TONY'S TIPS #70

This week in TONY'S TIPS at Tales of Wonder...Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast, the current Fantastic Four series and, from Archie Comics, Diary of a Girl Next Door, Betty.

PULPFEST 2014

PulpFest 2014 was celebrated on August 7-10 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Although pulp magazines are a very minor interest of mine, the yearly event is one of my favorites because I get to spend time with so many good friends I don’t see often enough.

PulpFest isn’t a “work” convention for me, not that any convention I attend is all work. I have never been a guest of the convention, nor should I be. My “pulp” credentials consist of having written a couple issues of Doc Savage for Marvel, adapting a few prose stories that originally ran in pulp magazines to comics stories, co-writing the very pulp-like Captain America: Liberty’s Torch novel with Bob Ingersoll and writing an essay or two for my friend Anthony Tollin’s outstanding line of Sanctum Books reprints. Pretty thin.

However, this year, I didn’t have to buy a ticket to the event. My friend Peyton Holden won a free pass to the convention in an online contest. Since he couldn’t make the trip from Los Angeles, he asked the convention to give me that free pass. I would be starting this year’s event with some extra spending cash. Thanks, Peyton!

The Hyatt Regency is one of my favorite hotels. The rooms and the service are always first-rate. The hotel restaurant is excellent. Next to the lobby level of the hotel are gift shops and a wonderful food court. The Columbus Convention Center is attached to the hotel on the other side. If you were so inclined, you’d never have to go outside during your stay.  However, staying inside means you would miss the great Columbus “Arena District,” which is also filled with great entertainments and restaurants.

I’ll get back to PulpFest before you start thinking I’m working for the Columbus Convention Bureau...

Early registration for the convention was Thursday, August 7, from 5-9 pm. Early-bird shopping in the large dealers room was available from 6-10 pm. This was one of the only disappointments of the con. When I went to the hall after a quick dinner, only a couple dealers were in the hall and even partially set up. When I went back around 8 pm, only a few more were up and running. Since I was experiencing what would prove to be a gout attack that made walking clumsy and painful, I called it a night.

Since my main interest in PulpFest is seeing my friends, the early-bird shopping isn’t a draw for me. However, for others, like that very happy guy I ran into on my way to the elevators, it’s a huge deal. He was grinning from ear to ear because he had just bought a Jim Steranko-drawn poster of Norgul signed by the artist and Walter B. Gibson, the creator of the magician detective. Besides writing most of The Shadow pulp novels and creating much of the character’s background, the prolific Gibson wrote several books on magic and enough comic-book and other stories to fill the careers of a dozen writers. But I digress.

PulpFest members receive The Pulpster, an annual magazine featuring articles related to the convention. There was lots to celebrate in 2014. Seventy-five years ago, in 1939, the very first World Science Fiction Convention was held and a dozen fantastic fiction pulps  made their debuts. Eighty years ago, the “shudder pulps” began to appear on newsstands.

Those were but two of the key anniversaries celebrated this year. Edd Cartier, Hannes Bok and Virgil Finley, legendary illustrators,  were all born 100 years ago. It was The Avenger’s 75th anniversary  and the 50th anniversary of when Bantam Books being reprinting the adventures of Doc Savage in paperback format. Between the PulpFest programming schedule and articles in The Pulpster, these landmark events were given their due. For late-night entertainment, spread out over Thursday through Saturday night, the convention showed all 12 chapters of the Buck Rogers serial.

On Friday morning, before the convention, I went to the food court for my usual breakfast from Chicken ‘N’ Egg. The place offers great fresh food at a very reasonable price and I eat there almost every morning when I’m staying at the Hyatt. By good fortune, I ended up sitting down with long-time friends Anthony Tollin, Rob Davis, Ron Fortier and new friend Rick Lai.

Tollin is on his third successful career. He worked in comics for nearly two decades. Then he became a renown writer of radio history booklets and worked with many of the legends of that medium.  Now, via his Sanctum Books, he published wonderful books reprinting the pulp novels of The Shadow, Doc Savage and others. We’ve been good friends for over four decades.

Rob and Ron are the dual brains and talents behind the “new pulp” juggernaut that is Airship 27 Productions. “New pulp” denotes new novels and stories in the pulp tradition, a neat mix of the classic and the modern. They’ve published over ninety books since they got started and could release their one-hundredth book before the end of the year. I’ll talk more about this in a bit.

