On Betrayal and Starting over.

by Gary Walters

I was hoping this would be a fun colum. Full of announcements about tv projects, movie scripts, and other things that comic book professionals annouce.

But, unfortunatly, this colum must be what it is. I must recount a tale of betrayal and redemption from within the world of comics. For if there's one thing that I've learned, be it in the automobile parking garage attendant industry or the comic book industry, its this: people are liars and will screw you over!

As many of you undoubtedly know from the online rumour gossip mill, I had to part ways with my original artist for my comic book Tour de Force, Even Steven. Unfortunately, the original artist, Wesley Gellar, proved himself to be a lying jerk. I'm sure he does not want these made public, but, frankily, I don't care anymore and I'd rather my fellow peers know not to employ him as their comic book artist. Unless they want an artist who will cheat on them.

So, here are the emails from our last, final email exchanges. The one that ended in tragedy for me, my dreams, and hopefully Wesley's artistic reputation.

From: Wesley Gellar
Sent: March 20, 2005 11:28 AM
To: Gary Walters
Subject: Even Steven Script
Gary, hadn't heard from you in a while. I'm ready to start the art for your comic as soon as you get me some pages to draw.

From: Wesley Gellar
Sent: April 2, 2005 1:35 PM
To: Gary Walters
Subject: Re: Even Steven Script
Gary, I got your message last night. Um... I guess maybe you'd been knocking a few back last night? SOunds like I missed a party.

Regardless, I'm not sure that it's relevant as to whether or not Galactus could eat the Death Star. I suppose he could. I guess. Not sure why he'd want to.

As to your second question. Well, I couldn't really understand it, as you were mumbling. Something about Ewoks?

So, what's the status of the script?

> Gary, hadn't heard from you in a while. I'm ready to start the art for your comic
> as soon as you get me some pages to draw.

From: Wesley Gellar
Sent: May 9, 2005 9:06 AM
To: Gary Walters
Subject: Re: Re: Even Steven Script
Gary, this writer I met at our comic book store has asked me to draw this one shot comic he wrote. Do you know Josh? He seemed to know you.

I told him I had a commitment with you first and then I could work on his while you finish the script to issue two.

How's the script for issue one coming?

From: Wesley Gellar
Sent: May 17, 2005 2:27 PM
To: Gary Walters
Subject: Sorry, but...
Gary, did you leave a message for me last night? Someone did. But it was kind of garbled.

Listen, Josh offered to pay me for my pages. I haven't heard from you in a while now, so I said yes. But as soon as that's done, I can work on Even Steven. It might even work out real well. If his book (just a one shot) comes out and does well it could build real buzz, you know?

Just let me know what's going on.

Is everything okay? Where are you?

From: Wesley Gellar
Sent: June 12, 2005 10:14 AM
To: Gary Walters
Subject: Gary, call me
I got your message last night. Anyway, you're wrong. Josh is a good guy, he seems to like you, anyway.

Anyway, you mom called me this morning wondering if you were here. You should call her. And Doug at the comic shop said you hadn't been by in a while.

Do you want to do something today? Go grab some lunch? Go get our comics?

From: Wesley Gellar
Sent: June 13, 2005 4:48 PM
To: Gary Walters
Subject: Hope you are well
Did you leave a ten minute message on my machine last night? It sounded like someone humming the Imperial March from Star Wars.

Listen, when you feel like talking, you let me know. I'll be here.

From: Gary Walters
Sent: June 14, 2005 2:51 AM
To: Wesley Gellar
Subject: Re: Re: Sorry, but...
You're new writer sounds like a stupid asshole thief jerk.

> Listen, Josh offered to pay me for my pages. I haven't heard from you in a
> while now, so I said yes. But as soon as that's done, I can work on Even
> Steven. It might even work out real well. If his book (just a one shot) comes
> out and does well it could build real buzz, you know?

So, things didnot end well. I've never been able to handle rejection well. Just ask Debbie Sprunkel, she was super hot. But, I'll be honest... this got me pretty down. Having to start from square zero again with my comic book dream. There is only so much regection that we creative types can handle before we just need to stop and take a break. Shut down and take our anger and sadness and push it down down down until we can function again.

And that's what I decided to do. Stop it all. take a break. Re-asses what I wanted and how to get there. But you can only wallow in self-pity for so long, you know? So, a month after that, I finally got myself out of bed and out of my funk (after finally running out of Stargate SG-1 DVD box sets to watch. There are a lot of them. I also watched Season one of Fat Actress, starring Kristie Alley.).

And so I realized I needed to jump back up the horse find a new artist. Once I had an artist for my book, everything would be perfect again. Just like it was before Josh the Jerk. With renewed vigor I decided to visit the Artists Alley at the Heroes Comiccon Convention while there with the YMB crew. A lot of the artists there are desperate and will work cheap. And that's what I needed: an amazingly phenomenal artist, who doesn't realize their so awesome, that I can pay real cheap to draw my comic. Someone with real low self-esteem.

But, I looked around a bunch and pretty much everyone sucked. There was this one guy there who seemed to draw a lot of magic trees and stuff. He had a good style and I asked him if he was interested but he said "no". His loss. That guy who drew MonkeyMan O'Brian said no, too. I thought since he hadn't really done anything in a while that he might ahve been into it. But he wasn't. Into it, that is. All the good artists already had books or weren't "interested." Even Alex Saviuk, who drew my favorite run on Web of Spider-Man, also said no.

It was seeming that my renewed vigor and dreams did not seem to be enough!

I mean, if you have a great idea, if you have a dream, people should want to read it, right? And publishers should want to publish it, right? Well, apparently not. Some publishers would rather make you jump through hoops than help and espiring comic book writer make it too the big time.

Take Image comics, for example,. Why would a company make hurdles for creative people to have to jump through? Creative people need an open road not roadblocks. Image Comics, in a fit of stupidity, requires five completed pages with their submission guidelines. Which is stupid. If a comic is good, it's good, regardless of how many pages are done.

So, because Image does not accept scripts, but only finished pages, I still need to find a NEW artist, a non-free artist, to draw my book, so, I decided last week that I'm going to need to supplement my writer income with non-writer money. With a job.

So, I persevere on. Safe in the knowledge that I will suceed. That Even Steven will be awesome. And that once Battlestar Galactica is over, I'll have a new season of Stargate SG-1 to look forward too on Sci-Fi Channel. Those are the things that get me through the day.



Read Volume 2, Issue 1 of The Tricks of Turning Pro.



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