by Bob Proehl
The midlevel artists also serve as ambassadors for the bracket of success they inhabit. The realm of the reasonably achievable. In this capacity, Brett looks over the sketchbook of a local artist two tables down. A sense of anatomy learned solely from reading comics. Women with hourglass waists and volleyball breasts. Men as broad across the shoulders as they are tall. But the kid has an eye for facial expressions. A Viking shield-maiden’s face contorts with rage as she brings a sword down. A cleric, hooded, sneers with contempt, and the contours of the lip form a line like the edge of a violin. Brett nods approvingly. Then spots Alex headed toward the Lady Stardust table.
“Robot boy!” says Brett.
“I’m not the boy with the robot,” Alex says calmly as Brett comes over. “He doesn’t know what his name is yet, but it’s not Alex. Plus we made him blond, remember?”
“Sorry about that,” says Brett.
“It’s okay. I’m not insulted.” Brett watches him fiddle with things on the table. Picking up comics and putting them down. Organizing Brett’s pens and pencils into straight lines. He feels confronted with an alien intelligence. He has no idea what is going on in this kid’s head. But he remembers being a kid. He tries to remember how he thought about things. Not what he thought, but the method by which he reached his conclusions. He comes up empty.
“I have a favor to ask you,” says Alex, his hands folded in front of him.
“Another commission?” Brett asks.
“Exactly,” says Alex. “A bigger one this time. A field trip.” Brett’s not sure he likes the sound of that. But Alex barrels on. “Have you read any of the Adam Anti books?” he asks.
“I did,” says Brett. “My girlfriend gave them to me for Christmas a couple years ago.”
Debra had intended it as a pretty major gesture. She was trying to like things he liked. It was how much make-believe she’d be willing to swallow. There was no way she could have known it wasn’t his type of make-believe. “Of course those are the kind of books she likes,” said Fred contemptuously when Brett told him. It was like pouring bourbon for a Scotch drinker to prove you liked whiskey. It occurs to him now that he should have valued the attempt more than he did. But it is too late for all that.
“I finished the second one last night,” says Alex.
“The second one, that’s Adam Anti & the Wild Wild Life?”
“Exactly,” says Alex. “It’s where Adam and Matilda and James are on summer break and they’re experimenting with magic outside of school even though they’re not supposed to.”
“And Adam finds out his parents aren’t his parents,” says Brett.
“Is that a rule in stories?” asks Alex. “That your parents are never your parents? It’s like that for Mister Astounding, and for Adam. But for Moses, too, in the Bible, and Dorothy in Oz.”
“I think it’s a thing a lot of kids think about,” says Brett. “What if their life wasn’t their life. When I was a kid, sometimes I felt like I had so little in common with my parents that I must have been adopted.”
“I finished that one,” Alex says, “and now I need to get the third one.”
“The third one’s no good,” says Brett. “They go off to fairyland. They never say it’s fairyland. But it’s full of tiny people with wings. The cool thing about the Adam Anti books is that they’re regular magic stories but they take place in Brooklyn.”
“He lives right in my neighborhood,” Alex says.
“You live in Brooklyn?” says Brett. Alex nods. Proud. “Me, too.” They look at each other a little differently. There’s something about when you meet someone from home abroad. How there’s an instant bond you’d never feel if you met the person at home. “Anyway,” he continues, “the third one felt like anyone could have written it,” Brett continues. “It’s my least favorite book in the series.”
“But it’s the next one,” says Alex. Kind of shrugging. You know how it is look about him. “So I need to read it.”
Brett nods. “I guess the rest of the books don’t make much sense if you don’t read the third.”
“So I need you to take me to this bookstore,” says Alex. “It’s called Loganberry Books. A loganberry is a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry. I called already and they’re holding a copy for me. It’s not that far.”
Brett does not know the ins and outs of hanging around children, but he’s pretty sure this idea is not okay.
“Can’t your mom take you?” he asks.
“She’s signing autographs,” says Alex. “There’s a big line. She said it was okay.”
