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.)
TO GEORGIA AND BACK AGAIN
I don't remember exactly when, but at some point I started lettering for some webcomics for Rogue Wolf Entertainment. At first it was just one, then it became three, and then I started editing them as well. It was a lot of fun, and it was pretty consistent pay for a while. I was also picking up other lettering gigs on some great titles, and some other not so great titles. But Rogue Wolf kept me pretty busy.
Rogue Wolf was run by Lance Stahlberg, who also wrote two of the webcomics (and I say webcomics, but they were full-length comics also collected in trades), and we would chat back and forth since I was also his editor. It was an odd arrangement, but it worked for us. And I got to work on three distinctly different titles in Nocturnal Essence, Redshift and The Veil (written by Sean Taylor, who also wrote the Gene Simmons' Dominatrix books through IDW).
While I was doing all this lettering I was also looking for other work. All the other comic news sites I contacted either didn't respond to me, or had openings, but offered no pay. So that was a dead end. I was so used to working at home now that the thought of going back to a day job was not appealing in the least bit. Fortunately Rogue Wolf and other lettering (for companies like FE Comics and Ronin Studios) kept me busy and paid enough to pay the bills, or at least the important ones.
Then I got this bright idea to start my own comic news website. I didn't really have any money, but I did have a friend who was eager to invest as long as I was at the helm of the site. We gathered some of the writers from SBC and started making plans. We had a rough layout in mind and even hired web designers. Talks were going good.
Sometime around here Lance informed me that Rogue Wolf would no longer be producing comics for a while because another opportunity came along. At first I was crushed because there went my one steady income branch. I didn't know what I was going to do now. But then Lance informed me of what that other opportunity was. Cold Cut Distribution sold their company, and Lance had the chance to purchase it and he did. So he was shifting his business from comic creator to comic distributor. And thus began Haven Distributors. This was interesting, but I still wasn't sure what it meant for me. Long story short, he just shifted my duties from Rogue Wolf to Haven, and I've been working with him ever since.
On the other side of things, while I was trying to get this site of mine together I had another offer come down the pike. A company I had been in contact with before, Tales of Wonder, contacted me again. They had contacted me while I was working at SBC and talked about me doing some work for them writing articles and blogging and such, but nothing ever came of it. Here it was roughly six months later and they contact me out of the blue about a similar job, only this time it was full-time and would require me relocating to Georgia.
At first I was hesitant. This was a big step, but the money was really good - better than any other job I'd ever had in my life. So I had no choice but to entertain the thought. And it was working for a company dealing with comics (they're an online trade and graphic novel store to put it simply). And they really wanted me. So much, in fact, that they offered to take me to the Iron Man movie premiere in New York! Unfortunately, schedule conflicts prohibited that, but they still flew me to Georgia and put me up in a hotel with a rental car for a week while they showed me around the company.
It was a fun experience. I hadn't really been wined and dined before, and I was honored that they were interested in me that much. They were nice people I could see working with day-to-day, and it was a good area where I would be living. Actually, I loved the city (Suwanee) and by the end of the week had made my decision to take the job, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
While I was in Georgia I also got to reconnect with my Dad, who lived about 2 hours south. He drove up and we had dinner and talked. It was really good and cleared the air between us so that now we're in a good place with each other. That was also a factor in me taking the job. My dad is about an 8-9 hour drive or so from me now, and we've not seen each other much over the years. Living that close meant we could see each other more often and have some form of a relationship. Having gotten past a rocky childhood that appealed to me.
Tales of Wonder had another requirement, though - they wanted me exclusive, which meant the site I had been planning would have to die. This was not something I took lightly and I toiled over it for a few days. I finally talked to my partner and told her what was going on. She understood and that was that, or so I thought.
The other thing was that the part of the job that I thought was the main part, which was the writing for the site and such, was not the main part, but a very secondary part. While they had mentioned doing stuff for conventions, I wasn't aware of exactly how much they wanted me to do. Keep in mind that at this point, which was May 2008, I had never been to a convention in my life. What they wanted me to do was help pack all the products for cons, drive this big truck all over the place, to New York, Florida, Baltimore, etc., and then man the cash register during the entire show and I could not leave the table for anything save maybe 30 minutes for lunch. I couldn't walk around, couldn't get relieved, and that was the part that didn't appeal to me so much. But it was still a good opportunity so I decided to take it.
Let me also put this into perspective a little bit. My Papaw's funeral was the week of this trip. The ticket had already been bought and the trip planned when he passed away. I had to miss his funeral for this, so I was not taking this lightly at all. No, I wasn't crazy about this part of the job, but I took it regardless. I made the decision on Friday morning, the day I was flying back home, and went in and told them the good news. They were thrilled. The catch? I had to fly home, pack, and be back there to start work on Monday! No time whatsoever to regroup. They were paying a moving fee, but still, that's a whole lot of pressure.
When I got home I started thinking about this a lot and how my life was about to drastically change. So foolishly I emailed them. I was thanking them for the opportunity and asking if I'd have a chance to walk around at cons and so forth as I wanted to make sure. In the email I happened to mention that the con part of the job I wasn't crazy about, but I was looking forward to the job overall.
The next morning they responded and rescinded the offer citing that I was suddenly no longer right for the job. I was crushed. I called them and tried to talk it through, giving stupid excuses for why I wrote the email (I had a gall bladder attack that night and had taken some medication - why I told them that I'll never know - lapse of judgment, that one) trying to hold onto this job I had just accepted that was causing me to uproot my entire life. The only reason they really gave me was that because I wasn't crazy about that part I wasn't right for the job. Even though I had been pretty upfront about not being crazy about that part from day one.
So after all that trouble and missing my Papaw's funeral I was back at square one. So I thought I'd get back to doing my own site, right? Wrong. Because I almost got this job my partner backed out all together for fear I would get another offer and take it. So my site was now dead in the water as she was also my investor.
Then I met Chuck Moore.-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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