The Other Side of the Table.

(Please pardon the battling analogies in this one.)

The first and last comic book conventions I had ever attended were as a representative of Marvel. Growing up in Mass, I never was exposed to large organized comic book gatherings, and even after I’d come to NYC in college, they never seemed to have much draw for me. Though I loved comics, I loved the stories and the art, but didn’t have great need to meet the writers or the artists. So I just never went.

But when I did go with Marvel, I realized there are two basic types of attendees. There are the exhibitors and professionals and sellers who populate one side of the table, showing their wares and reviewing portfolios and describing upcoming projects. They are the Purveyors. On the other side are the Receivers; those who paid to get into the convention, which I never had, and who were there to soak it all in. Don’t get me wrong—I loved conventions. They were pure fun that, like so much of my job at Marvel, I felt privileged to be able to call a part of my job. But it was part of a job. I tried to take it seriously, to deliver on what I was being paid to be there for. I would go into the convention and go straight to the Marvel booth, unload my coat and other detritus of comic book salesmanship (which included a ad of tracing paper for overlays in reviewing portfolios, and copies of my own upcoming books to build excitement) and knuckle under to review portfolios and push the titles I was editing. I’d review the rest of the floor in chunks, during the periodic breaks, so that by the time the convention ended-and in many cases conventions went on for two or three days—I’d have reviewed the whole floor. That was then.

This time, I was on the other side of the table. This was the first convention I’d paid to get into, and for some reason that was intimidating. On top of that, I had been out of comics, out of Marvel, for ten years. I felt like I had made a significant contribution, helping to launching careers of key individuals such as Alex Ross, Kurt Busiek, Larry Wachowski, Steve Skroce, and stop me if this is becoming too obscure or whiney… My point is, I felt like I did something over ten years, then jumped overboard and spent the next ten years on the shore of the river, watching the boat move slowly on, and I tracked alongside on the shore. I looked up from time to time, but mostly kept to my path at the side. If I went back in, who would the boat be populated by now? Would anyone remember me? Would that time aboard have counted for anything, aside from worn initials carved into the railing?

I wandered several tables, trying to take in the whole Con with my son. That part was so special, able to introduce him, feeling the pride and the closeness of this shared experience. I mean, it was my first con, too, really.

The thing that amazed me most was how few friendly, familiar faces I saw. Self publishers Stick and Kyle Baker, embedded publishers like Rob Tokar at TokyoPop, and Whilce Portacio at the DC booth, were fantastic to see. I heard others were present, like Don Hudson and Carl Potts, but couldn’t find them and didn’t see them that day. The only table I couldn’t get close to was, ironically, the Marvel table. There was a roped-off line for people wanting to get signatures from the Dark Tower creative team. I waved to some people I knew like Chris Eliopolous, who was my intern and who therefore credits me with getting him into comics (don’t tell him it was his own enormous creative talent and drive that did it, and that I was just pleased to have worked with him-I need the extra credit). But for the most part, I stayed off the grey carpet that defined the booth area, staying instead on the maroon of the pathway surrounding it. It felt somehow portentous. Given my feelings about Marvel expressed in the last blog, this was where I was; not just on the other side of the table, but outside the carpet, away from the action, on the outside waving in. I started to wonder if I was grasping at something in sad desperation, and more, wondering what that something was.

After lunch was when I headed upstairs to the Artists Alley. That was, I realized after getting some food in me, where I was most likely to see people who would see me, with recognition. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

And I was right. I can’t name all the people I saw there, or express the sadness at those I missed, their chairs sitting empty under nametags that read something like war memorials to my tired mind. I heard more than once from those I wandered past that it was like “old home week” at this convention. It was then I realized, it wasn’t the job I missed, or even the other side of the table. It was the people that made the experience what it was. It was the people I missed. And this past year for me has been about reconnecting with those people, and realizing we’re all still on the same side of the table. With some notable exceptions for those amazing people I met who influenced me in untold wasy, like Jack Able and Mark Greunwald, the people are all still there.

The best greeting was from Paris Cullins, who embraced me like a long lost brother. He’d been my first pick for the regular artist on a title called HyperKind in the tragically short-lived BarkerVerse, and remains to this day the one person I would trade talent with, as I thought his drawings were amazing, though his work ethic maddeningly inconsistent. There was ten years worth of change in the faces and the forms and the hair of the players. But there was also a sense of shared experience, of veteran camaraderie. We remembered when, back in the day, (in my best buzzed Robbie Carosella impression; “old Marvel…”). Marc, Dave, Steve, Sara, Mike, Darrel, Don, Hector, Renee, Kenny, and a host of others I didn’t see and/or who weren’t there, flooded back to mind. We were young kings (and queens), funky Tuts, big fish in a small river that was really a big one, once you left our little inlets.

But Time is that river, and it keeps on flowing whether you’re on the boat or walking alongside on the shore. And on the shore, you’re just one of the hundreds watching it flow. I could be a little sad at that, but not for too long. For me, there wasn’t enough room on the boat for all that I wanted to be, all I needed to experience. I never would’ve left if I hadn’t been thrown over into the life raft, but the raft was comfortable, and helped me make it to a safe shore. The ride was fun, but I like the land.

This side of the table suits me just fine.