Sold a “Schiz.” It was sort-of a “mercy” buy, since the purchaser, the poet/therapist J____, a sincere appreciator of my work, had asked when my next “Adventure” would appear, and I’d said I needed to sell a book first. (I then recommended IWKYA, but she felt more comfortable with my imagined blackly comic depravities than with my actual health crisis.)
I also gave a “Cheesesteak” to one of the new co-editors at tcj.com. It turned out that, not only was she from Philadelphia but, when she learned I was from 46th & Pine, revealed that was an area she walked her dog. (In my day, to cite B. Dylan, dogs ran free.) And speaking of tcj, the disclaimer I added to my last submission – See: previous “Adventure” – has received tweaking from both me and the other editor, and should be up next week, as written
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My table also drew a few non-commercially inclined guests. There was a pair of 60-ish lesbians from South Carolina, fans of “the Wolf Pack,” in town for the Cal-NC State game. (We discussed how I came to Berkeley, one of my favored topics.) There was another woman, heavy set, with long grey hair, garbed in baggy grey, who took my card – and was never heard from again. And there was a 20-ish woman artist, who thought highly of J.T.’s brushwork on the sign he’d done for me. She was up from Santa Cruz “for a face-painting gig.” When I described my books, she showed the most interest in “The Pirates & the Mouse,” which I am not selling at the moment, so I directed her to the internet. (I gave her a card too, just in case.)
In other news…
1.) FOM will be putting up a “mini” by Adele and me shortly;
2.) I have a first draft of a longer piece done for it, which is in the process of being fact-checked by its subject, a zine artist in North Jersey. (I’d interviewed her by phone but – not for the first time – failed to work my cassette recorder properly. My notes, while 90% accurate I’m sure, had some holes.)
3.) “Messiahs” remains on hold. I had the lost scans re-sent, but the publishers’ auto-reply said that he was attending a comic-con in Italy, and, if the election didn’t work out properly, he might not return. Not that Italy’s PM, from what I read, is any bargain.
4.) And finally, in the realm of prophets being without honor in their hometown, the Berkeley Public Library hosted its second annual comics convention, with talks, panels, and guests, no invitation having been directed to me. I was temporarily amused/rankled, but then a pal, who took his 14-year-old son, said there was not a whiff of the transgressive on display, so I would have been an odd fit, I reckon. (Still, I plan to withhold my annual charitable contribution.)
So many Bob Levins on the Internet; I'm the Bob Levin who writes.