DE: You’ve said that Milk and Cheese is
not the cash cow everyone thinks it is. I hope
this isn’t a strange question but why not?
ED: Every once in a while, someone gets the
idea that M & C made me rich.
DE: For a while there was shirts, mugs and the
trade paperback seems to be in print all the time.
ED: Well the mugs were self produced and I
broke a whole bunch of them in suitcases taking them
to England. So that’s the glamorous comic book life.
Most of that stuff is DIY stuff. Bands like Fishbone
never made any money and they were certainly on TV and
on plenty of movie soundtracks.
In comics, merchandise
doesn’t mean that much. A comic comes out and its
number one in the back of that stupid catalog and its
got a stupid t-shirt and a mug that ships with the
first issue as though everyone can’t wait to see
this crap even though they’ve never read the comic.
You remember when everyone had their own action figure
company. They were doing comics just to make the
figure. Merchandise doesn’t mean you’re doing
well. Somebody comes to us and asks if we want to do a
card set because we were sitting next to them at the
San Diego Convention. 21st century did a card
set, Graphitti Designs did a flat magnet set and Bowen
did a magnet because someone suggested we do a magnet
as a giveaway at the retailer expo in San Diego.
Again I don’t go hunting for this stuff, the
lunch box came to me, the mugs we did ourselves, and
Sarah and I do buttons ourselves that we sell at
conventions. For a small press book Milk & Cheese
does really well. But I’ve done like seven issues in
ten years and I haven’t done one since 1997. You don’t
make a ton of money off that. If I was in this
industry to make tons of money I would have taken M
& C to Dark Horse or something. I’ve had
offers to take monthly books and that’s not a
bragging thing. Anyone that’s got a computer and has
been in the industry for two seconds is offered a
book.
DE: It seems like people are always immediately
offered X-Men.
ED: I was offered an X-Men book years
ago, X-Men 2099, and $20.99 is about what I
would have made off that. I’m glad I turned that
down but for a long time I did not want to work for
Marvel because I did not like their attitude towards
small press. Lately though it doesn’t seem like they
are stepping on the necks of small press people
anymore.
DE: What do you think of the changes in the
industry? Does it affect you at all?
ED: No, because I’ve always said this because
by and large I’ve always done pretty well. Sarah and
I are lucky that we’ve always gotten work to
supplement what we really want to do. I don’t hate
mainstream comics; I’ve worked for them. I was a
superhero fan as a kid unlike some so-called
alternative guys, so I don’t know how alternative I
am doing humor books. As far as being someone who has
worked in the small press most of my career, you don’t
make a lot of money so you’re not shocked to still
not make a lot of money. There was no boom or bust for
me. When these guys give these grandiose speeches in
the Buyer’s Guide about how we’re all to
blame for the fall of the industry in 1992-93. I would
get really pissed because most of the guys who I’m
friends with or whose work I read didn’t do anything
but put out a bunch of books. They didn’t get giant
paychecks.
DE: They didn’t drip silver gloss onto their
covers.
ED: They didn’t sign their name for money.
Well you could you say that they didn’t get the
opportunity but that’s bullshit because some were. I
was given the opportunity to do a signed Milk &
Cheese edition; I could have done a signed World’s
Funnest. Again I’m not saying I’m some martyr
but I don’t want to do things that I think rips the
fans off. As much as I attack the fans in my work and
a lot of them think I’m a bastard for doing it, I’ve
never tried to rip them off with a bullshit forced
collectible item. The only Dynamic Forces thing I’ve
signed was the Heroes book because I felt that
was for a good cause and that no one was making any
money off of that. I just didn’t want to do a World’s
Funnest Dynamic Forces and the guy there, to his
credit, dropped it. I don’t know if it was because
of me. I know Alex Ross signs everything he does
because he’s hard up for cash.
DE: He does so much stuff, it seems like he’s
even painting in the bathroom.
ED: Well I do too but I flush them. Some of
these people really do fool themselves into believing
that getting this stuff on QVC spreads the word on the
industry. But if the word you’re spreading is this
ridiculous high priced junk collectible what the hell
is the point of that? All you’re doing is
reinforcing the speculation nonsense. Which has hurt
this industry the most over the past twenty years, the
black and white boom, the Valiant/Image boom, the
multiple covers boom, the card and pog boom. Everybody
takes advantage of these things and the retailers seem
to make no money after all the dust has settled.
You
should just do your books and what you’re supposed
to do for the fans is sell them a book that’s
decent. No one should pay for anyone’s signature. If
people bought my book that’s all they need to do to get my
signature. To get a few bucks for a signature is
wrong. If you’re big enough want your signature, you
don’t need their goddamn money. Whenever I see
people doing these forced collectibles that make them
all that money based on the fact that people like
their work, I just always hope that their star falls because I
think they’re petty. That’s just my anger, people
could say its jealousy but the way the world works is
that people who like your work agree with everything
you say and the people who don’t like your work think
you suck no matter what you do.
DE: One fan of yours told me to ask you this
question. Supposedly at a convention you acted similar
to the way William Shatner did in that Saturday Night
Live sketch, you told them to stop reading comics and
start dating girls. Is this an exaggeration of how you
feel?
ED: I’d have to know when it was and when I
did. The whole point of Eltingville is that you
shouldn’t live for your hobby, even the
professionals. And 9/10 of the professionals are geeks
and I count myself as being pretty geeky. You do have
to get out of the basement and clean up your life.
There’s a lot of detritus in your life when you’re
into collecting stuff. Sometimes you have to look
around at the plastic and realize that most of this is
bullshit.
Another thing with Eltingville is that it
could be sports enthusiasts, political nuts, car
aficionados, film buffs or anything like that.
Obsession is not good, living for your hobby is not
good and unfortunately a large percentage of fandom is
a little too worked up over who is wearing the Green
Lantern costume and how many comics they have and how
much more they know than this guy or that guy.
Not all fans are like this, there are plenty of
fans who never get on the Internet, never go to
conventions, they read the conics then toss them in
the closet and they’re done. Not everyone has to be
a casual fan. Some people get incredibly defensive as
if I’m laying laws down. I believe in doing whatever
you want but I also believe in making fun of some
people who do whatever the hell they want.
I’ve been a fan my whole life, I worked in a
comic book store for six years, I do this
professionally, I’ve been to a ton of conventions,
there’s a lot of incredibly depressing and pathetic
behavior and some really obnoxious behavior. One of
the places where Eltingville sprung from is the
fact that all these afterschool specials or Freaks
& Geeks, the geeky guy is always somebody to
really root for and feel sorry for, he’s a misfit
and goofy.
Over the years I’ve realized that that
cliché is necessarily true, a lot of geeks once given
a modicum of power whatever that might be, are
absolute tyrants and assholes. With a lot of people in
fandom, their fanishness is their armor. They’ve
built a personality out of toys and collections, what
they have or know. Not on life experiences or relating
to people. To send hate mail to cartoonists because
they’ve killed off a character you liked or because
you don’t like the storyline of a fictional
superhero or a talking creature is nuts. Especially
when you’re past the age of sixteen or so. I’ve
sent fan mail and I know its nutty. There comes a time
when you realize that if your house burnt down,
you lost your collection, life must go on.
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