Flight Down
Memory Lane
Memory Lane
[Categories: comic book fanzine, collection]
Late in 1989 I started a comics fanzine called Comic Book Crossroads.
As was the nature of such things, it never achieved a regular schedule, and barely spanned six years and twenty issues before I more or less officially shut it down in 1995. I'd had fun with much of it, but regardless of how many months passed between issues it was always slap-dash in the end. All cuts and pastes were physical ones, and the work presented within was... uneven, shall we say. We had some talented contributors and some stalwart ones, and even a few who were both. We also managed to have Wonder Woman on 20% of the covers in the run, though I don't recall any conscious attempt at cheesecake covers. Seen here on the right is a shot of Spidey done by Mark Lester, for the cover of issue #8.
Crypt Leak took his complete run of the series, scanned it and installed it all over on its own domain: Comicbookcrossroads.com. At the top of the page he included a link to a history I'd written for the project a few years back, too.
The main page is a year-by-year gallery of the covers, and if you click on any one of them you'll download a pdf copy of that issue, warts, hairy moles and all. Many of them are sizeable, so depending on your connection and processor speed... be patient.
As you'll quickly see from the interiors, this was very obviously an amateur enterprise. Several projects were begun without being concluded, some of which was in my power to correct and some not. From the sections of text copied straight from dot matrix printers to those turned sideways and shrunken to save space, to an editorial policy that that was often little more than "I need something for pages 8 through 11!", an issue was generally as good as the material on hand. Fortunately, several of the people who contributed handed in quality work, especially for a fanzine, and I remain deeply appreciative of all the people who took the time to be a part of it.
There's much for me (and a few others) to be embarassed about, but I'm still very glad I oversaw and contributed to the run. In many ways they're time capsules, both of a stretch of time in my own life and a comics industry that was in the throes of massive change. Besides, we had fun doing it.
Moreover, I want to thank Crypt Leak for putting in all this work to preserve something that could have easily been lost. Most of this is work I haven't set eyes on a decade or more, so I'm looking forward to revisiting much of it.
Eventually it would be a good idea to create a master index of at least the people whose work appeared over the run, including what that work was. I won't promise that anytime soon, but it's something for me to consider. I've already casually spotted a few big mistakes on the tables of contents, so I'd have to go page by page through each issue to pin everything down.
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Comments
Funny, I wasn't looking at them in any particular order and found myself drawn to a cover by Jeff Webb. I really am impressed by his work. And, while I didn't realize it, apparently, I've gotten to a point where I can pick him out.
In many ways it all feels like another lifetime to me, and for every spot where I'm finding myself embarassed by something I wrote there (be it the content, the writing itself, or both) there are a couple more where it's bouncing between a huge, nostalgic flash and feeling as if it's something I'm reading for the first time.
"Someone else" is in the mix at least once in those issues, too, btw.
Especially since I wasn't asked beforehand about this. Especially given all the fooforaw about IP rights in recent years.
There was a reason I stopped doing the fanfic, after all.
A friend decided to do something very nice and labor-intensive for me as a surprise, and I'm not going to fault him for it. The physical issues have been in existence for at least a decade. I didn't worry about them then and I'm not going to worry about it now.
If it helps, I'll change this blog entry to remove both the direct reference to you and choose a different cover from the gallery. (I'll likely have done this within four minutes of sending this comment upstream.)
I'm not sure if Legends is still going, but it should be done online. I believe Warren Ellis has an online project going that is similar in scope. A lot of the "zines", myself included, were nothing more than really slow blogs.
I really get my publishing fix with my comic and my bulletin board. Mailing stuff is so slow and expensive.
I know what you mean about copies of old zines, though. Two moves and a couple of flood events took out a fair chunk of my old issues -- indeed, that's what happened to some of my copies of CBC the fanzine. Fortunately a friend kept the complete run in a safe place. Some of my Legends zines are likely lost to me forever, unless I can get the missing issues from one or more members who've held onto them.
I would be hard pressed to think of a worse idea for our APA than to take it online. Even under the best, most controlled circumstances, an online organization is too immediate and public to make much of a pretense of reasoned, friendly discourse. As cliquish as any organization inevitably becomes, the online environment makes every little thing into a game of one-upsmanship where situations quickly develop where every other thing is perceived as an insult and returned rapid fire in perceived kind.
An APA is a fairly small group of people, ideally existing as a club or extended community. While the size limitations were likely there originally in order to prevent ridiculously huge mailing fees from building up, I tend to think that keeping the size manageable on a human scale was also a factor. Limiting the size makes it more exclusive in a good way, too, as once an APAs operating at its upper boundary then people have to participate or risk falling off the member list and onto the waitlist. One of my prime goals for 2006 is to get us closer to that state.
The biggest blow-ups the APA has ever suffered were a result of an active group emailing list. Had it happened on a public messageboard it would have only been worse.
Small and slow is just right for some things, and APAs are one of those.
As for the mailing costs, I'm in the organization stages of trying to do something to cut down on that burden.
