Daily Breakdowns 009 - Someday Funnies

Today a friend sent me a message on Facebook asking if it had "hit" me yet that I'd turned 40, which happened last Tuesday the 18th but which I was celebrating in downtown San Diego last night. Well, not exactly celebrating, but more on that later. My immediate response is that no, it hasn't hit me yet, and I'm still essentially the same guy I've always been. But upon reflection, I guess it has brought about some changes. For one thing: more reflection! I'm reflecting on aging comics creators and musicians, on the ambition of my earlier work (this privately, not on the blog), and other items. I also recently closed out a self-storage space of my comics and graphic novels and began organizing an already-cluttered garage with the several dozen additional boxes added from the storage space, pruning out some books I realized meant little to me even at the time but I couldn't be bothered to sell or trade (Route 666, anyone?). I even had a large box filled with wires and cables from various electronic components, as well as several unopened, blank VHS cassettes--things that seemed important five or six years ago for which I have no use today.

I'm currently still writing, in short bursts, a graphic novel begun around the same time ago, and so I understand what it is to dream, to have a vision one cannot let go. I found while reading Bob Levin's superlative history of Michael Choquette's unrealized comics anthology, Someday Funnies, in The Comics Journal #299, that I could relate to Choquette, who pursued this dream project through several would-be financiers and publishers and across several countries, for years, before eventually having to abandon it, bankrupt. I think without Levin's piece, Choquette would be even less known than he is, which I think would be a shame, or he might have been written off as a charlatan, a guy who duped nearly 200 cartoonists or other celebrities willing to try their hand at comics into producing work that would never see the light of day. While Levin is right to point out some practical questions a reader might have, such as why Choquette didn't just complete the small comics supplement for Rolling Stone originally commissioned, with the large book project pursued afterward, it seems to me that the '70s were a time when almost anything seemed possible if one had enough vision, charisma and tenacity. In amassing the amazing roster of talent Choquette did, I'm sure he felt he couldn't let them down by giving up, even though he was at the same time leaving them uncompensated and unable to use the work they'd produced, elsewhere. I've seen it happen firsthand where a comics anthology never gets published and the recriminations and demands fly, and Someday Funnies is just the most amazing and lavish example of it.

I can say that had I read this article five years ago, I would probably have seized on the details of Choquette's living beyond his means, having champagne or mint-with-lamb-sauce lunches with prospective publishers, traveling to Europe, etc., as evidence of a man out of touch and out of control. Now, I see a man trapped, forced to do his best to impress the money men that he was a professional worth taking a chance on for a large, expensive project. Hollywood is filled with stories of people reduced to paupers trying to realize dreams of producing a film, and undoubtedly the audience is a little poorer for some of these films never happening. I guess I'm a little kinder to the dreamer these days.

I'm also more inclined these days to try to take things as they come and enjoy them for what they are. Perhaps paradoxically, as much as I admire the dreamer in everyone, I'm more apt these days to compromise and live for today. I acted this out just last night, heading downtown to celebrate my birthday at a bar/restaurant when almost everyone I invited had other plans or couldn't get babysiters, and no one had actually confirmed they were definitely coming. I decided I would just go and see what happened, and if no one showed up, I could always have a couple drinks, eat something, watch some sports at the bar, and head home. After all, nothing interesting would happen if I just called it off and stayed home. And it turns out, something interesting did happen, as one friend showed up because he had a gig with his '80s themed band later that evening, and he invited me to hang out with a couple of his friends beforehand. The man is the attorney for a long-running American rock band and his partner sold the search engine she started during the dotcom boom for several million dollars. Still, they were nice, down-to-earth people. She readily admitted she was very lucky, and she was not just living for today but also spent a lot of time and money helping others with some charitable organizations.

Contrast that with the scene that met me as I tried to return home this morning after picking up a few items from the grocery store for a barbecue. The street I live on was blocked from entry by police, as there was an horrendous auto accident. Someone was being placed on a gurney, the blanket covering her (I think--I saw a man holding a young child, looking into the ambulance as this person was loaded) with some spreading blood stains, while a fireman used a shovel to spread dirt on the gas leaking onto the street from one of the cars. If that isn't a hint to make the most of every day, I don't know what is, although in my case, as I couldn't go home for a while, it meant I pulled over on a side street and talked to a buddy about, among other things, the Choquette piece, as a purchased pork shoulder sat on the floor of my car, its own blood pooling in the styrofoam tray it came in.

*Post-script: After writing the above, I put in a little time on my garage organizing project, and opened a box containing some books and magazines, one of probably twenty-five. I immediately found The Best of National Lampoon #3, which coincidentally contained the humorous Hitler photo essay by Choquette, mentioned in Levin's article. Quite a coincidence.