before, and Mark repeated it: Jack "would
see the picture on the page and just start tracing over it."
He'd draw some lines over here, balance out the pages over
there, maybe he'd start with a foot, do it a bit, and then
move over to another part of the page.

Gil Kane went to work for Jack when he was sixteen. "They
were going into the service. They had a contract with DC,
one of the first, that permitted them a percentage of the
profits. They had to turn in a certain allotment of pages."
When Joe Simon saw that Gil had swiped every sample from
Jack's books, he said "perfect." Gil did that for six
months. Jack was twenty-five at the time.

During this period Jack and Joe got rid of the studio, and
Jack started working in the DC bullpen. One time Mort
Weisinger took Gil aside and said, "get this guy out of
there!" It was almost demoralizing. "Nobody could work as
fast and turn out work that was as consistently the best out
there."

Before Jack, Gil says, "everybody did representational
drawing. Then Jack came in with this expressive stuff and
introduced the new superhero. Lou Fine and Reed Crandall had
been the standards, but Jack's expressiveness" took over.
His drawings were bigger than the page. "Nobody could breath
when there were Jack Kirby heroes in the room."

"I think it's time to retire the _Marvel Age of Comics_ and
call this the _Jack Kirby Age of Comics_." Frank Miller, of
course.

_Superpowers 5_ was the first thing that Greg Theakston did
professional with Jack. He inked it with tracing paper a
number of times and then chose one. "I was just afraid to
touch the pencils."

The book that Frank and Mark are discussing has a title:
_Jack Kirby: A Celebration_. The profits will go to the
Kirby estate and the Kirby Charity. It will be underwritten
by Image, and will have three sections. There will be an
section based on an article Mark wrote for the Comics
Buyers' Guide, and he "found a wonderful interview with Mike
Zukowski, and if we can clean up the language, it'll be
great." For the third section, "we'll have to beat people
away with a stick." It will be top people throughout the
field draw Jack Kirby characters they've never drawn before.
"Everyone wants to be in," said Frank. "This industry
remains in love with Jack Kirby.

Gil Kane worked with Jack at three different points in his
career. In 1942, at sixteen, as already mentioned, and in
the sixties, during Jack's career at Marvel, until Jack went
to DC. And, when he worked for Ruby Spears, the animation
company. "Marvel used to be nine panel pages and eight panel
pages. Little by little Jack's panels began to grow in size,
and the eight panels gave way to six panels, and the six
panels to four panels. He could hardly be contained. We used
to fight for these pages, no one would give them to us, so
occasionally we had to steal them."

Greg said, "Jack was a genius at coming up with concepts."
Especially during the period at Ruby Spears, he "always had
some new thing, a new way of looking at things."

After Mike Zukowski started working at the Hanna Barbera
studio with Scott Shaw!, (Hanna Barbera was owned by the
same people who owned Ruby Spears), they, along with Jack
Kirby, were asked to help develop the rock group _KISS_ as a
Saturday morning show. Scott did a version that looked like
the Flintstones in make-up. Mike did something like the
maniacs. Jack did his stuff. Of course, the final stuff
presented to the producers was Jack's stuff, but the show
was never bought. "The predominant reaction was that Jack's
version of KISS was too sexual."

Ignoring how you could possibly make KISS _too_ sexual, Gil
pointed out that "When jack used to draw, he used to make
crotches like croquet hoops. There was no gender at all."

Jack worked at the same drawing table since 1939, at the
very least, when Roz met him. The table has been donated to
the Smithsonian.

Mark asked about, "Jack's approval meant a lot to a lot of
us. He admired people who had their own style, who were
prolific, and who created their own characters."

Scott Shaw "sought Jack's approval in a very strange way. We
had our fan group. Shel Dorf brought us all up to visit Jack
and Roz a number of different times. One time, about fifteen
of us poured into the house. One was going through the
refrigerator, another went through his closets and stuff. I
was just starting to do underground comics. I'd bring these
underground comics... I did an incredibly pornographic
poster in his style. A seventeen year old mind couldn't
understand why this would get a shudder from this man. He
really was like a father figure and an uncle It was like I
could do no wrong, when in retrospect I was doing wrong
constantly." Scott and his wife named their son Kirby.

Frank "didn't get to meet Jack very often. I was amazed at
the man's grace. He had time for everybody.

Before opening the floor to the audience, Mark added, "Jack
really loved the San Diego conventions. He was the first
professional guest of honor."