I was going to close with an observation... a very dry one, mind you... about how, in my experience with APAs, only a few shining, individual paragons demonstrated any ability to appreciate the positive contributions of controversial members, so such comments, while they sadden me, don't surprise me.
I would have leavened my observation with the admission that the CBC contributor in question did certainly have a great deal of moxy, and could undoubtedly have been perceived in a negative fashion by someone who may have ended up on the short end of her ire... as I myself have, a few times over the years.
Still, that doesn't seem to me to be an adequate justification for publicly trashing someone responsible for the undeniably gorgeous artwork that is the first thing you see when you head out to the lovely front page on the astonishing and wondrous site Crypt Leak put so much obvious time and effort into for you.
It just seemed... unseemly.
Happily, the potentially offending comment has gone the way of the passenger pigeon and the first two Blue Beetles, so none of that hump-trumpeting will be necessary.
Nearly equally unseemly, however, is infantile squalling about how all this was done without seeking out the permission of former CBC contributors. I have as much or more cause for embarrassment as anyone at having some of my older pieces of work exhumed for a potentially wider audience, but for the love of Jebus, get a grip. If DC could rid the internet of unlicensed use of their copyrighted properties, they'd go after all the slash-fic long before they'd bother with JLC. (And, yeah, there's pictorial slash-fic, too.)
Overall, I'm deeply touched at the level of friendship Crypt Leak has shown with this magnificent gesture, and very pleased to have quick, electronic access to these issues. I'm planning on reading the entire run as soon as I have a few spare moments. And for the opportunity to do that, Crypt Leak, you have my appreciation, as well.
First off, this was a wonderful thing Cryptleak did. It's a great looking site, and it's obvious just how much time and effort was put into it.
Second...at the risk of going all fanboy: that Mark Lester cover pic of Spider-man is sweeeet.
Third: I can understand Dwight's concern about DC and copyrights. But the way you stepped up to take responsibility should be sufficient.
All in all, I can't see the harm in this website -- but it's obvious that there is a lot of respect and and friendship in the handiwork.
Lastly: There was a time I would have disagreed with you about the state of Legends on the web, but I've come around to your perspective. You're right; an APA should stay on the page and off the screen.
Hats off to all of the Legendaires on 20 years! An astounding milestone.
Apologies.
Any APA, and certainly specific groups of people at specific times, will have friction. It won't work for some people. Some will simply come to ignore each other, but some will relentlessly push someone else's buttons. Some people have a confrontational streak In most cases conflicts are minor and gotten over, but sometimes it becomes too personal to be surmounted.
That's people. (There are family members I haven't spoken to in years. In moments of unguarded honesty I find myself listing among the reasons why I don't want other family members to die, that it'll force me and people I don't want to talk to into the same place.)
As alluded to in H's post, I did pull one comment (well, two, as I didn't want my comment on a now-vanished comment to be hanging there) because of a specific, less-than-thinly-veiled reference to a Legends member and CBC contributor. If I had straight editing capabilities I would have just edited the specific reference - noting that I'd gone in there and meddled - and been done with it.
Personal attacks, especially from one former member to another, serve no constructive purpose. Moreover they diminish the writer, reader and quality of a forum.
Initially I was being too distracted by other things to do more than what I usually do: Ignore the negative in someone's comments and focus on commenting on the positive or at least more substantial aspects. (That's an important, perhaps essential skill behind being a long-term member of any club.) The remainder of the comment was thoughtful and welcome, after all.
I eventually realized, however, that there was no reason to leave something potentially hurtful up to someone, or at the very least to someone who didn't deserve it. (I'm not going to set up a trap for myself for the next time I cast aspersions on some politician.)
Finally, not to speak for Dwight, but I do want to point out that his concerns (as he made clear to me separately), as I understand them, are ones of broader intellectual property rights for a creator. In this instance, his own rights of control over work he produced.
It's an instance where he is of the opinion that all control over where such fan work may appear should be a decision made by the creator.
My view is that this is being taken to an extreme.
All work that appeared in CBC was either specifically created for inclusion there or at the very least there with the specific permission of the creator. It was meant to be a part of each of those specific issues. Since these archives are pdf documents - essentially electronic paper - they are in a very real sense more discreetly complete documents than the paper originals were. That is to say, e-staples are somewhat more binding. Hardly perfect, but a better guarantor of a multi-page document remaining a multi-page document.
Had someone pulled individual projects out of the pages and went to use them in some other place without permission, I'd understand and be in strong agreement with Dwight's distress at that. Had I any intention of, say, wanting to cull a multi-part storyline that appeared in CBC from a series of issues and put it up for separate presentation, then by all means the creator of the piece must be contacted and permission granted.
Since the original intent, structure, use and lack of any profit are maintained in these virtual copies, however, the only difference here is the equivalent of retroactively increasing the print run and distribution.
As I've expressed to Dwight, I'm sincerely sorry that this has so unexpectedly been the source of a problem. I've known Dwight since 1989 and have enjoyed his creative output both as a fellow Legends contributor and someone who's had professional assignments. This online archiving and creation of a library for CBC, however, was done both with the best of intentions and, in my view, is no violation of the original agreement in creating a fan project.