It’s the dear friends who bring me to PulpFest every year. Besides the gentlemen mentioned above, I spent some fun time with Michelle Nolan, the noted comics historian; Mike Carbonaro, legendary comics dealer and the founder of the Big Apple Comics Conventions; and Sam Maronie, a freelance writer who made his first sale to the Marvel Planet of the Apes black-and-white magazine during my editorship of the title. Outside the convention, I met my friend Scott Galloway for lunch on Friday and, later that afternoon, hung out for a spell with Ken Eppstein of Nix Comics.

Located in the Hyatt’s nearly 16,000-square-foot Regency Ballroom, the PulpFest dealers room is the heart of the event. This year, it had over fifty dealers selling pulp magazines, facsimiles of pulp magazines, vintage paperbacks, modern-day pulp fiction, old radio shows, first editions and more.  There were more comic books there  than in previous years, offering great issues from the 1940s thru

the 1960s. If my Vast Accumulation of Stuff was not too large - at present - I could have easily gone crazy in this room. So much cool stuff on display.

Something I saw several times: dealers directing customers who were looking for a specific pulp magazine issue or old paperback to some other dealer they thought might have what the fan sought. There’s a real sense that the dealers love this stuff just as much as their customers.

Digression. Tollin told me Street and Smith’s Love Story Magazine was the best selling of the company’s pulps, even outselling The Shadow. He also told me, much to my surprise, that no one has  published any facsimile editions of any romance pulps. Makes me want to read one of them all the more. End digression.

PulpFest had 21 panels and readings over the weekend in addition to the Buck Rogers serial and the Saturday night auction. I make sure to attend at least one panel every year and, this time around, it was “The Fun of Writing Pulp Fiction,” moderated by Ron Fortier and featuring a half-dozen writers of “new pulp” fiction. I found this description online:

New Pulp is a movement of writers, artists and other imaginative souls to create new Pulp Fiction for the modern age. It is fast-paced, plot-oriented storytelling of a linear nature with clearly defined, larger than life protagonists and antagonists, creative descriptions, clever use of turns of phrase and other aspects of writing that add to the intensity and pacing of the story.  

There are around two-dozen publishers of new pulp fiction, a group that includes comic-book publishers such as Dark Horse, Dynamite and IDW. Many of the prose novels are self-published and print-on-demand works. The authors and publishers of the novels don’t make a lot of money from the books. The books and anthologies are labors of love in every sense of the term.

I came away from the convention with a six-inch stack of new pulp fiction. My new friends Dick and Norma Enos gave me a copy of The Yesterday Men, the latest in Dick’s Rick Steele Adventures series. I also bought books by Mike Baron, Ron Fortier, Jim Beard, Charles Saunders, Wayne Reinagel and others. I’ve got some great reading in my near future.

Unfortunately, my second and final PulpFest disappointment showed up early Saturday evening. A gout flare-up in my left foot got so bad that it seemed prudent to curtail my weekend and head home on Saturday night. Two hours later, I was back in my Medina home and shuffling around like Quasimodo.

The gout passed in a couple days. Weirdly enough, the treatment for such reoccurrences is to stop taking my anti-gout medication until the attack passes. You can add that to the long list of the great many things I do not understand.  

The gout attack didn’t dim my enthusiasm for PulpFest in the least. I’m already planning to attend next year’s event. I hope to see you there as well.

I’ll be back soon with more stuff.

© 2014 Tony Isabella

READ MORE TONY: COMPLETE ALIEN COSTUME SAGA

Spider-Man: The Complete Alien Costume Saga Book 1 [Marvel; $44.99] collects Amazing Spider-Man #252-258, Marvel Team-Up #141-145 and Annual #7, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #90-95 and some special features. That adds up to a hefty 488 pages of web-slinging wonderment.

The writers and artists include Tom DeFalco, David Michelinie, Cary Burkett, Tony Isabella, Louise Simonson, Al Milgrom, Ron Frenz, Rick Leonardi, Greg Larocque and Paul Neary. Guest super-heroes and super-villains include Daredevil, the Black Widow, the Black Cat, the Rose, the Blob, the Hobgoblin, the Answer, Captain Marvel, the Red Ghost and his super-apes, Starfox, Alpha Flight, Moon Knight,Cloak and Dagger, Iron Man, Blacklash and more.

