January 30, 2010

So I'm sitting at a meeting with a potential publisher, a few weeks ago, in Boston, the day before meeting Margaret for brunch. It's an interesting company because they are trying to solve the problem of textbook publishing by using a combination of creator's rights philosophy and print-on-demand technology to keep the copyright in the hands of the author and the ultimate decision to print in the hands of the student. Sound familiar? Okay, so, that was all fascinating to learn.

Later in the conversation, figuring that this publishing guy would not really know that much about comics, I figured I would convey my support for what they were doing by expressing general support for this mode of operation in the history of the independent comics, and the way comiXpress is built on exactly the same thing.

HIM: "That's interesting. I did not know that. But we should talk about comics sometime."

ME: "Really? Why?"

HIM: "I was always a big fan. Mostly a Marvel guy from the Big Two, but my real love was for the independents..."

(he pauses here long enough for me to have an entire series of conversations in my head about what might or might not be coming next, including the option that he was actually about to say "...like Cerebus.")

HIM: "...like Cerebus."

ME: "Holy shit. Do you have any idea who you are sitting across the table from right now?"

I suppose he could have thought that I was anyone from Gerhard to a indy-comics serial killer. I started to talk aardvarks, Aartvark, and the collection. And then he jumps in with his favorite stories, issues, characters... and the next 30 minutes is spent on all things Cerebus.