Posted on by michaelwconrad

Sisyphus, The Stone, and The Hill

It feels pretty good to have the word out that Becky and I will be taking over writing the monthly Wonder Woman series as of issue 770. We’re really excited to be working on such an iconic character, one that in many ways is foundational to the entire DCU. This has been a flying leap for me, and for what it’s worth I’m gonna share my version of the story of how it came to pass. This is really just me looking out my own window, I’m not trying to offend or misrepresent anyone; so just keep in mind this stuff is all slanted through my perspective.

MARCH 2020- 

What a shit month. We had just done what turned out to be our only convention of the entire year (Richmond Galaxy Con). After this we were to shoot up to Portland for a few days and then up to Seattle for Emerald City, one of our favorite shows to do. 

At the end of 2019 I felt like I had a good head of steam with Tremor Dose making big noise at ComiXology Originals, our issue of Doom Patrol with its great reception, as well as the Tomb of Dracula short featured in Marvel’s Bizarre Adventures. I entered into 2020 with a game plan and was prepared to spend the first quarter of the year doing the dance with publishers in pursuit of more writing work. Some prospects were already in place, and it was time to lock them in.

Emerald City in particular was critical to this. I had scheduled meetings with a number of smaller publishers and was prepared to wow them with my big ideas and hopefully end up with something on the shelves with one or two of them. I scrambled through my contacts in the lead up to the show and had basically filled my downtime with plans of coffee meetings, dinners, and mid show sneak-aways to discuss what they want as a company and how I could be the person to do it.

You know where this is going.

Covid prevented all of that and damn near broke us all. The timing couldn’t have been worse. We didn’t do ECCC but we still managed to get to PDX where, still not realizing how bad shit was gonna get, we were able to see friends and meet with Image publisher Eric Stephenson. It was the last great trip we were to take together in 2020, and contributed heavily to my initial depression.

Everyone wants an Image book. Most don’t get the opportunity to sit across from the guy who can make it happen. I showed him some of my work and he seemed receptive, and we promised to follow up in the subsequent weeks… you know, the weeks where the world stopped turning, and the entire industry in question nearly died? The weeks during which we cloistered ourselves away in hopes of stopping the virus? Those weeks during which I personally lost several friends to the despair of it all… remember those weeks?

So the follow up didn’t exactly happen, it was very much a wait and see as the dust settled on the memory of the excitement that I once had. I had slipped back down the hill, and the distance between the late 2019 successes and my aspirations at the time grew long and felt invalid.

In effort to make this readable I’ll skip over the stuff that saved me. I’ve spoken about the real savior that came in the form of the work on Skeleton Crew for Cinder Cone Games, and pushing myself to write and draw a few comics on my own. These things are incredibly fulfilling but I knew that it wasn’t my future. I doubt anyone will ever hire me to write a game again (not for lack of quality, but more for lack of inroads in that industry) and that I may never develop an audience that wants to see my art on a consistent enough basis to live off of it. These projects were not long term solutions, but they were medicine for my broken outlook. These things saved me.

MARCH 2019-

We went to WonderCon without a table. Yes, they would have loved to have Becky be a big part of the show, but really we just went to hangout. Becky did a couple panels and maybe a signing, but we wanted to get to LA to visit the DC offices and to see friends. The trip was outstanding in many ways, we not only toured DC, but also BOOM!, and Humanoids. We got to connect with friends, run around haunted hotels, visit the DC archives (absolutely mental) and generally have a blast. At the convention we were able to bother creators and dig through the “old town” back issue bins in search of rare Conan editions. It was fun in a time when Covid wasn’t even a word.

I bring this up because this is where we bumped into this guy Jamie S. Rich. Here is where the story gets strange because on the off chance that Jamie reads this I’ll be mortified… but this is how it went…

At the end of the show we bumped into Cecil Castelluci who had been working on Batgirl with Jamie, the two were to meet at the hotel bar to chat and have a cheeky drink. She invited us along, moments later I was seated across from the (at the time) editor of the Bat Family of books at DC.

Now, I’m not TERRIBLE with these kinds of interactions, but I do get excited. This excitement often manifests as finding myself either speaking too much or too little. In this case I’m not sure exactly where I fell on that spectrum, but I don’t think I was exactly the most charming person Jamie had ever met.

