It's finally here!

So the Riverwolf CD made it out. (Click the image above to find sound clips and updated images and all that good stuff.)

And I don't mind saying that it was both a nourishing and murderous project to work on. It's like this every time. --The first issue of T&K, each of the four collected volumes, and every third issue or so. --Wonderful, and murderous at the same time. And this one was a collaborative effort with an excellent friend, which pretty much doubled up the amount of, well, everything. In short, I learned a lot.

Including a bit about the music industry.

Actually, this whole thing has been a bit of a holiday for yours truly; My kind of holiday. --I enjoy life best when I'm working on things which are new and interesting and demanding. I'm eager to get back to drawing comics-proper, but painting and designing such a new kind of publication as this was a welcome change and most educational side trip.

Check this out. . .

The CD is later than I would have liked. Partly this was due to both Tony and myself getting the flu. He had to book new studio time because his voice was shot, and I basically passed out for a week while trying to piece together the graphics design, which decided to jump at me with a multitude of unexpected challenges. (And for such a short story!) Color comics are very different animals from their black & white cousins! That's for sure. Making this project come together took a great deal of stamina. But like I said, it always works out that way, I find. The really good projects always nearly kill you.

Just as an example. . . I figured when a manufacturer described a, "10 day turnaround time," I thought they meant a, "10 day turnaround time". --So when I gave myself a whole month, I thought things should be covered. Silly, silly Mark. . !

Shania Twain. --The latest in pre-fab pop icons was/is being hyper-marketed across all of North America with a big double CD package.

As it happened, every other recording artist in the industry trying to press a CD for Christmas was wringing their hands in deadline stress because Shania's project was taking up virtually the whole resource base of Toronto's CD manufacturing industry that month. All other projects were getting bumped, and a tiny little run like ours was just going to have to wait. (We were clearly not using enough comas on the checks we were giving people!)

Still, aside from my own deadline stresses and the climbing costs, and the endless series of errors and glitches and re-do's, I privately thought it was all very exciting. Novel, anyway. To point at one of those fabricated superstars as her picture rolled by on the side of a bus and be able to gripe about her for an actual reason other than something purely esthetic. . . The Varkias in me was having a grand old time! --Meanwhile, the Rubel in me was saying, "Aw, missing the Christmas season isn't so bad. The CD turned out really well. People are going to like it with or without the holiday gift wrapping. And you know, I bet Shania's not so bad either. She's just making mistakes like the rest of us. That girl is in the process of getting used by a greedy and heartless industry, and she's way out of her league artistically. She may be in denial, she may even embrace it, but in the end she knows the score on some level, and that's gotta stink. You shouldn't be so annoyed with her. I mean, things worked out much better because of all this! You learned a ton, and the CD came out looking twice as good as it might have. This is all good!"

Sigh. Rubel always sees things like that. There is some really good work in that project; my first proper collaborative effort, and it did turn out wonderfully.

(Actually, you can go to the CD page and get some sound clips now. . . Got them all uploaded! I hope my server doesn't choke!)

So anyway, in jumping into this whole process, I discovered a couple of things.

First off, the place where all CDs come from is big. Very big. The plant which made ours actually services a large portion of the U.S. CD music industry as well. I was just over there to pick up the shipment and I was knocked off my feet by the size of the factory. I remember thinking, "Geez. They must share this monstrosity of a structure with at least 5 other businesses!" --The place had giant liquid storage tanks attached to building exterior. They almost looked like they did a bit of oil refinery on the side!

Turns out that the CD manufacturer isn't entirely dissimilar to the printing plant which presses the T&K comic books. They own everything. They took over the world. There is only one company. If you want to print CDs, then you print them there or you don't print them at all. --Which can't possibly be entirely true, but it was true enough in our case. And yes, they did take up the whole building. They ran a full service printing press in the back to make the paper portions of the CD package! So in effect, they were even bigger than my comics printer.

Well, that's actually not true. Not by a long shot. T&K is printed on something known as a 'web press', which is a monster of a machine; three stories tall with the footprint of a small office tower. The color printing press at the CD factory is only about the size of a city bus. But you still need a giant warehouse to house all the bindery equipment and stacks of stock and jobs in progress, etc. Not a small operation, by any means. But anyway. . .

All our color work, thanks to Shania, was actually printed at another place, which is lucky. --See, Shania was taking up so much time on the main press, that rather than have other jobs sit around collecting dust and wasting time, they sent them off to other companies. And the company they were sending them to just happened to run their show on my all time favorite color printing press in the world; an 8 color German Heidleberg! My current comics printer only uses a 4 color press, and as such, the covers turn out reasonably well. But with an 8 color press. . . Wow! My painted work has never pressed so nicely! All the subtleties were caught. --They were using two shades of black. . !

Our job being bumped by Shania's trendy hips from the home factory to a place with a superior printing press, was a blessing in disguise. I couldn't have planned it any better myself. Talk about good timing!

Actually, that whole month was a series of blessings disguised as problems. Every single delay, (each of which, I recall, was almost enough to drive me around the bend when they happened), resulted in my being forced to come up with unexpected solutions. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. I also kept meeting talented people I wouldn't normally have met had things gone as smoothly as I had originally hoped. I learned some very clever tricks, all of which I'll be able to tap in the future.

