White Trash Beautiful
I grew up in a trailer in Texas. A trailer, if you don’t already know, is a large tin box put up on cinder blocks and called a home. My neighbor had these huge faded-pink plastic flamingos in her yard that were so old they were rotting and caving in on themselves. She herself had a concave face with only two teeth in her mouth, both of which had assumed a kind of yellowish-brown color scheme that the flamingos were beginning to adopt too. She and her plastic pets looked like something out of a horror movie.
My parents divorced soon after (not because of the old woman or her flamingos, mind you), my mother and I moved into an apartment and I took up reading comic books. They were a source of escape and fantasy. Every time I turned a page either I was the ultimate hero, or sometimes the sinister villain and I could do anything. In my mind’s eye, I could move objects with my mind, or I could see the future. I even dreamt that one day I would escape my welfare upbringing. It was easy to be ashamed of being poor when I was attending one of the richest school districts in Texas. My peers were driving BMWs to school and my mom was a waitress at Ming Dynasty serving pu-pu platters.
So I read comics. And I came up with my own worlds and realms and colorful cast. I wrote and drew (though not well) and fantasized that one day people would read my work. But it was a fantasy, and underneath it all, I knew that. I didn’t think myself hopeless, just realistic.
I never could have guessed that a mere decade later I’d be living in New York City working in the comic industry I was obsessed with growing up.
It takes a certain kind of human animal to thrive in this city. It’s not just that you have to be hard-working and diligent; you also have to be willing to tolerate the smell of piss on the subways most mornings. You have to have a kind of ambition underlying your sense of self, something in you that is not willing to wait for the next lifetime. You have to know that you have to do something.
So here I am, planning comic book conventions for a living. I answer to Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice League. (I’d love to work with the X-Men and the Avengers as well, but they work for the other company at the moment.) I read comics, attend comic conventions and I get to meet the big guns behind the books I loved as a kid… and I get paid for it.
The comic books that used to be for fanboys and nerds, are now plastered all over big movie screens - and they’re making millions. And due to this transformation from indie comics to Hollywood hard-hitters and from 1930’s pulp to the new century of CGI - comics are the LA agent’s new best friends. We’re all familiar with the Spiderman, Superman, and X-Men franchises. And those of us who are in the know, were happy as pigs-in-sh*t for movies like V for Vendetta, Hellboy, and the upcoming Watchmen. And of course this summer, we’re all wetting ourselves over Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Batman’s Dark Knight.
What does all this have to do with me? Well, I’m writing comics, meeting illustrators, networking with editors and all the while still dreaming big. Whether I’m on the precipice of getting published and making a name for myself, or if I’m just destined to hang in the background, I don’t know yet. But what I do know right now is that life is good.
My fellow nerds have done great things. From comic book to movie screen, people’s dreams are being realized every day. So why not mine? Why not yours? I came from a tin can house on bricks and now I live in one of the greatest cities on earth in an office surrounded by my fellow geeks.
Have a dream, follow it, and see what happens. The worst thing that could happen is you end up happy.