Jamie is cool. He looks cool, acts cool, and oftentimes folks like that will throw me off, for the same reasons they might throw you off. Not only was this guy in a seat of power, but also he’s more charismatic, funny as hell, and most importantly he has NOTHING to prove. Meanwhile I’m stewing in juice hoping to make a good impression on this guy who holds the keys. I don’t know that he was aware that I’m a creator, and I wasn’t trying to pitch him on anything, but it would be a half truth to say I wasn’t looking for any opportunity to make my doals known. I kind of wish I was just like “Hey! I’m a comic creator and I’d love to connect later about some ideas I have!” This would have broken the tension and given him the opportunity to ignore any emails that might follow; like any good editor!

Anyway, I didn’t- Becky did mention it toward the end. She brought up our DC trip and how we lightweight pitched a XXXXXXXXXX book. She reminded him that our Doom Patrol book was initially run through him. He was cool about it, but as the bar time was coming to a close he picked up the tab. I insisted on paying my own way and he said something that haunted me for the next year. It was a VERY dry joke, and one that was so true I couldn’t help but feel stung by it.

“Nah, it’s cool man, ride those coattails!” He said it with a deadpan that had me ruminating on how I am perceived, and allowed me to sink even deeper into my fears of being seen as something other than a legitimate creator.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MIRE 2020

I was nearing the end of my work on Skeleton Crew when Becky came into the room and said that she had just gotten an email from DC. She had been asked to write a Midnighter thing for this even called Future State. I was stoked for her immediately, I love Midnighter. She then hit me with “They specifically asked if you’d like to co-write, they must have liked what we did with Doom Patrol!”

I didn’t believe her at first and asked to see the email, sure enough “they” did, and it had been Jamie S. Rich who had made the call and sent the email. I was flabbergasted, I thought he HATED me, or at very least saw me as some barnacle on the side of the SS CLoonan!

I knew what their gig was, my paranoia speaking to me saying “They’ve asked after you because they know she’s more likely to take the job to help Michael.” This machiavellian scheme may or may not be of my own imagining, but I didn’t care. I was getting another shot at DC during the height of Covid!

I immediately set to work crafting an idea that would allow us to explore our interests while bringing forth a Midnighter story worth reading. We created something wholly unexpected by the editors and I really believe that this is what brought what would follow. I was a bit aggressive in video conferences, polite, but I didn’t bother to hide my drive. When we chatted with the whole Superman team that Jamie was now shepherding, I was ecstatic to find that our ideas for Midnighter would inform the work of our peers. We created a big mess, and intentional mess, a mess that everyone seemed to want to contribute to.

After turning in those scripts we were hit with another offer.

“Would you two wanna tell a story about Wonder Woman wayyyyy in the future?”

This was a no brainer, it took us almost no time to submit our idea for Immortal Wonder Woman and I’m not playing when I say it’s an Eisner level book. Anyone who sleeps on this WILL be hearing about it and will be tracking it down. The only problem with Immortal is that it wasn’t enough! We fell in love with telling Diana stories and wanted more. Our editors Jamie, Brittany, and Bixie casually asked if we would like to tell more, so of course we said yes!

NOVEMBER 2020

We were asked to participate in CCXP Worlds, one of the biggest conventions in the… uh- worlds. Becky and I along with Jen Bartel, artist of Immortal Wonder Woman were to appear on a digital panel along with the other Wonder Woman teams to hype the Future State event. Moderated by Jamie himself, this would air in early December and serve to provide a bit of insight on what we had planned for Diana, Yara, and Nubia. Prior to starting the panel Jamie said that they would be announcing that Becky and I were the new writing team on Wonder Woman and that we should keep that quiet until the panel went live. I didn’t really understand the full extent of this in the moment.

It was only later that I realized what had been obvious to everyone but me… we were the writers of the Wonder Woman book. Like… the series… during the year she turns 80. We were there. I am part of the mythology now.

NOW 2020

I had him all wrong. In getting to know Jamie through our efforts to make cool comics I have discovered he is anything but rude. He IS  smart as a whip, and at times scary. He’s also kind and thoughtful, and someone who really is trying to make people feel at home in their professions and allowing talent to explore what they are capable of.You know, he might have meant it- the coattails thing, but it wouldn’t be untrue, but it isn’t really an insult. A coattail only lasts as long as the person riding it doesn’t ruin everything. From my position I was able to play a role in getting us going on an A List book at a premier publisher. We’ll see how you like Midnighter and Immortal Wonder Woman, after those I suspect that I’ll feel a little less like an imposter and more like who I am. A regular guy with a passion for telling stories.

Posted on by michaelwconrad

Brave Fools

I spent the last two weeks in the UK with Becky exploring ruins, doing comic related things, and looking for giants in some of the most beautiful areas of Scotland. During that time I had a pitch I was pretty excited about die on the vine and faced the depression that accompanies a project nearing completion. It’s pretty messed up to be bummed while having the opportunity to do something I have long dreamed of doing, with the person I love.