That Isabella guy wrote the Spider-Man/Iron Man story from Marvel Team-Up #145 [September 1984]. “Hometown Boy” wasn’t really a tale about super-heroes. Set in my native Cleveland, it focused on Mark Scarlotti aka Blacklash. I think you’ll like it.

Keep watching the bloggy thing for news on reprints of my stories and whatever new work I can tell you about. Look for the return of new full-size bloggy things this coming week.

© 2014 Tony Isabella

AUGUST GARAGE SALE CANCELLED

My recovery from various minor ailments is coming along much slower than I had anticipated. I'm writing and working much more slowly than usual. I'm on the mend, but I think I'll get there much more quickly if I skip next weekend's garage sale.

September's garage sales are still on.  However, since no artists or creators have come forward and requested driveway table space for those garage sales, the September sales will "just" be the usual cool stuff at low prices. 

Besides offering a couple Saturday night hours those weekends, I'm considering offering a few late afternoon/early evening hours on each of the two Fridays.  With the Medina schools back in session, this would address the concerns of some of my customers who find it difficult to come to the garage sales during my regular hours of operation. I'll make my decision on this next week.

My final garage sale will still be in October and will still be Halloween-themed. I'll have some more details on that soon.

Here's the revised schedule:

Friday, September 12: 9 am to noon

Friday, September 12: 4-6 pm (TENTATIVE)
Saturday, September 13: 9 to noon
Saturday, September 13: 5 pm to 7 pm

Friday, September 26: 9 am to noon

Friday, September 26: 4-6 pm (TENTATIVE)
Saturday, September 27: 9 to noon
Saturday, September 28: 5 pm to 7 pm

Friday, October 10: 9 am to noon

Friday, October 10: 4-6 pm (TENTATIVE)
Saturday, October 11: 9 to noon
Saturday, October 11: 5 pm to 7 pm

That's all I have for you at the moment. I'm several hundred words into my PulpFest 2014 report and will post that as soon as I complete it.

Tony

HOLD ON TIGHT TO WHAT GIVES YOU JOY

Robin Williams left this world a little over a week ago. The pain of his passing is still raw, the sadness palatable. I didn’t know Williams, but he was a dear friend of dear friends of mine. Neither they nor Williams have been out of my thoughts.

The death by suicide of Williams brought with it the now-familiar chorus of people who also suffer from depression or who know people who suffer from depression or who, most tragically, know people who took their own lives as a result of depression. The number of folks in the first of those groups is heartening to me because it means the onus of depression is lifting. It’s a real thing. It has very real consequences. It needs to be recognized early and it needs to be addressed early.

The first time I tried to kill myself and failed, I experienced a profound sense of shame. To this day, I can’t tell you if my shame came from attempting to kill myself or the failure thereof. If that sounds seriously fucked up, welcome to my world and the world of so many others who battle depression on a daily basis.

I tried to kill myself on two other occasions. Thankfully, I never got good at killing myself. Both times found me sitting in a closed garage with the engine of my car running. The first time, I gave up because it was taking too long to die. The second time, I realized my children needed me. It was after that second visit to my garage that I sought medical help.

Today, I have a wonderful life. Depression rears its ugly head on a weekly and, sometimes, a daily basis. I’ve learned a lot about my depression and am confident it will never again have a daily claim on me. But I always keep an eye on it.

Here’s what I’ve learned about my depression...

It’s my depression, unique unto myself. Just as your depression, if you suffer from depression, is unique unto you. We aren’t cookie-cutter human beings. While illness may affect us in similar ways, it won’t be an exact match.

When you realize you suffer from depression - and you know before you’re willing to admit it to yourself - you must immediately seek  medical treatment. This isn’t a time for pride. It’s time for the holding action that could save your life.

Because your depression is your depression, you need to be always front-and-center when it comes to making decisions about treatment for the illness. The drug that works for nine out of ten sufferers may not work for me. The therapist you’re seeing may not be right for you. Extended treatment might become an addiction and fail to keep your depression at bay.

I got lucky with my treatment. I got a therapist whose goal was to help me figure things out for myself. When she prescribed an anti-depressant that didn’t work for me, she didn’t insist I remain on that or any other medication.  When she believed I figured out what I needed to figure out, she sent me on my way with a handshake and my promise I would call her the instant I thought I might again be at risk.

