So, I gots me some enthusiasm.

I am under some wicked deadline pressure right now, trying to get stuff done before we leave for San Diego, and one of the first things to go is Fun Stuff in My Free Time. I can't read, watch a little TV, zone out at the beach, nothing. I have to work, I have to watch the kid, I have to eat, I have to sleep. So I almost missed sending in something as my enthusiasm for cool stuff was a little low.

I started thinking about what TV shows do when deadline pressures get to them, and I realized: clip show! You know, the one where the main character gets knocked unconscious and his friends all try to help him out of his coma by going over their past adventures. So you only have to write a little framing sequence that takes a day or so to shoot, and you fill in the rest of the hour with clips from the shows that explains the adventure.

Last fall, I told two funny stories you may have missed, featuring a subject I never broach and one I talk about every year at convention season. "So, remember that time Larry was rapping about a sequel to The Big Lebowski..."

My father-in-law and I were talking about THE BIG LEBOWSKI this weekend (I was wearing my MEDINA SOD bowling shirt and he recognized it right away), and I basically outlined what I would do with the next one, of course titled THE LITTLE LEBOWSKI, where Little Dude, now about 17, is a surfer/gofer for Da Fino and gets swept up into a missing persons case. Maude, his mother, has told him "your father died in childbirth," so Little Dude is surprised to get five grand in cash, two fake passports, and a dime bag of really good Thai stick in the mail one day. Turns out the missing person he's looking for is his own father, The Dude.

And there are people who don't want The Dude to be found...

Basically, I'd 2010 it. You can't out-trip the original, so do an adventure.

"...and then there was the time he started telling us about how to pitch to him at San Diego..."

Early days we used to get a lot of sci-fi pitches, but now our backlist is so broad and the common thread is basically that there is no common thread to what we publish, thematically, so we get a nice broad scope of stuff sent to us. Even though I don't make a secret of the fact that I don't want any pitches.

The thing that sort of drives me nuts isn't so much the kind of pitch as how people pitch. There was this poor bastard at San Diego last year who showed me his idea. Had a good title, the artist was standing right there, good stuff, so I ask him what it's about.

He could not tell me. He started off, "Well, OK, see, it starts off... well this'll be all backstory see..."

OK, I interrupt him. It's Sunday afternoon, I lost my voice on Thursday, this all looks good, just tell me what it's about. I'm tired and I haven't left this booth and my wife isn't here and if it wasn't for Ash no one would have talked to the other-media guys and I'm overloaded and I sort of don't care about your book. BUT. I am not so far away from your side of the table that I don't remember what it's like to dream comic book dreams and this art is decent and I sort of dig where you're going already so just tell me the plot.

And he just sort of freezes up.

OK, I dig it, I'm an acquired taste and am all big and scary and crazy and you read on the Internet that I'm a douchebag and you're starting to agree with the guy who said it, I get it, I'm sorry. You've seen STAR WARS, yeah?

"Of course," he says.

What's it about? I say.

And he tells me in about 45 seconds, beginning, middle, and end.

Awesome, I'd publish that, I say. Now do that for your story.

"Well, OK, see, it starts off... well, this'll be all backstory see..."

ARRRGGGH

I kept trying to tell him, of course it's all richly layered and deeply felt and emotionally resonant and whatnot. I wouldn't even be talking to him if I didn't see something in it. Just tell me the TV Guide blurb version of your story, so I get the gist and if it sounds good we'll talk at length later.

And he just couldn't do it.

I hope the guy gets his act together, because it's a good idea, but shy of completing the whole thing and sending it to me to read it, I'm not sure I'll be able to get out of him what it's actually about.

If you are reading this and recognize yourself, Anonymous Joe, rest assured I have all the materials you gave me, and when I get a minute, I'll email you to see how you're doing. Hope I didn't scare you away from comics.

But if I did with my coarse gruffness it's just as well as you couldn't have taken what message board people would have said about your stuff.