Reseting the Bar, Part 1 - New Fun Comics

It's been a while since I've drawn, so this is super rough. At the same time, I was really happy to receive a reply from a big-time icon in the world of comic books, and that got me thinking about the beginning of comic book companies.*

What if, I asked myself, a new company was being developed today?  Forget the past specific history, and just go along an intuitive parallel development?  Why not?   I'll see how far I can take it.

First, a little background.  Growing up as the seventh of eight children, relatively-poor, in a middle-class neighbourhood, I was afforded the luxury of loving comic books, and dreaming of, one-day, joining the profession.  It wasn't much of an ambition, but nothing seemed as much fun.  So, there you have it.

Now, life has a way of interfering with the best laid plans of mice and men, you know of course, and it happened to me, as well.  While I was able to make artwork a priority, I didn't find a way to make it economically sustainable.  I even tried a couple of trips to the San Diego Comic Con (where I met Jack Kirby, among others), in the early nineties.  No luck.

There were a few problems with my career path.  I wasn't nearly focused enough, and I wanted to make my own worlds, rather than work within established expectations.    Funny thing is, people only tend to shell out the dinero when working within those expectations.  Fair enough.  I didn't HAVE to make a living as an artist.

Twenty years later, the art's been few and far between, but it's never too late to give it another shot.  Who knows if the economics will finally make sense?  So here we have it - New Fun Comics.  Fairly descriptive.  Fairly simple.  New.  Fun.  Comics.  An interesting challenge, to be sure.  Perhaps, if I do enough pages, a style and tone will be set that gets people to jump on board.

The primary purpose here is development and experimentation.  I'm not sure what "new" will mean, or what "fun" will mean.  I'm not even sure what "comics" will mean?

It is 2012, after all.  It's a braver and bolder new world
than we've ever seen before.  It's nigh impossible that this project will have legs, but the basic fact is, it's time to get a move-on, and make a difference.



* Comment discussing scope of task.