About the medication...this is one of those areas where you must be in control of your own treatment. The anti-depressants didn’t help me. They gave me headaches and nausea. They left me lethargic and unable to write...and not being able to write was making me more depressed than ever.

Medication didn’t work for me. It works for a great many others who suffer from depression. Never assume you are like any other person suffering from depression. Make your own informed choices on your medication, but don’t make those choices lightly.

A dear friend of mine told me I was brave for staying in this world of ours. I have never felt brave about beating back my depression. I have felt fortunate.

There is no “cure” for depression. The closed thing to a "cure" I  found was to hold on tight to what gives me joy. Hold on tight and never let go. My wife. My children. My friends. My writing, even in something as ultimately inconsequential as this blog. The terrific comics and manga and graphic novels and other things I read. The cheesy movies I love. The silly things my cat does. The many other blessings of my life.

I will never tell anyone they have no reason to be depressed. You might think fame and fortune would be enough reason for someone to stay in their life, but their depression is not your depression or my depression. The best you can do is be there for them when they will allow you to be there and, if they do, listen to their stories without making judgments on the “validity” of their depression. You are not them.

This is a wonderful world, but it is also a terrible world. In all honesty, I think everyone on the planet has reason to be mightily depressed. So much hate and violence. So much greed and desperate poverty. But...also...so much love and potential for good. So much acceptance and generosity. So many reasons to hope.

Moving on...

Whenever I write about my struggle with depression - and it’s not something I enjoy writing about - I get familiar responses. I get the “you’re so brave for writing about this” response. I get one or two “keep trying to kill yourself” notes from the usual anonymous trolls. I get one or two notes from people who are helped by what I’ve written.

Those last one or two notes are why I write about my depression now and then. I don’t enjoy revisiting the darker corners of my past. I don’t feel brave, just lucky. I certainly don’t get plunged into depression by the trolls because they have long since proven themselves to be among the most pathetic of creatures. But I do feel a certain sense of “maybe it was worth it” when my story was helpful to another who is in pain.  It’s why I tell my story. It’s why I appreciate when others tell their stories.

I don’t have a religion.  I haven’t had one in years. It’s because religions are based on human writings passed off as wisdom from God or gods. It’s because religious institutions almost never live up to their high-minded ideals. These days, especially in my country, most major religions have allied themselves with the rich and the powerful. There is almost as much truth and wisdom in my facetious First Church of Godzilla.

But I do have a belief. When I read the recent comics adaptation of George Lucas’ original treatment for The Star Wars, I really liked the sound of the frequently-repeated line “May the Force of Others be with you.”

That line is pretty decent shorthand for my belief that we are all in this together. If there is an unseen force guiding our lives, I think it is everyone that has come before us, everyone who exists with us and every one who will follow us. There is good and evil in us, but we are all in this together.

My belief is that we are all in this together. My hope is that we are more good than evil. My prayer is that we do our best to love one another in spite of our differences and that we always do what we can to ease the lot of others.

Help when you can. Seek help when you need it.  And, always, always love one another.

I’ll be back soon with stuff that can’t possibly be as weighty as today’s bloggy thing.

© 2014 Tony Isabella

TONY'S TIPS #69

This week in TONY'S TIPS at Tales of Wonder...More of the Phantom at Charlton, Batman '66 and MAD magazine. Please leave comments at Tales of Wonder.

ANOTHER TONY ISABELLA ORIGINAL

The comics art world went wild when I posted a sea monster sketch in yesterday's bloggy thing. In order to meet the almost completely imaginary demand for more of my art, I grabbed a pencil and a scrap of paper to create another mini-masterpiece. I spent hours laboring over this piece. Okay, not hours, but a good minute-and-a-half including the copy. This pencil sketch will soon be put up for auction on eBay and, by "soon," I mean, "never."

One of my online friends made the clever - and, by "clever," I mean "silly" - suggestion I commission actual artists to reinterpret the drawing I posted yesterday. Which would cost me money. Which is why I'm not going to do it. 

However, in the tradition of Tom Sawyer, if any of my artist pals or even any of my artist total strangers want to reinterpret yesterday or today's drawings, they should have at it. If they send me scans of the drawings, I'll post them in the bloggy thing along with their contact information. That way, fans who aren't as cheap as I am, can commission drawings from them. Everybody wins.

I'll be back soon with more stuff.