The First Year

July 26, 1991

I figured I would do this column for a year.

When the idea was first broached by an anonymous commentator in Comics Buyer’s Guide and seconded by Don and Maggie Thompson– and then inquired after by any number of friends and business associates– I sat down (since it’s easier to type that way) in front of my computer with absolutely no clue as to what I was going to talk about. And now, a year later, I am in the middle of writing the one-year anniversary column with again no clue as to what I’ll talk about.

I never really thought I would make the whole year, to be honest. For that matter, I never thought I would be able to write it, week in, week out, come hëll or high water.

Actually, the Thompsons did not give me any promise at the time that they would run it weekly, even if I wrote it with that frequency. They simply said that they would do their best. I think part of it was that they didn’t want to get readers used to any sort of weekly publication, on the assumption that sooner or later (probably sooner) I would start blowing my deadlines, anyway.

I haven’t yet.

I’ve come really close on occasion. And I’ve produced short columns and one cartoon column, which required a lot less work, so that I could maintain the weekly schedule. The Thompsons, for that matter, still have not given me any assurance that they will run BID weekly. But there have been times when Maggie has called, warning, “Hey, if you’re going to have a column in this week, we’re going to have to have it tomorrow.” This certainly implies to me that, even though they still haven’t guaranteed weekly publication, they’ve at least grown accustomed to it.

(Usually, by the way, the Thompsons fax me the typeset copy, so that I can proofread it. But, because we’re running late this week thanks to the shortened convention and holiday schedule, that’s not going to be possible. So if, for example, I type “Clint Flicker,” and the appearance of that name makes you scream in indignation due to typos, it’s not my fault.)

Mostly, this column started as a challenge I made to myself. I wanted to see if I could turn it out. For example, some of the most exciting writing I had ever read was from collections of columns by Harlan Ellison– as much as I admire his fiction, I think his best work is his essays and commentaries from the several regular columns that he has produced. As a kind of personal challenge, I wanted to see if I could do something like that myself.

The response has been extremely gratifying. Whereas once a fellow professional had told me that he thought it was important to maintain a “curtain” between the comics pros and the audience, a professional distance– rather Wizard-of Oz-like, I imagine– another has since told me that the advent of my column has helped to bridge that gap between pros and fans, to make the actions of those who create the comics more understandable to those who read them.

I’m flattered by much of the attention that this column has garnered, including compliments from fellow professionals. (One of the first fan letters I got was from Stan Lee, telling me that my column on why writers are scum should have appeared in The New Yorker. Yes. The New Yorker.) Harlan, whom I was trying to emulate, occasionally calls with suggestions or comments. The many fans who come up to me at conventions tell me they read and enjoy BID. It’s amazing to me. Give a guy a column and bang, he’s, whattaya call, respectable.

Even the detractors have been impressive. There was the guy who, in the course of criticizing BID measured the column inches. I mean, that took work. And, hey– when was the last time your work was characterized as nauseating by a highly recognizable comics pro? Hmmmm? I tend to think that letter was the turning point for this column. People seemed to read that and say, “Wow, there must really be something to But I Digress, if it induces projectile vomiting. Usually only your finer rides at amusement parks do that.” Yes, it’s But I Digress, the E-ticket attraction of Comics Buyers’s Guide.

I have been amazed, amused, and even moved by the letters I’ve been receiving, a number of which I am going to be running over the next several weeks. Some have been argumentative, some thought-provoking, and one of them– as the result of painful confessions made in the course of it– is probably one of the most touching and troubling letters that I’ve ever received.

I must admit, sometimes it’s a little disconcerting. There’s still the occasional person who tells me I don’t seem like toxic waste (which usually prompts puzzled looks from anyone standing nearby who wasn’t in on that column). There are the people who still ask if I’m going to be taking Tony up on his offer and adopting the last name of Isabella. I reiterate: Why whould I want to trade my surname, which is the name of a famous king, for that of a famous queen?

And there are the people who ask me questions that relate to aspects of my personal life, and there’s always a momentary flash in my mind of “How did he know this? How does this stranger know my wife is pregnant? How did he know my screenplay was rejected?” And then I realize he must be a reader.

Sometimes, I forget that what I write here, in the privacy of my office, actually goes out and gets read. I mean, I know it intellectually, but the reality of it can throw me from time to time. This column has become such a personal expression of what’s going through my mind that week in regard to my life and career that it doesn’t occur to me that I’m sharing it with others. As wife Myra has said, it’s cheaper than therapy. It’s also higher-profile.

But if there’s one thing this column has provided me with, it’s a sense of appreciation for free speech, for the freedom that was endemic to this country’s creation. And, in the year I’ve been writing this column, the most striking thing I’ve seen is the downslide in those freedoms.

When I was in high school in Verona, N.J. (a pit if there ever was one, at least at the time), one of the few things they taught us that stayed with me was that the socio-political atmosphere of this country is like a pendulum. That, historically, it swings from liberal to conservative and back again.

I had a great deal of trouble accepting that. Oh, maybe that had happened in the past. But here we were just having come through the ’60s into the early ’70s, and we had a country that was nothing but freedoms.

You could say anything and not fear recrimination. Decision after decision supported a free press. Women had the right to decisions (bad decisions, granted, but decisions) about their own bodies. And people knew that war and slaughter was, by and large, a sad thing.

There is nothing more galling than to realize that a theory you had completely brushed off was, in fact, totally correct. Because if you look at the ’90s, you will find that every single one of those major aspects of society is the reverse or in the process of reversing. Freedoms and rights, eroding away, in favor of conservatism and knee-jerk flag-waving.

Many people seem to feel that the greatest political calamity could be President Dan Quayle. I would disagree. I mean, even if that happened, it would be, what, eight years? A couple more, if he came in in the middle of a term? So what?

No, the greatest political calamity is the retirement of the most liberal Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall. I can’t blame the man. He’s, what, 82? And even with him there, he’s consistently in the minority as the court slowly, gently, one soft pin prìçk at a time, eases its way back into the 1950s.

Adverse rulings have come down on matters ranging from the relatively innocuous (nude dancing) to the matter of being able to discuss options. Ideas. Ideas are being regulated against.

The concept of the Supreme Court issuing a gag order on any subject should be antithetical to the First Amendment, and yet that’s what’s been done on government-funded abortion. And there’s more to come; you can bet on that. And we’re not talking about an eight-year term. Were talking thirty, forty years or more.

My children are going to grow up in a substantially different atmosphere than I did. Heaven help them. Because the Supreme Court certainly wont.

I didn’t intend to get so heavy-handed with this. I suppose it’s because in the past year I’ve seen the country change far more than I have seen the comics industry change. Although I suppose the latter reflects the former, at least in conservatism: retailers and distributors becoming more and more cautious about selling those comic books that aren’t guaranteed sellers.

If independent publishers can be perceived as liberals, and Marvel and DC are seen as conservatives, than I guess there is that connection. And, for that matter, comics philosophy preceded the Gulf War in theory and fact. We’ve got heroes who engage the enemy, do their duty, fight, and win. Yet, curiously, the main villain doesn’t really seem to die, and you have to look really hard to see what was accomplished.

A year. I figured I would give up this column after a year.

The heck with it. I’ll stick around for a while longer. What’re they going to do– take me to court and gag me?

It’ll be interesting to find out.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, will make his last public appearance of the summer at a store called Adventure Inc. at 475 Bedford Rd., Pleasantville, N.Y on Saturday, July 27, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Phone (914) 741-2510 for details. After that, he’ll be settling down and waiting for his wife to spawn. Suggested baby names are welcome.)