Who
is... Donna Barr? Donna
Barr has been drawing since 1954, writing since 1962, published since 1986,
and publishing since 1996.
She has a Bachelors' Degree in German, and
is a veteran of the United States Army (1970-1973).
Readers worldwide
follower her THE DESERT PEACH, STINZ, BOSOM ENEMIES, HADER
AND THE COLONEL, among others.
She is recognized by her peers as
a pioneer in the field of drawn books and their use in new technologies of distribution
and reproduction. She is a contributor to the world's largest webcomics site,
moderntales.com, and its affiliate
sites.
She achieved her lifetime career goal in 2004 when her life's
work -- past, present and future -- has been accepted as part of the San Diego
State University's Library's Special Collection, and will be available to students
and professors for research, and to the public for exhibits.
She can
be emailed at barr at stinz dot com (remove spam barriers). She answers. Keep
the sentences short.
Losing Gracefully (Or: What the Hell am I doing here?) By Donna Barr
First of all, Stephen Holland is AWFULLY proud of the interview he did with me. Go see; http://www.qualitycommunications.co.uk/ci/donna.htm Oh, and they use the photo that I could never talk Jason into using. You will laugh. Unless you can’t stand looking at a tongue that close up.
Okay, because one of my appallingly generous readers – anonymous and without address because otherwise I would be able to shower him with art (Oh no!) – said the only payback he wanted was a trip report, here is what happened at the San Diego Comicon International, at least from my tiny, confused and inappropriate viewpoint.
And why I’m never attending again. No. I mean it this time.
As I think I probably mentioned (all over the fucking net), I was up for the Friends of Lulu Hall Of Fame award (and those of you who sneered at that, I’m sorry for retorting like I did because how right you were). Admittedly I knew it was another of those If We Give Her One Will She Go Away? (Pun intended) awards, but I don’t get a lot of nominations for anything, so I was kinda revved. The only thing I ever win is grants, and my record so far is 2 out of 5. That means I can do my homework and follow stupid binding instructions, and I can COUNT.
Done? Okay, “Hell Week” is an understatement, right?
Oh, you think so, do you? Just wait.
Let’s say that by the time I managed to get to Seattle, my 1970 VW Bug, Honig, started choking and stalling every time I asked her to try climbing hills and I had to all but push her up the last incline on Yesler hill and tickle her into the only possible flat parking space. All I could hope was the damn thing had been stolen by the time I get back, and I could write it off for the insurance. I left it by Roberta Gregory’s place and prayed or cussed (which is more likely) for the best. Then we both took off to the airport with her guy, Bruce, who was nice enough to give us a ride.
At Sea-Tac we had to wait about four hours, but in the newly-built snack area which had some nice tables and a huge glassed-in view of a clear watery bright sunset. Pretty pleasant. But one of my teeth was starting to mess with me. I must have started grinding it while I was dealing with the car. I normally wear a boxer’s guard at night, but I chew those in half in about six months. I like the bright-colored ones. Especially green or red, because that freaks people out if I forget to take it out.
And then the plane trip – oh, jeeze mareeze. I’ve had years of steadily more painful plane trips, as my ability to withstand the pressure in the cabins becomes progressively more crapped out. This time I spent two and a half hours feeling as though someone was boring through my head both ways with a toilet snake. By the time I got off the plane, I was dizzy, deaf, half-homicidal, and had experienced my first shot of – NEW DISABILITY! – claustrophobia. Oh, the joy of novelty. I fought it down, with minimal squirming, armrest-pressing and deep breathing, but then had to motion to the woman beside me, “It’s okay, just – uh – my pants are on wrong.” I dunno. She didn’t look like she believed me.
Oh, fuck, why go into progressive details. I spent the fucking convention with the face nerves all swollen up and reaching down and getting the roots involved on that rotten set of upper left molars – which have been giving me trouble for 25 years, since I broke them on a fucking chicken salad sandwich, and no there was not a bone, I guess my stupid body thought it was fucking FUNNY. By the time the Naproxen and the sulpha drugs that I carry around with me in case of bladder infections (HA!) kicked in, I was breathing through my ears and I was fucking drooling. THAT’s attractive.