*The Floor*
"The one chance I did have to meet him, I did not understand
that a Jewish man could do cartoons. I was so impressed with
his golem stories, like my grandmother's stories."

...

"I met Jack twice. The first time here in San Diego at the
banquet. Twenty years I've been waiting to meet this man. I
put out this limp shaking hand. He had a grip like a vice.
He looked down at my hand. "Hm... must be a democrat." The
next time, I kept my hair really short. I watned to tell him
about my favorite characters, Scott Free" and others. "As I
came up to him, he said, 'You know, you look just like one
of my characters, just like Scott Free.'"

...

"At the San Diego Convention in 1987, Scott Shaw! Was doing
some of the little badges. I bought one that I just loved:
_Devil Dinosaur needs love too_. A little later on, I ran
into Jack. I had him sign something of his, and then said,
w...would you sign this, too? He chuckled. I thought you'd
like to hear that."

Scott Shaw! added, "Scott Shaw! needs love, too." Mark said,
"Enough other people signed Jack's work, he shouldn't mind
signing someone else's."

"Shortly before I met Jack's wife and his grandchildren,
Jack had created the first black superhero in costume, the
Black Panther. It anchored everyone in my neighborhood to
Marvel forever."

"After praising the Captain America bicentennial cover, he
said, 'Well, kid, you write the next one.'"

He seemed to have a soft spot in his heart for the Funky
Flashman. I had a copy, and saw him as Roz was hurrying him
somewhere, and asked him to sign it. "He wants me to sign
Funky!" he said, and had to stop. "I said, 'I kind of work
for Funky right now.' He looked at me and said, 'Just don't
ever hand him a knife.' I did give Stan Lee a knife for
Christmas that year."

"One of the things that impressed me the most was that, I
mentioned to him that his work had spiritual qualities. He
said, 'draw from your heart, draw what you feel.' An artist
cannot separate themselves from their work like businessmen
can. They live in glass houses. His work was great because
_he_ was great. No one was ever too high or low for Jack.

"I've had occasion to visit the tmple, where many of you
have sent contributions. There have also been letters. Some
have been so beautifully written that the people who have
read these letters literally cried. One letter in
particular, this young man sent in a contribution and in his
letter said that when he was nine years old, his parents
were constantly bickering and fighting. The only pleasure he
had was picking up something by Jack Kirby. He went to bed
every night reading Jack Kirby's work. It was this that
carried him through this very said period in his life."

"I first met Jack back in 1971. I had a lot of the really
stupid questions that Jack always gave an answer to that
seemed to make sense. Year later I was invited to their
home. We must have talked about five hours. 'Why don't you
get a new drawing board?' I asked him. 'There's nothing
wrong with the one that I have. I'll keep it until the end.'
You could call Jack on the phone at any time. He would talk
to you as long as you wanted to talk. He did this with
audiences and he did this one-on-one and he did it in his
creations and his art."

Shel Dorf was in the vicinity of the microphone. "I'd like
to say that this con would not exist at all if it wasn't for
Jack Kirby. In May or August a friend, Rich Rubin, who had
been visiting the Kirby's asked if I'd like to meet Jack
Kirby. 'Of course!' We drove out to Irvine. I had a car, he
didn't, I think I was invited just because _he_ wanted to
visit Jack. I met Jack Kirby. I had brought my reel to reel
tape recorder. I was transformed. I had never met anyone who
has had so many opinions whos knowledge ranged from
philosophy to mythology to human experience. And all evening
long he was puffing on that damn cigar filling the room with
smoke. I went home. I was just devastated. I thought comic
book artists were storytellers, writers. I never realized
there was a man of Jack's intelligence behind that artform.
A few months later I met some of the comics fans. I casually
mentioned that I knew Jack Kirby. They said, 'sure, _you_
know Jack Kirby.' So I called him up and put each of them on
the phone to him. The last kid said, 'Jack said he wants to
talk to you again.' 'Shelly, why don't you bring them up to
see us.' We rented a van and all went up. Roz met us at the
door. That's how it all started. He made our little group of
San Diego fans the San Diego Five String Mob in Jimmy Olsen
comics."

"I came in in 1970, but not for the minicon. I slept on the
floor as security. I went up with the group once. Late in
the day, after Roz went out and got cheeseburgers from
McDonald's, Jack brought out his illustrations. They weren't
recent ones. They were from when he was young. This man was
destined to be an artist."

