I first started getting serious about comic books when I was about 15. It couldn't have been a better time to start collecting. Mainstream comics were going through a new Golden Age, with people like Frank Miller, Alan Moore, John Byrne and others helping to redefine the superhero. The direct comics market was also just coming into its own, so there was an explosion of independent and alternative titles to discover as well.
Unfortunately, this era also marked the beginning of the comic book speculation market. I got caught up in the euphoria for a brief time, treating new titles like stock IPOs, trying to guess which ones would skyrocket in value. The publishers didn't make it any easier by doing things like printing multiple cover variations for the same issue, forcing you to buy them all because you didn't know which one would become the collector's item. One of my most outlandish purchases during that time was buying 10 copies of The Fish Police #1. Desperate for cash, I think I sold about nine of them back to the comic store six months later for 25 cents on the dollar. Lesson learned. Sort of. I still have multiple first issues from the re-launches of Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and several other DC heroes, all of them virtually worthless.
My interest in comics was spurred in large part by Mike Fedyk, my grade 9 Social Studies teacher. He was also a huge comic book collector, but he was never in it for the money. To Mike, speculation was abhorrent, a trend that was ruining the industry.
Mike is one of those pivotal people that I look back on in my life and say that if I hadn't met him, I don't know where I'd be today. Mike did a lot of great things for my friends and me, but one of the nicest things he ever did was lend me his entire Teen Titans comic collection over Christmas. It sounds silly now, but I remember staying up far too late reading each issue cover to cover. It was my best holiday season ever. In addition to educating my tastes in comics, Mike was also one of the few people who made me feel like I could do something great with my life. As cheezy as it sounds, he believed in me, and that helped me believe in me, too. In fact, I've always felt like what little success I've achieved as a writer is due in large part to his influence.
Apart from collecting comics, Mike also inspired me to start writing comics of my own. Mike had already created a sprawling comics universe complete with a pantheon of heroes and villains, an epic history and dozens of titles and story arcs, many of which he had written and illustrated. The breadth of his vision still amazes me when I think about it. My own efforts at creating comics paled by comparison, but at least it got me writing. Below is an image of my marquee hero, Watchglass, who was essentially a Batman rip-off. Everything I wrote at that time was a rip-off of something. What can I say, the more things change, the more they stay the same...
Entrepreneur that I am, even though my writing was crap, I decided to try publishing some of my work. I even made contact with a teenage artist named Donald Matwe from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. He was a little hesitant about his ability to pull it off, but I was determined to press forward. With a cast of characters, story ideas and an artist in hand, only one question remained: How do you go about publishing a comic book?
Once again, Mike came through for me. He showed up at school one Monday morning after a trip to the big city with a copy of Gary Brodsky's How to Publish Comics in hand.
The book was a godsend. The son of [then] Marvel Comics managing editor Sol Brodsky, Gary had achieved some measure of success in the black and white direct comics market (you could call him the Samuel Z Arkoff of the comics world), and this book contained his trade secrets. He provided detailed tips on how to work with talent, how to choose a printer, how to set your print run, how to determine your cover price, how the comics distribution system worked and how to market your books. It was invaluable information for someone sequestered on a farm near Foam Lake, Saskatchewan. Today, Foam Lake may bill itself as "The Best Place in the World to Live," but then as now, it was about as far away from the world of comic book publishing as you could be. With Brodsky's book in hand, however, I felt like I could do anything. Soon I was contacting printers, running the numbers and generally plotting to take over the comic book world.
For one reason or another, that comic book venture never happened. But my dream of becoming a publisher lived on. I eventually got my chance years later when I came up with the idea for my first book, The Tree Planter's Survival Guide.
Even though it wasn't a comic book, when it came time to publish, I pretty much followed Brodsky's advice to the letter, because the business principles for books and comics were essentially the same. For example, rather than printing up a warehouse full of books and then seeing if anyone wanted to buy them, I followed Brodsky's advice and got enough pre-orders and sold enough advertising beforehand so that by the time I went to press, most of my printing costs were already covered. Eventually, I self-distributed about 1,000 copies of the book across Canada. I'm still rather proud of that achievement, which I pulled off in the pre-Internet era.
After I was done with the treeplanting project, I put Brodsky's book away for the next several years until my friend Brad Jersak approached me in 2002 about editing his book Can You Hear Me? Tuning In to the God Who Speaks. After considering several publishing alternatives, Brad decided to have a go at self-publishing. With a little help from Brodsky, we co-founded Freshwind Press. It turned out to be a resounding success. Brad's initial book sold tens of thousands of copies all over the world, and he has gone on to write and publish several more. Today, Fresh Wind Press has over a dozen titles in print.
Having received so much help from Brodsky over the years, recently, I decided it was time to send him a brief "thank you" e-mail to acknowledge his contribution to my life. I assumed that he had gone on to achieve his own considerable success in the comic book industry and that he was probably well ensconced at one of the major publishers, if not his own company.
Well, you can imagine my surprise when I Googled his name and found this...
And this...
Turns out Brodsky is as entrepreneurial as ever, but he appears to have left the world of comic books far behind...
I can't tell you how saddened and disappointed I was to make this discovery. Back when I "knew" Gary, he seemed like a guy who went out of his way to help people. Now it looks like his career is dedicated to taking advantage of them instead.I don't mean to be too hard on him. As repulsive as I find his current "occupations," everyone walks his or her own path on this earth. But I can't help feeling sorry for him. People don't tend to pursue such lines of work if they're truly happy in life. Somehow, somewhere, something must have went wrong in the mix.
At first, I said forget it. There's no way I'm going to send Gary an e-mail now. But then I thought that perhaps a brief word of thanks is exactly what he needs to hear at this moment. Maybe that's the sort of thing he's been missing all these years.
So, thanks, Gary. Wittingly or not, your little book played a pivotal role in helping me get established as a writer, editor, publisher and, eventually, screenwriter. I still have my dog-eared copy of How to Publish Comics, and I still take it down from the shelf from time to time. I hope it gives you a measure of satisfaction knowing that you truly helped someone like me, and I hope my note inspires you to continue the doing the same for others.
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