I am hopeful that in the long run he'll come to see that what was done was no true infringement of his rights as a creator.
(So much for the short version... Heh. Well, it's a blog - and moreover a comment on a blog - so it's all first draft.)
I'm very happy and excited to have this site up. I have a lot of fond memories of my CBC days, and the fanzine and my fellow contributors. I want to thank Crypt Leak for doing it and providing a nice trip down memory lane, and for Mike to think of me to send me the details so I would find it. Thanks to you both!
I guess I'm not in the same boat as Dwight, whose work I have always admired, as that everything I did was original characters and there's nobody to come after me for copyright infringement. Even the 3 panels of Rocky Horror that I did were "parody" and protected under "Fair Use". I certainly do not object to the wider distribution of the fanzine. Quite the opposite, I encourage it.
Mike Leuszler
It's my hope that more careful consideration of the circumstances and details will enable him to dismiss those concerns. The last thing I want is any emnity to come out of this between Dwight and me. That would simply be sad.
That's exactly the spirit in which this gallery/archive is intended, and I'm glad to see it's being generally so well-received.
I understand the personal value these archives have to some of us here. I respect it. If the archives were made available solely to those of us who'd contributed to them, via some password arrangement perhaps, I might yet relent. Yes, password schemes can be defeated, but it would be something I could learn to become comfortable with.
This I understand: Mike/Orto got caught in the middle of something that isn't his fault. "Crypt Leak" means well, and that I understand also, and I'd like to thank him publicly for contacting me privately after the fact about this. We'll see if we still can't work something out to deal with this. Perhaps, some newer, original -- and hopefully better -- material in place of anything that might end up removed in the weeks ahead.
More on that later...
However, I was taken by surprise, as will the other person whose name has since been omitted when I inform them of the archives' existence. A word of warning in advance would have been deeply appreciated.
(Incidentally, that person's working with me on at least one, perhaps two, professional comics projects. More on this at my own blog as it develops.)
Especially since I wasn't asked beforehand about this. Especially given all the fooforaw about IP rights in recent years.
There was a reason I stopped doing the fanfic, after all."
Hm.
'Squalling' would not have been quite correct, that's true.
Oh, wait. I didn't say just 'squalling'. I said 'infantile squalling'.
Hmmmm...
Yeah. I'll stick with that.
Dwight -- it isn't about you. The ability to take something wonderful that brings someone else joy, this amazing and magnificently generous gesture of friendship from one person to another, and make it suddenly all about what you want and/or fear... well, that's infantile. And yes, that's squalling.
If you had a problem with this, the appropriate thing would have been to email Mike privately and advise him that you felt that times had changed, and it was no longer consistent with your professional goals to have this kind of work from earlier in your artistic output potentially available to a wider Internet audience.
However, what you DID was ball up your fists, stomp your feet, and go "Well, what about MEEEEEEEEE?!?" in the middle of the comment threads. Without showing the slightest concern, respect, or appreciation for the incredible effort this project represents, or how anyone else besides you might feel about it.
Again -- Squalling. Infantile.
Accept the word of one who knows. From enormous personal experience.
As to the Unnamed Artist you are working with, that's a Big Yay to both of you. You're both quite talented, I look forward to seeing your output.
IMHO, CL did nothing wrong. I remain bewildered.
Any decision as to what's to be done or not done with portions of the archived material I leave, somewhat reluctantly (because he shouldn't have to deal with it), in his very capable hands.
I'm tired and in ill temper, which is another reason for me to say nothing more about its existence.
As an aside: I'd already alerted the unnamed artist of the archives' existence yesterday. I've heard back from her on a personal, unrelated note I'd sent a little earlier, but not on the online CBC. She has a very busy, tiring schedule these days, though, so I'm not sure when she'll have the opportunity to look at any of and, moreover, to comment. If her reaction is anything other than at least mildly positive, I'll be surprised. Disappointed and surprised.
Let's all stop the negativity and concentrate on the positive impact this could still have on the person who needs more positive in his life--our dear buddy, MJN.
Dwight was genuinely surprised by the sudden appearance of work that he felt was part of the distant past, and he had in place a reflex that is invaluable when dealing with salesmen and politicians: First Say "No."
Like a firewall to protect a computer, like a guard at the gate, the reflex can serve a protective purpose. He was surprised. The surprise involved something he'd created -- and believe me, along with the many sketches he provided all of the comics pages he produced didn't write or draw themselves; a great deal of time and energy went into that.
As he's been getting increasingly into a career involving the creative arts he's surrounded by cautionary tales about losing control of work one had produced.
A big STOP light went off in his head.
It's a reflex that will likely serve him well as he gets deeper into the business. It's wise to not automatically be he nice guy who goes along with everyone; eventually that guy is taken by someone who's unscrupulous, and in the meantime he'll collect a fine collection of footprints across his clothes.
He needed some time to evaluate the situation and be sure that matters were in hand.
I believe we have matters settled now, his concerns addressed, procedures and protections in place.
Time to move happily on.