Mark returned to 'plugging' the non-profit Kirby tribute.
"We have artists starting fistfights over the characters
they want to draw. Everyone wants Devil Dinosaur. The press
release will be in the Buyers' Guide in a couple of weeks.
We will keep this book in print forever."

Scott added, "As Jack once said, 'Don't ask, just buy it.'"

Mark and Kirby did an issue of Jimmy Olsen with Don Rickles
in it. "This was back when Don Rickles was funny. We sat
down and wrote down all these Kryptonian ethnic jokes, and
gave him a two-panel walk-on. I met Don Rickles a while
back, and told him about it. He said, 'Everyplace I go
people want me to sign that damn book.'"

Gil Kane decided to set the issue straigh on the Red Raven.
"I saw the first issue of Red Raven Comics. I was the
quintessential fan, I was just the right age. It was created
by Joe Simon, there wasn't any Jack Kirby in it. It was all
a series of Lou Fine swipes. Joe Simon was doing a thing for
Blue Bolt. Joe did the first two issues by himself. The
third issue, Jack came in. From that moment on... He had
gone through all of these apprentice periods. It was
brilliant. You could guess the weight of the Blue Bolt. You
had Blue Bolt coming through the window and the cushions
bounced up from the couch. From issue three to issue nine
Jack changed the entire business. They had wiped out the
memory of Lou Fine, who was excellent, and Jack became the
reigning king. The inevitable next step was Captain America,
also with Joe Simon. That became the absolute standard from
the first issue onwards."


*Spotlight on Grant Morrison*
Are the Invisibles banned in Britain? Grant wishes _all_ of
his comics were banned. Is there anything that DC wouldn't
let you do? All sorts of stuff. Haven't you read his work?

"There were a couple of Animal Man things that got knocked
out." He wanted to bring together all these sixties
characters searching for Rex the Wonder Dog. "It ends with a
truck full of hash and a truck full of flares crashing in
the middle of San Diego. The hash burns and the flares light
up the sky. But they wouldn't let me do that." Gee, why
don't we try a living enactment tonight? I'll bet Image
would bite.

When it comes to the horror and strange stuff of Vertigo, he
prefers to write things like _Doom Patrol_, which is funny
as well as strange.

_Do you have any feelings on the direction the Doom Patrol
has taken?_

"I haven't had any feelings all day."

"I haven't read it. DC doesn't send me any comics. I don't
want them anyway." So there.

He has seventy issues of the _Invisibles_ mapped out. "I
know exactly what happens on the last page. Everything in
between just happens. I'm going to explain what happens when
you die. Because I found out." Coming from anybody else, I
might believe it.

Writing for the mainstream has gotten harder. It's downright
"repressive to write mainstream characters. I couldn't do
now what I did then.... The _Invisibles_ will be the home of
most of the things I want to do." It's coming out next week.

Who are his influences? William Burroughs, Dave Lynch.
"David Rudkin did really weird stuff" in the early
seventies." Nigel Neal. "Just bizarre stuff mostly."

He won't be doing any more _Steed and Mrs. Peel_. "It was
just an exercise. It's been done. The main reason I did it
was they gave me a whole bunch of free videos." he did
_Spawn_ because a British fanzine reported that he was going
to do Spawn. So he called Todd to find out if maybe he had
agreed to such a thing while under the influence of strange
American plants. "No, but if you want to. Have any ideas?"

Captain America walks by. "Oh, him again?"

He's starting work on the _Flex Mentallo_ one-shot next
month. There's no artist as of yet. It will be "the next
step beyond Doom Patrol."

They got a lot of multiple personality letters on Doom
Patrol. "I guess all this stuff is based in Satanic rituals.
I didn't know there was so much Satan worship going on.
Satan gets around." They did check with the DC lawyers on
one thing. If a person with multiple personality disorder
reads _Doom Patrol_, each personality should by a separate
copy.

As a kid, he didn't like _Doom Patrol_. It was _far_ too
scary. Robotman? It was the same with the _Metal Men_ and
_Metamorpho_. Will he ever do another _Doom Patrol_ story?
"I don't think I'll do it again. I think it stands as a
shining beacon of what can be done with superhero comics."

Hey! Free comics! Everyone at the spotlight gets the first
issue of _The Invisibles_, which won't be hitting the
newsstand until next week.


*Heaven, I'm in Heaven.*
"I love the sound of fire engines. It's like the whole
world's burning down. I wish I'd an atom bomb. I'd drop it
on Liberpool. They'd need a _millions_ fire engines for
that. Imagine the fucking _noise._."

