Veggie Dog Saturn #6
Has anything contributed more to creating small press comic artists than long lines for more established creators at comic conventions? This issue is an origin story of sorts for Jason, as it details his first big comic convention in Chicago, where he was finally able to meet his hero (Bob Burden of “Flaming Carrot” fame). But it was the mini comics of Paul Koob (“Hamster Man”) that seemed to make the biggest impact on his life at the time, and he only happened across that table because the lines for the people that he really wanted to see were too long. Anyway, this comic starts off with Jason tensely waiting out a bomb scare at his place of employment when he was 16. The comics that he wanted to get signed were in the pizza place and, even though nobody thought that the bomb threat was real, he still theoretically risked his life just to grab his comics before they left on the trip to Chicago. Off he went with his older brother and a few of his friends (although the afterword mentions that the contingent that actually went off to Chicago was shrunk for dramatic purposes), and Jason did a really fantastic job of building up Chicago after he had seen it (mostly in the background for Cubs and Bulls games on WGN) for years. The reality matched his dreams, as they had a hotel room on the 30th floor of the convention center and he got a hell of a view of the city. From there he goes on to describe the experience of finally getting to a gigantic comics convention, and there’s no sense of my ruining any of that. It’s a thoroughly engrossing story, one that will no doubt seem familiar to just about anybody reading this review, as most of you must have gone through a similar experience to cross over to the small press stuff. Except for those of you were awesome enough at 11 to start off buying Fantagraphics books, and I honestly think that you people missed out a bit, as it’s hard to value the really great stuff unless you have at least some background in the crap. I was wondering why there aren’t more origin stories out there, but it’s probably very similar for a lot of people. Still, an anthology with this theme would most likely be fascinating. Just saying… $3