AND of course by the time sweet helpful Michelle Polk shows up to pick up Roberta and me, my facial nerves have started to swell.
Michelle’s a San Diego State University student. She’s doing a dissertation on my work (people do that – I get a lot of academic interest) and was putting us up at her tiny but tasteful apartment with her very cool dogs, Bertie and Sunny, who gave us a big prancy dog-talky welcome. I’ve shipped three boxes of books to Michelle, two of ‘em giveaways, and the box of the Black Manuscripts we’ll be turning over to SDSU on Monday after the con for their Love Library Special Collection. Geeze, that sucker’s heavy. The night before the convention Roberta and I transfer to the hotel, and there is a momentary panic as I see only two boxes and believe I forgot to ship the box with the sale books in it. No sweat, Michelle drops ‘em by. Bless her great big heart.
Preview Night. Nice and quiet, getting everything all set up. I’m a caffeine addict and you just rent coffee, so I have to pee. I come around the corner to one of the restrooms and there’s this guy standing right in the door with a camera. Before I can indeed yawp, “Hey, pervert!” I see what he’s photographing.
In the door of the restroom is a privacy screen – covered with dark material. Overhead is a nice bright little lamp.
And posing as Nurse Thonglet in front of the nice dark background is one of the big-bazonga’d porn girls who’ve been showing up at the huge pop culture fest that SDCC has become. And she’s having no luck keeping her face straight – porn is supposed to look at least sultry – because her poor photographer keeps having to turn around and wail, “I’m not a pervert! We haven’t got anyplace to take photos!”
Well, you see, there’s no place, really, to take a good dramatic shot at the convention. Every dorky little sci-fi convention has got masquerade photography backgrounds. And I find out the convention has one, too, but only in white.
So when one of the convention staff drops by (it was pretty slow, and he was trolling for impressions or bored or something), I inform him of the problem. And am later able to go find the porn girl and tell her, “Hey, now you’ll be part of convention history!” Which she thinks is cool.
(Convention bimbos are fun people, and very nice and businesslike. I’ve helped ‘em stuff their bras evenly with toilet paper and make sure their seams are straight. This year, there’s one in the restroom, in really skimpy tight latex super-something drag – how DOES she keep that thing on? -- squatting on the floor in her 7 inch heels, digging frowning through her makeup bag. That’s right -- the bimbos get dressed and do their makeup in the women’s restrooms. They’re all just more girls straightening out their hair and washing their hands, and trying to find something in their backpacks. And none of us look at them because they’re just more women at work, and even if we were interested, it’s just a restroom situation, and not very damn seductive. AND YOU FANBOYS DON’T GET TO SEE THEM DO IT. Somehow I find this extremely gratifying).
Speaking of restrooms, by the second day of the con I caught my body grinning at me in the mirror and it pissed me off so bad (and here I was thinking having gotten past menopause and being an official Crone had ripped out the overload of testosterone I’d always suffered from) that by the time I got back out into the hall I was snarling aloud at the Meat Puppet.
“Awright, fucker, that is IT. When we get home, I’m getting the fucking Luger out of the fucking underwear drawer and blow a hole out the back of your neck.”
And I was doing the body voices, too:
“Go ahead! Go ahead! I dare you. I would love to be away from you. All you do is drive me up and down with your claws in the back of my neck and force me to carry you to these fucking conventions, you conscienceless merciless art whore you. I’ve told you time and again that all I want is a nice bed with crisp linen and pretty boys to bring me tea – but will you fucking listen? I hope you miss and give me a frontal lobotomy, so at least YOU will disappear.“
“That does it, you sack of Jello and calcium sticks. You’re getting a nine millimeter ROOT CANAL.”
“Ha ha ha ha. You can’t load the magazine without me, and when I’m this sick, I’m not going to be pinching my fingers on that stupid spring-steel magazine, so screw you, Little Miss White Matter.”
You realize by now I think it’s funny, so I’m starting to entertain myself, and parents are putting their hands over their children’s ears and leading them away. And I’m still drooling.
(Who the hell is writing these reports? Has my body learned to type?)