“Maybe I should go check with her,” says Brett.
“I told her I knew you already,” says Alex. “See, look.” He climbs up onto Brett’s chair, turns toward the tables at the head of the room, and starts waving his arm broadly. Like he’s trying to flag down a plane, or say goodbye to someone on her way to sea. Trying to attract someone’s attention. Brett can’t see who through the crowds. Then he sees a hand, definitely female, returning Alex’s wave.
“Is your mom a writer?” he asks. Guessing from where the table is.
“No, she’s just my mom,” says Alex. “I wouldn’t ask you except you don’t have a line right now.”
He tries to figure out if the kid is actually being tactful. The way Alex says “right now” implies he knows that Brett will be swamped with fans. Later. Soon.
“The lady at the desk printed me a map,” Alex says. He pulls a crumpled piece of paper out of the back pocket of his jeans. Shows it to Brett. “It’s close enough we can walk.” The whole idea seems increasingly bad to Brett. It feels more and more like kidnapping. Some arrest-worthy offense.
“We can talk about the boy and the robot on the way,” Alex says. “It’s perfect.”
Brett wants to see the Levi Loeb panel that’s in less than an hour. He needs to work on the last issue. He should be trying to pick up a few more commissions. But he remembers Sunday afternoons when he was nine. Begging his father for a ride to the comic book store to buy the issue where OuterMan dies. On the TV, the Steelers ran up the score on the Bills. After the game, his father said, right after the game. Even though the comic book store would be closed by then. By the time his dad stopped by on his way home from work the next day, they’d be sold out. He’d needed to know how it happened.
“Is your mom going to be okay with this?” Brett asks. He knows he’s already lost the argument. He’s already given in.
“I told you,” Alex says brightly, “she said it was okay. She understands I need to get it right now.”
Any kid would understand. Anyone who can remember what it’s like when a story stops in its middle. That’s how it is for Brett with Lady Stardust right now. He’s pretty sure that the kid’s mother won’t understand at all. But in the kid’s voice, Brett hears a language he used to speak fluently and has almost forgotten.
Brett calls to Devlin. Next table over.
“Watch my shit for me, hey?” he says. Devlin nods enthusiastically. Because this is a favor, and favors create bonds. “C’mon, robot boy,” he says to the kid. “Let’s make it quick.”
Women in Refrigerators
“I’m sorry,” Gail says. “I thought this was the ladies’ room.”
“You could not be more correct,” says the Diviner, sitting on a stool with one of those electronic cigarettes. “Over half of the ladies at this convention are in this room right here.”
“You’d think we’d get a bigger room,” says OuterGirl from behind a folding panel screen in the corner.
“They do have you crammed in here,” Gail says. It’s so crowded that Flail is on Flog’s lap, although this may be by choice. In the corner, Gail spots Val and waves.
“Hey,” says Val, and Gail takes a moment to assess whether Val is genuinely glad to see her or is being gracious. “You looking for a place to hide out?”
&n
bsp; “I’m being chased by a mansplainer,” says Gail.
“Come sit,” says Val, patting the arm of her chair. Gail balances herself next to Val, not quite sitting.
“So this is where the magic happens?” she asks, somewhat awkwardly.
“These girls are better with makeup than anyone I’ve ever worked with,” says Val. “It was much easier to make me look young and glamorous ten years ago. Those guys didn’t know how good they had it.”
“She’s being modest,” says the Astounding Woman, removing her wig so she can re-pin her hair. “She could roll out of bed and go right out there with that face.”
Gail teeters a bit, and Val steadies her. “I should leave you guys to it, then,” she says.
“No, stay,” says Val. “There’s room.”
“Be glad Ferret Lass isn’t here,” Red Emma says. “The girl cannot seem to register the fact she’s wearing an erect three-foot-long tail.”
“Do you need to get changed, hon?” OuterGirl asks Gail.
