Check Your Ego At The Comic Shop Door
Plus: I go Hollywood, And Somebody Tries To Kill Moff Gideon At Moynihan Train Hall!
Happy Thursday!
I’m especially happy because after six days of traveling-- three cities, five planes, one train, and countless automobiles-- it’s good to be home.
Last Tuesday night’s Los Angeles Premier of FLY was a blast! It was great seeing some of my nearest and dearest and catching up afterward.
After posting Friday’s newsletter, I headed out to catch the Amtrak Acela for my appearance at FanExpo Philadelphia. When I got to Moynihan Train Hall, my 2:00 pm to Philly wasn’t listed on the departures board. The ticket agent informed me that in the six weeks since my ticket was booked, it had “ceased to exist.” Granted, this was an odd choice of words, but I was happy enough that there was a seat available on the next train an hour later, and getting an invitation to chill in the Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge, I opted not to ask questions.
Two coffees and several answered emails later, I decided that the Lounge was too swanky for a guy wearing a ratty Drink and Draw Social Club t-shirt, so it was time to go. As I headed down the escalator, heading up, a woman dragging a chrome electric blue rollaboard suitcase was trying to get her cell phone out of her purse. I was halfway down when I heard her scream, “Oh my God! Watch out!” I looked up in time to see her rollaboard sliding down the escalator. I looked down, and it was headed right for…
Giancarlo Esposito?
Now, I’ve seen many things and lived a lot of life, and I kid you not: Mr. Esposito looked up, calmly assessed the situation, shimmied to the side, and watched the rolla-bullet pass him by and land at the bottom of the escalator.
When it was all over, I thought to myself, damn, he’s as smooth a badass in real life as the characters he plays on screen.
Wit Wiz
If you know, you know.
I got into Philly an hour behind schedule. After checking into my hotel, I went straight to the convention floor, where the first person I ran into, and this will only make sense if you read last’s Friday’s newsletter, was Joe Rubinstein.
The Joe Quesada Experience was sold out again! Here’s the digital layout for one of the commissions. In the coming weeks, I’ll post the final pencil art for all ten here.
Thank you to all the Philly phans who stopped by over the weekend. You always remind me how phortunate I am to do what I do for a living. It was great to meet you and (I promise this is the last one) I had a phantastic time.
Let me tell you a story.
A Wall Of Me
No one was happier than my father when I became a professional comic book artist. He was my biggest fan (I’ll save that story for next week).
By the time my career started to take off, my dad and my mom had moved to Miami, and unbeknownst to me, he would go to a comic shop near his house and buy whatever comic or cover I had out that month. I had no idea he was doing this until I flew down for a visit and encountered this in his TV room.
At the time, I found it cringy, but as I look at that photo today, I can’t help but smile. The funniest part of it was sitting in that rocker next to my dad’s lounge chair and listening to him constantly remind me to never get too full of myself – all the while staring at a wall of me.
During one of my visits, he asked if I would come with him to the comic shop and say hello to the owner, who, after seeing him in the store regularly, finally got around to asking him why he was only buying my stuff.
“I told him you’re my son. I get a 30% discount now.”
I really didn’t want to go, but it was my dad. And there was no use arguing that I could get him the books for free. It was bragging about his son to the staff and customers that made paying 30% off retail worth it.
The store was small and run down, and as he introduced me to the owner, he told him, “Next time Joe’s in town, he’ll do a signing for you.”
F@#k!
On the day of the signing, my dad drove me to the store and left to run some errands. Things seemed off from the beginning. I arrived early, so the lack of fans wasn’t surprising, but I had given them several months’ notice, and there wasn’t anything promoting my appearance inside or outside the shop. When I brought this to the owner’s attention, he said, “Not true.” And pointed to an 11x17 piece of brown cardboard with “Signing: Joe Quesada” scribbled in blue ballpoint pen. “I’ve had that up since yesterday,” he said proudly.
To give you some context, at this point in my career, Batman: Sword of Azrael had already come out, and I was drawing decent crowds at conventions, but an hour into my two-hour signing, only four fans had come through the door. Three of them got their books signed and left. The fourth was a young lady with a paper bag filled with books under her arm. But instead of asking me to sign them, she sidled over to the back issue bins and waited patiently, sometimes rifling through the books to kill time.
When I was younger, I was very shy, and I could feel her pain as she gathered the courage to ask me to sign her books, but I thought it best to let her work through it in her own way.
Now I’m an hour and a half in and dying to get out of there, and she’s still standing in the back of the store waiting. I didn’t want to leave without her getting her books signed, but at this point, she was the only thing standing between me and a polite early exit, so I took matters into my own hands.
“Are you here for the signing?”
“Yes. When does he get here?”
“Uhhh, I’ve been here since you walked through the door.”
Opening up her paper bag and revealing a stack of CDs, she said, “You’re not Jon Secada!”
After explaining who I was not, I asked her what would make her think Jon Secada would be signing at a comic shop. She marched me to the front of the store and gestured toward the sign. I pointed out it said Quesada, not Secada.
“Yeah, fine, okay, but who the hell can read that?”
Shortly after, my dad pulled up to drive me back home and asked me how it went.
“They didn’t promote the signing. I had four fans, and one of them thought I was Jon Secada.”
“Good!”
“Good?”
He then pointed a finger in my face and reminded me, “Never get too full of yourself.”
Over the course of my career, I’ve seen more than my share of people taking themselves way too seriously. That’s why I’m so incredibly thankful for my dad, the people in my life, and experiences like that store signing. Because on those days when I might be feeling myself a bit too much, all I have to do is remember…
After my dad passed, a group of family members stopped by to pass along their condolences and tell a few stories from back in the day. Knowing I was putting his house up for sale, one of them asked if they could take a slabbed book off the wall of me to remember him by. Before I knew it, they were all asking for a book because their fondest memory of my dad was how proud he was of me.
It’s my fondest one, too.
Did You Know?
I’ve heard from many of you that this is your first Substack experience. Awesome, I’m happy you’re taking the plunge with me. But did you know that there’s a web version of this email you’re reading with additional content and (eventual) archives of stuff? Just click on the masthead, and it’ll take you there. Or take this simple poll.
Because You Demanded It?
As I write this, my buddy Kristian is staying over at my place, and we’re shooting some video content to share here and on YouTube. I promise it’ll be a step up from this one:
Thanks for reading!
You’re Amazing!
JQ
Want to start your own wall of me? My original art is for sale at Kwan Chang Art. Don’t let him keep it all to himself.
That story about your dad...well...I think someone's cutting onions around here.
Your dad sounds like an awesome guy.
That Jon Secada story is hilarious. Did your dad have a favorite piece of your work?