Amber Greenlee, who will be sharing the hotel with us, told me that Descartes, with his Mind-Body-Brain separation was chronically ill. Oh, yeah, that’s all really hard to figure out. That’s not genius, that’s just your body hurting and your brain refusing to leave it alone. You can see a version of this kind of conversation in The Desert Peach #24 at http://www.stinz.com/home/desertpeach/dpeach24.html
Okay. What else was interesting? Well, I really can’t tell you. I didn’t wander around the floor a lot, except to go get another packet of Motrin from the First Aid station.
Thursday night, Friends of Lulu banquet. First of all, it’s done up old-lady style. Tea and sweets and pretty draped tables and chandeliers. Huh? WHERE are the scantily-bethonged sixpack waiter-boys? And the fresh fruit and cold cuts? Artists need protein and stuff. And a hell of a lot more coffee. Oh, well. Lulu’s kinda run by old ladies, anyway. Well, at least they have an open bar even though I don’t dare touch alcohol any more.
One of my readers, who is in a very good mood, discovering that my face is about ready to fall off (which doesn’t prevent me from playing with the cookies), comes wafting to me in the most elegant airy black dress, bearing a perfectly-arranged tea-set, with lemon and raw sugar and everything. My body – which lives for shit like this – just oohs and ahs. I’m easily amused/satisfied. Lawdy, my own Houri.
Weirdness happens. Some girl comes up and says – in the most combative way possible – “So, are you still mad at me?”
Huh? What? And that’s what I say, staring up at her: “About what?”
I dunno, she thinks I’m blowing her off or something. She makes some remark and all I remember is shaking my head in a red fog and mumbling, “I have a toothache.”
So she says: “Well, then, those sweets are going to help,” and stomps off.
I have to go back through my otherwise-occupied memory and then bingo, I remember, she’s one of the Girlamatic herd that butted into the tiff (Who? What? Where the hell did this come from?) I got into with Lea Hernandez because Lea didn’t like me using the same language on her that Lea thought was so funny when I used it on other people. This girl is evidently just a born butt-insky. I can’t remember this girl’s name, but I know I’ve done art for her. See, this is what happens if you help people.
So there am me being totally confused again, which I do a lot and I’m very good at. Am I from another planet, or am I just on a different wavelength or timeline or what?
Anyway, the thing starts and they announce the Hall Of Fame contestants. As usual, when they announce my art, they make a Nazi remark. Something about, “And actually made Nazis” something something, pleasant, palatable, some horseshit. You know, the next time somebody says that about my work I’m going to simply get up and walk out of the room. It will be the sign that the people I’m with are just half-assed ignoramuses who can’t read and don’t want to know, and they are wasting my time.
Stephen Notley’s (Bob The Angry Flower http://angryflower.com/) voice comes floating up from the other side of the buffet – “Wehrmacht!” Yay, Stephen. At least the man is literate.
Anyway, the Hall of Fame winner is that Japanese woman who has done so much for drawn books, and lemme tell you, if I’m gonna lose to anybody that’s somebody I don’t mind, because she’s done masses and masses of work and marketing and promotion and getting people in the industry jobs.
And then I look around me and I think, “What the hell -- ? Why am I here? These are just team people. They do superheroes or Manga. Oh, man.” Slap on forehead. “Here I go again, herding with team people. Did the Furries teach me NOTHING?” Groan. I’m a grandfathered vendor with Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Baker and Taylor. This whole convention is just too SMALL.
Stephen comes over, nicely lubed, and sits down and we start cracking each other up about our perceived place in the comics industry. We decide we’ll start our own group. We include ourselves, Keith Knight (The K Chronicles http://www.kchronicles.com/) Roberta Gregory (www.robertagregory.com). We are The Cockroaches. You know – nothing can kill us, we can survive on nothing, we’re working in the dark, and we have to scuttle a lot. An English lit prof at SDSU is calling my stuff Outsider Art, which is as close to being in a box as I’m going to get. “Outsider Art.” Cool.