Anyway, as well as running their own printing presses, the CD factory also makes their own jewel cases on site. Those giant chemical tanks? They held the goop required to make all the various bits of plastic needed for CDs. --Disks, cases, shrink wrap. All that stuff.

"You're picking up? Drive around to the employee service entrance. Waaaay around the side of the building."

"We didn't drive. We're going to pile everything into the back of a cab. Can we walk through the plant from here?"

The receptionist looked baffled, and then shook her head.

And so we trudged through the snow and cold along side that star destroyer of a factory. Eventually, Tony and I found the employee entrance, and were kicking snow off our feet in a detestable little room with one security guard behind a bank of monitors, and another with a hand held metal detector who was wanding everybody who walked out of the factory. A sign read, "All Persons Leaving The Faculty Will Be Scanned. No Exceptions."

"Okay. . ," I muttered. "I didn't realize we were coming to a 'facility'." I've never liked that word. I always associated it with missiles and biological testing.

Breeep!

Security guard: "What's that in your pocket, sir?"

Guy in overalls: "Gum. It's the foil wrapper."

The security guard asked him to produce the gum for examination, nodded after inspecting it, and let him pass. Tony and I blinked at each other. "Why, it's like a prison! They run this place like a prison," I gasped.

Tony nodded. "Welcome to the music industry. Because it's so big, they believe that they're also important." He shook his head and chuckled at the idea. "--And plus, most people never see this part of the whole thing. All the niceties and expensive suits are at the front end. The people we've been dealing with until now."

--Which, incidentally, is exactly why we were messing around with cabs instead of getting things shipped through the proper means like anybody with any sense would do. All the folks we dealt with at the plant looked at us oddly. "You know, you should have had these shipped to you."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes! UPS is much easier. You shouldn't even be here."

Psh. Little did they know I was on holiday. They didn't get it at all. I wanted to see for myself where CDs come from. They don't have school trips for guys our age anymore! Indy publishing is the way to see the world. Even ridiculous places like that plant. I swear, the place was right out of the film, "Joe Versus the Volcano." And their product was ridiculous! --All they basically made at the plant, when it came right down to it, were plastic circles. Plastic circles! (Come to think of it, perhaps the Cohen brothers film, "The Hudsucker Proxy," would be a better parallel.) --Plastic circles, and yet they had gone to some lengths to make the factory into one of the most miserable workplaces I've seen in a first world nation. They were forcing everybody to stand with their feet apart and their arms out to the side while they were 'scanned' like suspects, for goodness sake. Out of context, (as it was for me as I stood kicking the snow of my shoes), it seemed beyond comprehension. Like silly Hobbits gone off with some silly notion about how to behave.

Tony blinked at the scene, and finally I shook myself.

"Hey," I got the security guard's attention. "What are you scanning people for?" --"Do these guys get bomb threats or something?" I wondered.

The metal detecting gent regarded me with a vague expression. "We check for CDs and DVD's."

Ahh. Is that all?

To stop employee theft.

Wow. Just like the music stores! CDs which weren't even an hour old had already become an excuse to treat people like criminals. I almost decided in that instant before I left that I would steal some office supplies or something, just out of spite.

"To stop music and data from sneaking out and ending up on the internet," I surmised out loud. Everybody nodded. And then I thought, "No. . . It's not that. Those security guys were here way before 'Napster' ever came along. Their uniforms were worn and threadbare. No. This is something else. This is to prevent employees from printing 'extra' copies, sneaking them out through the back door and selling them on the side. Yeah. --And man, you could make a killing that way! And the original publishers would take it on the chin as they competed against their own products in a black market. Carson had to put up with garbage like that back when he was in the Tee-shirt business during high school. Or at least, that's what publishers might fear, making this moronic show of security primarily a public relations function to keep their clients from worrying. --I'm not sure which is more irritating. Treating your employees like criminals, or putting on the broadway production of treating your employees like criminals.

Phooey.

I noticed that many employees were carrying identical see-through plastic purses with personal items inside them. --Presumably the only type of bag they were allowed to use, so that no wayward CDs or DVD's would slip through the inspection gallery unseen among lunch wrappers, thermos flasks and cell phones and such. This place was run like a prison! Thank goodness CDs were as big as they were, or there might even be some bending over involved! Yeesh.

"You know, if people would just behave with a little bit more responsiblity, honesty and trust, life would be a lot easier for everybody. This place wouldn't look like a corrections facility, for starters!"

(There's that word again.)

So we waited for an hour or so in that dark little pit of a waiting room, gazing up at the threads of dangly dust hanging from ancient ceiling tiles, watching the metal detector guy busy at work. He must have performed about 30 checks while we sat there, but he seemed friendly enough. His job wasn't that bad as compared to everybody else's, I soon realized. He got to breathe relatively fresh air.

