Among my fond memories of working in Canton, Ohio, at The Repository was going to lunch with City Editor Jim Hillibish. The man was a legend to anybody who had read the paper in over the past couple decades, and he had — hands down — the best stories in the newsroom. Most of which, he could never print.
So one day, we discovered a new “social club” in the downtown area. You had to be a “member” to eat there, but there wasn’t an actual membership fee. However, you had to know someone to be offered a membership, and there was no sign outside the establishment. ‘Bish had been offered a membership.
We had to explore this place. Walking in was like walking into a Puzo novel. We walked down three steps to get to the main dining area.
“Physically and socially…” I whispered. It was an exaggeration, but there was definitely an overall atmosphere of Up To No Good.
We were, however, treated like royalty. The chef came out to greet us at the table and promptly informed us that he could prepare anything. If we didn’t see what we liked on the menu, just say the word and he’d either make it on the spot or arrange to have it by the next day.
“Lobster… crab… tacos…” he said in a measured tone of voice that was 50% promise, 50% threat, “If I don’t have it, I’ll get it.”
Lunch was… well, lunch was awesome. The chef hadn’t overstated his prowess.
“Three,” ‘Bish reported once we got outside, blinking in the afternoon sun.
I was puzzled.
“That was the number of doors in that place that only had doorknobs on one side of the door.”
We never did become regulars.
But I’m still dying to know what was going on behind those doors.
More fond memories
Speaking of fond memories, Evil Inc is about to become one — to the readers of the Philadelphia Daily News. This Saturday, March 19th, my daily comic strip will appear for the final time in the Philadelphia Daily News. My daily comics first appeared in the pages of that scrappy tabloid on April 16, 2001, with the very first Greystone Inn strip. And they have run Monday-through-Saturday ever since. Since I’m no longer producing Evil Inc in comic-strip form, I’ve had to discontinue self-syndicating it to newspapers.
Click image to see it larger.
I haven’t been contacted by the Daily News, so I have to assume they’re going to let the auspicious occasion go without a story. And that’s a shame because 14½ years of daily strips is an awful lot of history between the Daily News readers and me. So this blog post will have to do.
Fond memories of the Philadelphia Daily News
I was hired as a graphic artist at the Philadelphia Daily News in 1998. In 2000, I could see the writing on the wall for newspapers in general, and I started a daily comic strip on the Web — Greystone Inn. By the end of the first year, I had been in contact with a small-press publisher called Plan 9 Publishing, and they wanted to print the first year in book form. Back in the day, this was THE place to go for printed collections of webcomics. They handled the Sluggy Freelance books as well as Kevin & Kell, User Friendly, and other giants of those early days of webcomics.
Because my entering into a publishing contract could be potentially seen as a conflict of interest with my employer, I sat down with my boss, John Sherlock, the graphics editor of the newspaper, to let him know what was on the horizon. I had told no one at work that I had launched a comic strip, and I didn’t want the book to catch them by surprise.
Not only did they clear the way for the book, but John said, “Y’know, this comic is pretty good. I’m going to show it to [editor-in-chief] Zack Stalberg.”
The next day, I was offered a spot on the Daily News comics page.
They even understood when I requested payment under a separate contract for the syndication of the strip. After all, if I accepted payment for the feature as an employee, the company might someday claim ownership to the intellectual property.
And on April 10, the first Greystone Inn ran in the paper. A milestone that I had driven for since I was old enough to know that I was a cartoonist had been met — a daily spot in a metro-sized daily newspaper. And my first book was on the way, to boot! These were heady times indeed!
Over the years, I managed to self-syndicate the strip to other newspapers — and for a while, my newspaper readership was estimated to be around 1.2 million. But those newspapers folded or changed directions or changed ownership. But the Daily News remained. Through redesigns and more ownership-changes than I’d care to count, I was able to hold onto my spot on the comics page.
Heck, I even tried to parlay my personal self-syndication effort into a group effort. At different times, I was at the center of a syndication start-up for Keenspot, Blank Label Comics and Halfpixel. I even considered launching on own independent effort called United Web Features. We would syndicate Web content to newspapers.
Unfortunately, all of those efforts fell flat — mostly because there just wasn’t money in newspapers anymore.
But the Daily News was different. For a period of a year or two, my comics were appearing 8 times a week in the Daily News (which didn’t have a Sunday edition, mind you). They ran six Evil Inc strips, a Courting Disaster cartoon (along with a sex-advice column) and the full-page Phables. And, for certain occasions, my cartooning was part of the news coverage…
Some of the Evil Inc strips had to be edited for the newspaper-editors’ sensibilities. Towards the end of Evil Inc, this began happening more and more often. For example, this one had to be changed completely!
BEFORE
AFTER
But — edited or raw — every time I exhibited at Wizard World Philadelphia, I’d hear from scores of you who read the comic faithfully in the Daily News. In fact, I just confirmed that I’ll be at the show again this year, so feel free to come out and help me raise a pint to the Evil Inc newspaper strip.
It was a pleasure to have been a part of your daily routine for almost fifteen years, and I hope you’ll join the rest of us on the Web!
Still more fond memories
Among the fondest of my fond memories are those of recording Webcomics Weekly with Scott Kurtz, Dave Kellett, and Kris Straub. I’ll often get questions from people who want to find the entire archive, but can’t. To make it easier, I’ve uploaded the entire collection — including some you just can’t find online any more — to Webcomics.com. Enjoy!
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