Comic artists who are dickheads

[anarky]

Please keep this to stuff you yourself has verified, unless you identify it as secondhand info.

First up: Mark Texeira. Absolutely stunning painter. Easily one of the best artists of the early 90s. So, why is he here?

In the aforementioned early 90s, when I could still stroll up to guys like Mark Bagley or Joe Quesada at Heroes Con in Charlotte, I often did so. The line for guys like Jim Lee were awfully long, but most artists were really nice guys. (Especially the late, great Mike Wieringo and the underappreciated Chuck Wotjciewicz.)

Tex, though, was not. He would not sign books unless you bought an original painting. He only painted for three hours total at the convention. He did not announce beforehand when this would be; you just had to keep your eyes open for when he was actually at the section of table marked with his name. He did not allow you to pick the painting; it was just whatever he happened to be in the mood to paint. And we're not talking detailed stuff, just a pencil sketch with a couple of quick watercolor strokes. (Of course, in his hands, I must admit that still meant it was gorgeous stuff.)

Paintings started at $30, a pretty hefty amount back then. However, though the size would not change, the price of each consecutive painting would go up by $5 or $10, announced when he started. The next person in line could either fork over the money, wait for whatever painting he got, and hand him one comic to be signed, or he could be asked to get out of line.

My friend was second in line. He got a beautiful pic of Wolverine chomping a cigar. He handed Tex a copy of Transformers #4. (The two of us always liked to take older, preferably obscure stuff to cons. We liked the reactions it got. Once, JRJR actually said, "I've not seen this in years!" and read an entire Iron Man comic, then thanked us for bringing it. Most artists seemed to feel like you were trying to show you were more of a fan of their work than if you just brought in the latest polybagged #1 comic they did.)

So Tex looks at it for a second. It's not clear if he remembers doing the cover or not. Then he scribbles his name on it, and says something like, "I can't believe you brought that shit here."

Bob Layton. A real contender for "Where the Fuck Are They Now?" Same Con. This was right after Shooter left or was fired from Valiant (depending on who you believe), and he was the man in charge. And Valiant was incredibly hot shit at this point.

Or maybe it was right before, and it was Jim Shooter after all. In either case, one is a prick. I guess I should qualify that I don't entirely remember which it was. I remember him wearing a 3-piece suit, which was apparently the trademark of whoever it was, which I guess is more consistent with Shooter, who has a reputation of dickery anyway.

Well, the point is this: whoever was in charge of Valiant would not allow any Valiant employee or freelancer to autograph any book not published by Valiant. Keep in mind that, at this time, their staff included guys like Barry Windsor Smith. (Somehow Quesada, being on the other side of the convention center, either was immune to this rule or ignored it.)

Call me crazy, but, especially given Valiant's history of innovative marketing, why not watch what people are bringing? If someone brings up only a Spider-Man by Gary the Anonymous Artist, why not give them a free copy of Shadowman and say, "Hey, since you like Gary, here's what he's working on for us"? And then get Gary to sign it, hell, do a quick sketch on the back cover if the booth isn't busy. Back then, at least, signing a comic was like this totally surreal, magical event that turned a magazine into gold.

But, yeah, we actually saw kids of about 10-12 bring comics up to the booth, only to be told by whichever dick was in charge that the artists couldn't sign them, but they could buy whatever other book they did for Valiant. Bear in mind that, at this point, the average Valiant cover price of $2.50 was 2-3 times as much as a Marvel or DC book. And, besides, Valiant had some damned deep pockets.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Jim Shooter is seriously like 7 feet tall. I think it would be hard to mix him and anyone else up. If the guy you were thinking of was a GIANT (and you would remember meeting a ginormous giant) then it was Shooter. Otherwise it was probably Layton.

I don't have any interesting stories about artists who are dicks. Except I heard about this one guy who has his own forum and he bans people from there for no reason. Except that guy isn't really an artist, so he doesn't qualify for this topic.

[Rob Liefeld]

Jim Lee is a dickhead. So is Jim Valentino. And Marc Silvestri. And Whilce Portwhateverio. And especially that sonovabitch Todd McFarlane. Erik Larsen used to be a dickhead, but he decided Youngblood was cool and brought Image begging to be brought back under my control. That's going to be AWESOME! And EXTREME! When I'm back in charge, a lot of junk is getting cancelled, like that stupid Supreme knockoff, Invincible. Every month (or whenever I feel like it), you're going to get a fresh, new issue of Youngblood, or Supreme, or Brigade, or Troll, or maybe Bloodwulf. Yep, there will be a lot of fresh ideas when I'm back in charge. I can't wait. There will be a real ablution of the stinky, fishy old books.

[Venkman]

You know who's a super mega dickhead? RAGS MORALES. I hate that guy!



Hi Rob!!