Gail looks at what they’re all wearing. She’s never delved into cosplay herself, but her friends who have lament that commercial spandex has an inability to mimic the sheen of superhero costumes and ends up making the wearer look more like a Tour de France rider than an alien warrior princess or ninja psychic. Or was it psychic ninja? Those who were into it and had the budget relied on vinyls and thermoplastics for high-gloss, form-fitting—or form-enhancing—costumes. The costume-making process often involved wrapping one’s torso in Saran wrap or aluminum foil, then heating a sheet of space-age polymer over oneself with a hair dryer or heat gun until it molded into shape. Ideally, this was done with the help of a friend, but some of them had burn scars to show for their solo efforts.
These ladies’ costumes, though, were professionally made, custom jobs. Either the girls sank a lot of money commissioning their outfits or someone else paid for them. The material of most of their outfits is high-gloss Milliskin, a fabric Gail has heard described as the Cadillac of cloth polymers. It clings to them as if it were painted on and shines like the scales of a freshly caught fish. The ones who aren’t decked out in tights, or in actual leather and vinyl, wear what appears to be normal clothes, but smaller or shorter or lower-cut, or ripped and frayed in particularly alluring ways. What remains is held on only by willpower or decency. Or, more likely, spirit gum.
Then she looks at what she’s wearing. The jeans she left New York in. Brown shoes she thought of as dressy, but which her brother Ron referred to as “old-lady librarian shoes.” The pair of glasses that had come free with a nicer pair of glasses that she fell asleep wearing six months ago and irreparably bent. A National Comics T-shirt a size too big that she’d been given as her signing bonus five years ago. The logo, with NATIONAL in alternating red and blue letters, hadn’t been updated since the early eighties and was derided by the fans as a symbol of National’s overall dated aesthetic. Gail believed it would soon take on a retro cool, or that the aging fan base would realize they themselves were a little on the dated side, and there was nothing sadder than middle-agers trying to look hip. Anyway, she was waiting it out.
“You’re going out there in that?” asks Spectacle Girl.
“They’ll eat her alive,” says Flail.
“No,” says Flog, stifling a giggle, “they won’t.” This gets a laugh out of the younger girls and a glare out of the older women. Gail feels playground division lines have been drawn and there may be no team for her to join.
“She’s a writer,” says Val.
They all examine Gail, inspecting her costume to decide if it’s convincing.
“Of comic books?” the Diviner asks. Gail nods.
“I didn’t know they had women writers in comics,” says Iota.
“They don’t have many,” Gail tells her.
“What a surprise,” says Red Emma.
“I write you,” says Gail, approaching Iota slowly and with a sense of wonder. The costume is intended to look like Iota is mid-shrink: a white lab coat huge at the shoulders but short enough to show off her legs, practically falling off her. It’s a problem Gail has tried to address during her run on the book: Iota’s powers often lead to her ending up tiny, naked, and struggling to cover herself up with a gum wrapper or ginkgo leaf. Gail had Iota create a costume for herself out of unstable molecules, an unexplained but vaguely sciency-sounding substance that would shrink with her whenever she got little. But when Iota is drawn for covers or pinups, she’s clutching some odd piece of minuscule detritus over her unmentionables.
Gail thinks about Geoff’s stories of visiting the set of the Blue Torch movie, seeing a character he’d written for years come to life. This might not be on such a grand scale, but the girl is perfect—it’s like she stepped right out of a panel and off the page. She knows it’s weird to address this woman as if she is Iota, but she can’t seem to help it.
“I mean, I write the series you’re currently in,” Gail says. “You don’t have your own series.”
“I don’t?” Iota asks.
Gail looks around at the other women in the room, taking stock. “Most of you don’t,” she says. “The Astounding Woman is part of the Astounding Family, which is a group book that hasn’t been published in twenty years. The Diviner and Medea are both in team books, too. OuterGirl shows up in the OuterMan books occasionally. Flail and Flog are villains.”
“We’re misunderstood,” says Flog.
“Demonized for our sexuality,” says Flail.
