Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [92]
As a businessman, Kitchen was caught somewhere between the traditional and the hippie-dippy, which became very evident while he was dealing with Print Mint and its lax royalty reporting. The company was sporadic about reporting its sales, and defensive about it to boot, as Kitchen discovered when he inquired about the sales figures for Mom’s #1. He learned that Lynch and Williamson were similarly dissatisfied with the way Bijou was being handled. Kitchen vowed to dump Print Mint and publish the third issue of Mom’s himself, only this time he was going to do it on a broader scale. The Print Mint versions of Mom’s had been enthusiastically received on the West Cost, where the undergrounds were really thriving, and Kitchen had no reason to believe that his third issue wouldn’t do as well, perhaps even better, without Print Mint.
Lynch listened to Kitchen’s spiel, and when the Wisconsin artist was finished, Lynch made a proposal. The people at Bijou, like Kitchen, were looking to switch publishers. How would Kitchen feel about publishing future issues of Bijou under his proposed new publishing imprint? As Kitchen would remember, he responded with “what may have been the smartest or dumbest thing I ever said: ‘Sure. Why not? Doing two is as easy as one.’” At that moment, he became “a publisher by default.”
Phil Seuling conducted his conventions like a drill sergeant dragging buck privates through basic training—but without the charm. He would be remembered for his dictatorial manner of running his conventions, for his shouting and pointing and barking directions. He’d learned early on that comic book creators tended to be loners in need of someone to nudge them in the right direction—or any direction, for that matter. The fans were even worse. The circus needed a ringmaster, and Seuling was it. Friends would remember that once off the convention floor, Seuling was much more laid-back—engaging, funny, full of great stories.
Passionate about comics and the business of comics, Seuling, a high school English teacher from Brooklyn, had been devouring comics for as far back as he could remember, and he offered no apology for his affection for them as an adult. He knew his comics history—the titles, stories, artists, the evolution of the comics as a cultural phenomenon—and in very short order, he had graduated from fanboy to industry leader. He almost single-handedly ushered in the comic conventions that we know today, expanding them from small-time gatherings of geeks and dweebs to huge, high-profile, high-energy, moneymaking events attracting people from all over the world. There was still a higher percentage of dweebs and geeks attending these conventions than you’d find gathered in any one place on the street, but you’d also see a strong mixture of artists, serious collectors, publishers, and businesses attending the same conventions, all ready to talk shop, swap stories, mingle with the troops that kept their bank accounts solvent, or, in increasing numbers, plop down previously unheard-of sums of money for original artwork, bagfuls of the latest titles, or, God forbid, a pristine copy of Action Comics #1 or Detective Comics #27.
Seuling’s involvement with the comics conventions came gradually, dating back to July 1964, when he had his first experience in conventions. Besides teaching, Seuling ran a comics sales and memorabilia business on the side. Doug Berman, a fellow teacher, heard about a comics convention being held at a Manhattan union hall on Fourteenth Street and Broadway. Both sensed a business opportunity. Bernie Bubnis, the convention’s organizer, offered Berman and Seuling a shot at selling refreshments. As Seuling remembered, the total concessions take at that first convention came down to a case of soda. Comics artist Tom Gill (The Lone Ranger), the convention’s guest of honor, spoke to about a hundred attendees