"I have a dream: Somewhere out there, fourteen-year-old kids
are beginning to look around, beginning to get angry and
strange and wild. Soon they'll be cutting their hair with
blunt scalpels, taking drugs that haven't been synthesized
yet, making music that will terrify everyone over twenty-
one. I have a dream. And I'd like to be the first to salute
_les enfants du siÆcle_. Which character said that? No
character at all: the writer. And this sums up the direction
_The Invisibles_ is taking.

"Oh, and I'm supposed to plug my new monthly book, _The
Invisibles_, but I've run out of space. What can I say? I
think it's the best thing I've ever done. The uncanny Steve
Yeowell's drawing the first story arc and... well, it's the
ultimate Grant Morrison comic. Which could be Heaven or
Hell, depending on who you are."


*Jar of Fools*
Let's nip this whole _Jar of Fools_ thing in the bud, shall
we? Everyone's raving about _Jar of Fools_ by Jason Lutes.
Scott McCloud, Larry Marder, hell, even Jim Drew wanted to
see it.

So I bought it.

No colors. Not even on the cover, which says simple "Jar of
Fools, Part One", white on black, in a large font. An out of
work magician. His soon to be out of work ex-girlfriend. His
dead brother and his senile mentor. A confidence man and his
daughter. We know the characters. Is there any story? There
_must_ be. How can something this good not have a story?

The Blood Bank bag is full to the brim. I tear the bandage
off my writing arm and savor the smell of a day's worth of
rot. _This Demon Lusts for Vengeance--Beware His Searing
Touch._ Ghost Rider #67, written by J.M. DeMatteis, writer
also of the classic _Moonshadow_, in reprint now from
Vertigo. Issue 2 of Bernie Wrightson's latest _Captain
Stern_ miniseries.

I don't know if this is a joke or what. Something from the
_Cartoon Network_ called _Space Ghost Coast to Coast_. Space
Ghost, after vanquishing his last villain, becomes
incredibly bored and opens a talk show on Earth. With his
archenemies as the Galaxy's most dangerous band, _The
Original Way Outs_. Shows each Friday at 11:00 pm eastern
and Saturdays at 12 midnight Eastern. Call your cable
operator. I think. The stuff superheroes do for money.

Wow. Something in an unmarked envelope from _Capital City
Distribution_. "Forwarding and Address Correction
Requested." Whatever's inside, it's unbendable. It doesn't
tick. It doesn't break apart in zero g. It doesn't grow warm
after 15 seconds in the microwave.

What the hell. I'll open it.

I still don't get it. A trading card trapped in amber for
_Gen 13_ by Jim Lee. Is it a coaster? Hell if I know. Let's
see what other small things are in the bottom of the bag.
_Batman, Saga of the Dark Knight_. _Nicktoons_. _Tick
World_. Oh, wait. That's _Tek World_. I was almost
interested... _Forbidden Universe: Royo2_. This woman has
menstruating breasts. I'm impressed. The Ultraverse's
_Mantra_ does not, fortunately for her. A pin-up trading
card? With no address on it? What if I actually _liked_, eh,
Earl Moran? How could I purchase the _Compleat Gold-Leaf
Limited Platinum Hemp Edition_?

Hey! A rubber band! And it's around manga postcards! Won't
my friends just _love_ getting messages on the back of _The
Professional_ and _Vampire Hunter D_? Where's that rubber
band? Snap! Oh, shit, here's your eye back. Sorry.

Tekno-Comix! Tekno-Comix! I'm sick to goddamn death of Tekno-
Comix!

Sorry. They put a button in here. I'm not going to tell you
what it is. I'm sure it'll be advertised in ten foot
displays at your nearest outlet. Oh, and Neil Gaiman's in it
too.

_Hardware #1_ from Milestone. Wrapped in a child- and
reviewer-proof plastic case. I suppose we'll get to that one
later.

A cotton ball caked in blood?? What kind of a sick joke is
this?

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth,"
presumably by rolling out some dice shaped like stars, suns,
moons, and earths (and pink clovers?). Everyone _else_ is
handing out minicomics. Why not Lighthouse Baptist Church?
This one was written by JTC. Gosh, who could _that_ be. And
did He pencil His work as well?

            Come with me, to the sea, to the sea, the sea of love. I
            want to tell you just how much I love you._

Jerry Stratton
[j--r--y] at [teetot.acusd.edu]
   Exceed the stated dose. -- Grant Morrison