Brant was a fan of comics as a kid and it stuck with him into adulthood. These days he's also an aspiring comic creator. This column discusses his personal journey from fandom to the annals of the creative society that is the world of comics. Brant's current comic series is Wannabez and this is his journey. (If it's you're first time joining him, you can visit the link at the bottom of the article to start the journey from the beginning.)
NEW JOBS AND PROJECTS
Throughout the course of all this I had been working day jobs like everyone else. While in college I was working at Lexmark for about a year. I even almost moved to Florida with that job, but things didn't work out. I also hated that job with a passion, but met several cool people who I'm still in touch with to this day. One of them was even a girl I dated for several months, one of the sweetest girls I've ever met, Shannon. She's happily married and has a handsome son now.
After Lexmark I took a year trying to figure out what to do with my life and just wound up writing and falling into lettering during that time. But the bills became a problem, so off to work I went again. This time at Ridge, which used to be a Charter Ridge. I worked in the business office, but the people I worked with were obsessed with money and didn't care about the patients there. It was good money, and I stuck it out for a year, but it finally got to me. See, it was part of my responsibility to head back on the wing and tell the patients what they owed us, which was never a pleasant conversation. I got yelled at, blamed and hated for that part of my job.
I also discharged patients as they had to stop by the business office before they could leave so I could again remind them of their financial responsibility. One lady came in one night very somber, even though she had cried when I had talked to her previously because they didn't have that kind of money. I was the last person to speak to her in the hospital. The next night her friend came in hysterical and informed me she committed suicide the night she left the hospital. That weighed very heavily on me. While I did stick it out at the job for a while afterwards, that fact plus the intense focus on money and lack of care for humanity ultimately sent me packing. I couldn't take it.
I was 26 at this point and had no idea where life was headed. For the next year and a half I painted apartments on and off for my uncle and his friends. I had done this before for a summer when I was 19, and while I was no pro, I was decent at it. It was money and mostly on my own schedule, so it worked for a while. I could work on comic stuff and play video games, or whatever as I pleased and still get the job done and get paid.
On the comic side of things, I had joined up with a new studio called Midnight Studio Comics. The guy behind it, Andrew West, who was an amazing artist and a decent writer, had all these story ideas that tied together, but also opened it up to new ideas. I jumped on one of his core ideas and created a concept around it. There were different color series in his Death Lurker saga, and mine was White. Specifically, Death Lurker: White - Solomon's Temple. It's a story I now own even though the studio is defunct, and I'm removing the whole Death Lurker part and doing something different with it. Looking back, it wasn't my best work, but it has some potential. But it was a fun studio to work with while it lasted. Cary was there, as were several other friends, including Howard Wong who went on to write Image series After the Cape. But ultimately that studio shut its doors and gave away some of its properties, one of which I grabbed and plan to eventually do something with.
Meanwhile, back in "real life", the fourplex we were living in at the time was owned by my uncle, and he decided to sell it. We were getting a break on the rent, so we were a little scared on what was going to happen. Fortunately, the new landlord let us stay there for a couple of months with the same rent. But my uncle purchased a few houses in Winchester (he was always purchasing cars or properties and selling or renting them), so for the first time in over 20 years I was leaving Lexington to live somewhere else, and it's where I live to this day. I wasn't thrilled with the prospect of living in Winchester, but it was a little fun at first. My cousin, who was a newlywed, also moved into one of the houses, so I got to see her and her husband a lot more. And my aunt and her son, my cousin Matt who is the lead singer of the band that opens the Zone 4 podcast every week, lived in the other. So we had our own little community there for a while. But before long they both moved and we were all alone.
I started working for another call center, which I said I'd never do again after Lexmark, but it was within walking distance and it was money. Our rent was higher here, so I had to do something. That lasted about three months. For one, I despised the job, but I was willing to tough it out. But a few things took place that made me quit. For one, I started having intense stomach pains that I would learn 3 years later were gallstones. I was also having a couple of other physical problems as well as dealing with some personal stuff I won't go into. So my whole world took a dive. I was in bed more than not through pain, and so I lost that job.
Fortunately, somehow I stumbled onto a job I could work from home doing something I loved - working in comics! I answered another ad for an editor on Digital Webbing, but this time it was for a comic news website called Silver Bullet Comics (not to be confused with Silver Bullet Comic Books, which is now Comics Bulletin). At first it was a part-time press editor job, so I would post press releases for 20 hours a week. It wasn't long before I was promoted to Editor-in-Chief as the previous one left, and I oversaw several other editors and managed content for the site. Soon after, all those other editors left and it was just me running the entire site, but I was full-time and had a weekly check coming in. It was wonderful! I was engulfed in comic news every day, talking with pros at Marvel and DC, setting up interviews, creating special pages for content, and so on and so forth. I loved it... until the checks stopped coming. See, that site was also a physical and online comic shop, and that side of business started having a lot of issues and got some negative press causing the store and the site to eventually shut down and disappear into the ether, but not before my name and reputation got a little marred by association even though I had absolutely nothing to do with the store side of things. It is what it is, though, and I bounced back.
Afterwards I began searching out similar work because I enjoyed it so much, but nobody was hiring. I actually even approached Chuck about CR before knowing Chuck, which we kind of laugh about now.
For a good two years I was making a solid living in comics and creating when I had free time. I was playing video games, having fun and hardly ever left the house, which was a good and bad thing.
Afterwards, though, there was a lull, but thankfully a few other things began to fall into place.
-B
Past Columns - Start the Journey at the beginning! Click here to check out all the past Journey of a Wannabe columns.
Brant W. Fowler / Writer, Letter, Creator, Reviewer, Columnist and Comic Related PR Coordinator
Brant W. Fowler has been a professional comic book letterer and logo designer for three years, and has been a freelance editor for the past five years. He has also worked with graphic design, writing and many other area of skills for several years honing his talents. You can learn all about what he's up to by visiting Gonzogoose
Design. Brant is also a member of the core
operations team at Comic Related.
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