Sold a “Bob on Bob.”
The buyer is a café semi-regular (and repeat customer). An artist/teacher in a school for the developmentally handicapped, he is a man of strongly held beliefs on some of which, such as that Muhammed Ali really knocked out Sonny Liston, he may be on firmer ground than I. (He still sends me You Tube videos to prove his point.) On others, like who-killed-Kennedy, his footing would be steadier if his shoes were spiked with marshmallows.
In other news…
1.) Had I mentioned that “Stan” has a jazz musician friend who asked, when told I wrote for a comics journal, “What comics journal?” and it turned out so had he. The three of us met for coffee, and while each was was familiar with the other’s name, he was stopping about when I was starting, and neither of us mentioned reading anything by the other. But our conversation went well, dipping into “hard” sci-fi, a genre he now writes in, and AI, both topics about which I was the least informed, and the works of William Gaddis, by which we are equally enthralled.
2.) Met with the fellow who hopes to make a documentary about the Air Pirates and came away with visions of a low-to-mid three-figure advance dancing in my head. (An “Executive Producer” credit seems out of the question.) I have promised complete cooperation and have scoured my archives for anything that may warrant a frame or two of film. He has a lot of experience (and credits) and plans to make a brief pitch video to show potential investors in order to speed up the usual funding process, for if left to run at its usual pace and actuarial tables are to be believed, neither Dan nor I may be around for when shooting would start.
3.) Received an unsolicited comix anthology with no note of explanation. It is a classy publication: B&W, 8 ½ X 11, 156 pp., 19 contributors, all previously unknown to me. The title, “ClusterfuxComix,” conveys a good sense of the work and sensibilities on display. I have yet to delve into it but am gratified (and amused) by the vicissitudes of life that have resulted in my becoming someone selected to receive such a volume and not a person chosen to receive, say, a graphic adaptation of “The Recognitions” or “JR.”
So many Bob Levins on the Internet; I'm the Bob Levin who writes.