“ExSanguina is in Sinister, which is a horror anthology, but she’s only in a couple times a year. The only one of you who has her own title is Red Emma.”
“Suck it, bitches,” says Red Emma.
“But I used to, at least,” says Iota.
“All of you used to,” Gail says. “Even Flail and Flog. Back in the nineties, early two thousands.” She has the feeling she’s in a waiting room between series cancellation and cultural disappearance. Like a scantily clad terminal ward. “They were mostly awful. All tits and ass. But tits and ass sold back then.”
“Tits and ass always sell,” says Flail. Or possibly Flog. Gail adjusts her glasses but still can’t tell them apart.
“Well,” she says, “the supply of tits and ass went up, so the price went down.”
“Fucking Internet,” says Red Emma.
“In a lot of ways,” Gail continues, “things are better now. Female characters are stronger, like Red Emma—”
“Again I say, suck it,” Red Emma says to the room.
“And less explicitly sexualized.” Here they all examine Red Emma, who is fixing the lapels of her trench coat so they reveal only a PG-13 level of cleavage. “But there are fewer female-fronted titles. Even Red Emma’s written by a guy.”
“What the fuck?” says Red Emma.
“So why don’t I have my own series anymore?” asks Iota.
“It got canceled four years ago, just before I came on. Editorial decided to fold you into The Speck’s regular cast.”
“He’s my boyfriend, right?”
“You read the comics?” Gail asks.
“They give us dossiers,” explains the Diviner. “I, for instance, am an archaeologist who becomes possessed by the prophetic Greek goddess Cassandra.”
“Cassandra’s not a goddess,” says Flog.
“Is that so?” says the Diviner, clearly not interested.
“She’s the daughter of Priam,” says Flail.
“She’s in the Iliad,” says Flog, “and she’s murdered in Agamemnon.”
“Congratulations, you both pass Who the Hell Cares with straight A’s,” says the Diviner. “I’m telling you what’s in my dossier. I’d love to know what yours say.”
“Did National Comics hire you?” Gail asks Iota.
“The convention organizers hire us,” says Spectacle Girl.
“If you could get any of us a meeting with someone at National,” says OuterGirl, “that’d be amazing.”
“You think some writer is going to get you cast in the next Vengeance Troop movie?” says Red Emma. “No offense,” she adds, to Gail.
“I’m so sorry,” says Gail. She looks at Val for help, but Val doesn’t know what’s going on. Gail puts her hand on Iota’s shoulder. “They’re killing you off. In . . . maybe five issues. Just after I leave the book. You get beaten to death by Quietus the Quisling.”
The girl looks horrified. “Why are they killing me off?” she asks. “Do people not like me?”
“It’s for the Speck,” Gail says. “Editorial thinks he’s goofy. Dated. They want to give him motivation. Make him more driven.”
“But what does that have to do with me?” It has nothing to do with this girl who is not Iota the Incredible Shrinking Girl only a passable iteration thereof. But she is in real pain at the thought of her impending death, less than a hundred pages away.
“It’s a fridging. It’s how you motivate a male character,” says Gail, feeling like a mother explaining some of the less pleasant parts of sex to her daughter. “You kill off the woman he loves, then he swears revenge. Maybe her death keeps coming up in flashback, a kind of emotional touchstone moment. But after ten, twelve issues, he meets somebody new and moves on.”
“And what about me?” asks Iota.
“You’ll come back eventually,” Gail assures her. “Dead’s never dead in comics. If you were a male character, you’d fight your way back from the nether-whatever. For you? I’d guess resurrected by scientists after a year, year and a half. Heel turn for six months, then saved by your love for the Speck.”
“Heel turn?” asks OuterGirl.
“You’ll come back evil,” says Gail. “But only for a little bit.”
“You wrote this story?” says Red Emma.
“It hasn’t been written yet,” Gail says. “I’m saying that’s how it’s likely to go down. They informed me of the new editorial direction. I told them I didn’t want to write The Speck without Iota in the book. So they took me off the book.”