Finally, Tony and I got impatient. We wanted to see the CDs we'd slaved over for weeks on end. They were supposedly sitting on just the other side of the big metal door behind us, waiting for our shipping arrangements to finalize, (that is, our Taxi to arrive all the way from downtown). So after a bit of messing around with waiting room phones and such, we were introduced to a production rep and shown onto the factory floor. A veritable wall of gaseous plastic slammed into us. --You know that unsavory chemical smell when you pull off the cellophane from a new CD purchase? Same one, but enough to fill a few air plane hangers.

"Ugh! What the-"

"Oh, that's gross!" Tony blanched. "--This is why everybody who works here is so faded."

"They're all embalmed," I cried. "There have got to be a couple of worker safety standards being broken around here!"

"Mark and Tony? This way. Your CDs are over here."

The pile wasn't very big. 30 boxes in all, each would only be big enough to hold two loaves of slightly squished bread. Compared to comic book boxes and weights, we were getting off easy. This alone made me grin. Everybody had been warning me of a huge, heavy shipment. These people should trying printing books!

"I really don't see how you are hoping to get it all into a taxi," she said. "UPS would have been much easier. You shouldn't even really be here."

"Oh, this is nothing. It'll fit easy. If we had a third guy and some good bags and backpacks, we could probably carry this home on the bus!"

Even Tony raised any eyebrow at that suggestion. What can I say? I've been hauling 20 pound boxes of comics around this town for nearly 10 years now. I've resigned myself to the reality that to self publish means to lug your own stuff. I actually take pride in it these days. I've always felt that there's something sort of romantic about a writer stomping into a bookstore from the snow with his or her latest work in a backpack. In any case, it seemed like a lot of fuss for such a small pile. Shania's hips wouldn't have had to swing very far at all to knock our project to one side! I cracked open a box and we pulled out some of the treasure, and everything stopped. "Hey. Oh, now these look just right. They got that golden amber color I was after."

Tony smiled and nodded, "This looks really good. The cover came out really well." He unwrapped one and we flipped through it and examined it in silence for a few moments. I was relieved and said so.

"Because I only approved one half of the book. I didn't realize that this job was going to require two sets of plates. We only had time to see the first. Well this is good! This looks really nice. What a relief!"

"I didn't realize you were worried." Tony stopped and thought. "You know, my one remaining worry is that we'll get these home, and it'll be Shania singing."

"Ow," I winced. "That never occurred to me. Thanks."

He laughed. "Don't worry. Just by considering it, means it probably won't happen."

"Better not. Audiences might be confused if you walked on stage instead of her."

And so our cab arrived, and through the blowing snow, we loaded up the trunk and back seat. Then, $35 later, were back in the city eating submarine sandwiches and congratulating ourselves on having survived the whole creation process from beginning to end. When our stomachs were full, the three of us, (Tony's girlfriend helping with a box), walked out the door and through the falling snow, over to Bakka Science Fiction Books, just around the corner. --John who owns Bakka, keeps a small shelf of T&K in a nice visible place. He looked at me through the eyes of a man who had just spent a long and busy Christmas shopping day on his feet behind a cash register. I'd made him unlock the door of his store so I could pitch to him when all he really wanted to do was empty the register and go to bed. "Oh no, these look really nice. . ." he said as I stood before him, snowflakes clinging to my collar. He held up the copy I handed to him. "Aw, I hate you. You're going to make me buy stuff, aren't you?" He turned the package over in his hand and laughed. "Yeah. We'll almost definitely want some of these. These look really good."

"Well, give it a listen first," I told him confidently. "I wouldn't want to push anything on you that you don't think your customers would enjoy."

(One of the nicest things about being an indy press guy is that if you put in the effort to make your work something to be proud of, you can hand it to somebody in near total confidence.)

And there we were. Snow flakes drifting prettily down upon us over Yonge Street, a back-pack filled with the new CD slung over my shoulder, and that feeling of good-weariness; a job well done. I waved goodbye to Tony, my musician friend and to lovely Megan as they parted, and I set off home leaving fresh foot prints on the side walk. And it struck me later, that we'd gone and passed through the belly of the whale. --That's what that whole factory ordeal was all about. The underworld which people aren't supposed to see.

Trying to create really is like climbing mountains, or fighting through jungle. Every step is harder than the last, and finally artists are made to crawl and fight their way out from the belly of the monster. Hero's journey and rebirth, and all that.

Yeah, yeah. High-sounding, I know. But things really do work that way if you look carefully. Everybody, each one of us is perpetually in the middle of their own vital story. I'm serious; look around at your own life, and you'll see. All the markings of a good tale are right there in front of your eyes. --Only thing is it's often difficult to realize this, being in the middle of it and all. Life is just so huge! But every now and again, when the big moments come, failures or victories, or 30 boxes of CDs sitting before you in the living room, sometimes at those moments you stop and realize. "Ah! Yes. Now I see how things really are!" And there we were.

--Now, it's best to listen to this CD with headphones. You don't get to hear all the subtleties over speakers, unless they're really good speakers. And live performances, of course, are best of all.

Sigh. See? I've come through this process and I've turned into an audio snob.

Them's the breaks, I guess.

Okay. Take care!

-Mark

Toronto,
Dec 30, 2002