Creativity has a way of making everything else melt away. I’m at my best when I’m chipping away and making headway, and now I am in the uncanny position of figuring out what comes next. 

Bizarre Adventures came out and people seemed really stoked on our Tomb Of Dracula story. I am so happy that my Marvel debut wasn’t a flop, but really, I knew it wouldn’t be with Becky on art, the same can be said for Doom Patrol which comes out in about a week. I know that it’s going to do well, because Becky is almost incapable of doing something that doesn’t connect with a big audience. In two days time a real test stands before me.

Tremor Dose, my 100+ page graphic novel with artist Noah Bailey drops as part of the comiXology Originals line. Noah and I worked on this book for 3 long years. It started as a small zine and just grew and grew and grew. I always knew the story I wanted to tell, but I just plain didn’t think I would be able to convince Noah to put so much time and energy into such a long form endeavor. When Chip Mosher and Ivan Salazar stuck their necks out for us and got us a contract all of that changed.

Our little boutique idea was suddenly so much more. We had a lot to finish and it was scary, and exhilarating, and supremely stressful. Prior to the contract we picked away at it, like most creators do with their passion projects. We found time to knock out a page here and there, and as such we had a lot of room to micromanage and make sure everything was just right. This set the bar incredibly high, so when it became funded we both had a lot of anxiety about being able to maintain that level of quality under deadline. There were intense moments, but we did it and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

Now it’s done. We have PR people doing their thing, and we are of course doing what we can to spread the word. We know that we’re nobodies, and that only a small handful of folks will pick up the books on the power of our social reach, and know that this book will live and die by a number of factors well outside of our control. 

It’s fucking terrifying and sad.

The fear is normal, it exists because we care, and we have had our neural pathways written to expect failure. We are absolutely “dark cloud” kind of people, trying desperately to manifest goodness and success through positive thinking, but for guys like us that is abnormal and strange. The sadness comes from uncertainty. When we were working on Tremor Dose we were so incredibly hyped we began to dream. We dreamed of the book making a huge splash, throwing a giant boot right through the doors to our dream house, a place in which we would set up residence. We would chain ourselves to the radiators and keep it up until someone had enough of us and lit the structure ablaze. Even in fantasy sequences it would end, but the fact that there would be a moment of ease where we would be able to explore greenlights and less traffic on our creative path was what kept the cogs of the machine turning.

Now it’s about to happen and the reality of the matter is right there for us to sniff at and check it’s pulse. Reality is a grim prospect when you are done with a project, the dreams don’t last unless you tell someone about them, but that feels like bragging or pandering. So you kind of shut down and realize how hopeless it could really be… we could have done all that work to build a monument to our creative partnership only to have it swallowed up by the ivy of indifference. So you start to look at the next thing and transpose all your goodwill into it.

This is part of why people keep making things, because that sucking void at the end is too much and we have to drop anchor on another safer shore, a more mysterious place that hasn’t been spoiled by reality. 

I’m trying something different this time. I’m sticking around, prepared to go down with the ship. I think she’s sturdy and I think that she’s seaworthy enough to make it through. Tremor Dose is fucking good, it’s great, and I was part of it. Yes, as a freelancer I have to be looking for more work, but so often when something is done I have already taken off sprinting in the other direction to distance myself from whatever praise or critique or worse, indifference is earned. This time it’s different, this book is too much of my soul, I can’t leave.

I’ve done some awesome stuff you’ve never seen. I didn’t bounce out of the back of a turnip truck with comics in hand, I’ve been making things for years. I have made some things that I’ve felt were on par and better than some of your favorite books, I mean that! I have also made absolute shit, that I’m glad to have had avoid your radar. Like I say the Marvel and DC work has been carefully couched in the security of major publishers, multiple editors, and the Cloonan Midas Touch… Tremor Dose is different. Tremor Dose is the product of two men walking out of the wilderness with an offering of some obscure, esoteric origin. This alien thing that I struggle to explain plainly is about as much “me” as anything I have done, and that, dear reader, is the real horror. If this book is so much “me” and I cannot explain it, then who the fuck am I.

Does this post feel like a therapy session? Does any of it ring true to you? Am I the on on the couch or am I the one holding the clipboard? I think the answer is we are all in this thing together. We roam the labyrinth of our comically short lives seeking some validation and when we apply some totemic quality to what we have done it’s both brave and foolish. I have never claimed bravery, but I’m quite comfortable playing the fool.

So let it be written, let it be done.

M.

***Tremor Dose is available on comiXology on October 30 2019.