Saturday: All I remember is that everybody – no matter what they’re selling – is suffering the same Saturday Slump we had last year. Man. Sales are WAY down from what they should be. Some people say The Economy, but most agree that the convention is all mixed up – porn babes next to kids’ comics next to band promoters. If SDCC wants to save its ass, it’s going to have to start classifying all these dealers by type and kind. Superheroes over here. Manga there. Toys here. Small press in ONE place, not two! Clearly delineated – with SIGNS and directional devices. And possibly traffic cops. I mean, the thing is the size of a small city. We need traffic cops.
Amber Greenlee (No Stereotypes www.moderntales.com) says she wants to be a Junior Cockroach, so we let her into the Roach Motel, too. She has to bring her own piece of moldy cheese.
A copy of Caveman Robot cracked me up because it has this letter-writing Nazi penguin named Colonel Threeheadedspacepony. I even had to draw my own version of the Colonel carrying a fruitcake for Hitler’s birthday, and wander down the hall and give it to the authors, who thought it was pretty funny. But of course by now it’s Sunday and everybody’s a little punch-drunk.
Monday, drop off the Black Manuscripts at the Love Library. They’re pretty excited about them. Yay! Life goal accomplished. Note to self: Must fill out paperwork. Roberta takes off to visit her mother.
Tuesday, Michelle and I go up to visit Joyce Farmer, one of the original people with Tits and Clits (http://www.lambiek.net/farmer_joyce.htm). Roberta, who has rendezvous’d at Joyce’s beautiful Laguna Beach hill-top house, joins us all for tea and fruit and ocean breezes and a great carne asada platter at a neat Mexican restaurant. We find out that Joyce has worked for years as a bail bondsman, and I’m waiting for THOSE stories to be written!
That evening, Michelle drops me off at the San Diego airport. Standing in the Homeland Fuckerity line, I look up and see the “Please do not joke about terror or bombs.” And so I happen to drop my driver’s license.
“Oops. Dropped my plasteek.”
Yeah. Plasteek, or however the hell it’s spelled. I saw a couple people in line kinda twitch, but not one of the damn security people got it. Picked it up, handed it to the guy and said, “Getting’ drastic with the plastic.”
Nothin’. Sheesh. At this point I was kinda hoping they’d request me to step into a little room so I could demand that they strip-and-butt-search me in public, so EVERYBODY could join in the Fun and Freedom that is America. Well, you don’t want to go into a room alone with anybody in uniform, do you? Fuck. You’ve seen those Abu Gharib pictures, right? Uniforms are pervs. We all know that, now.
It’s like an East German writer once said: he was going back to East Germany because there, all you had to fool were the censors, and censors are stupid.
And don’t get on me about saying rude things about uniforms. Something about putting one on turns people into whining me-first hypocrites who refuse to follow orders. You think not? Even though, as an American Citizen, one is the ultimate Commander In Chief, how much you want to bet that nobody wearing a uniform will admit it when you stroll into a recruiting office and tell everybody there to drop and give you 50? Well, you can, you know. You can also tell them to all go into a corner and stand there all day. They have to do everything you tell them to (“Cool! My own GI Joe doll!”). If they don’t, it’s dereliction of duty. You can report them to their commanding officer – and if you get crap from him, you can jump his ass while you’re at it. “Lock them heels! You call me MA’AM when you talk to me! Did I TELL you to speak!? Did I tell you to BREATHE??”
All the full adult citizens could all start yelling contradictory orders at marching units in parades. Too much fun.
I think we should all do it.
In Seattle, I drop in to sign books or talk marketing at Zanadu (http://www.zanaducomics.com/) and Golden Age Collectibles (GACollect@aol.com).
Anyway, there’s much more fun before I finally get home but it’s not really related to the con or comics or anything. Check the blog.
And I come home to find I made much more money in checks from companies I’ve been shipping books to. So between airplane pressure pain and SDCC being just too small – I need the world! – if I’m back at all next year, it will be virtual. Yup, my body has won at last. And it’s happy. If I catch it dancing I will bitch-slap it.
And I’ve saved the best for last. I’ve been with www.booksurge.com for a few years, but another company I’ve been watching has finally hit a level I’ve been hoping for
www.Lulu.com (NOT affiliated with Friends of Lulu).
Print on demand. Color art and prose. NO upfront costs. 24 to 700 pages perfect bound. Low-end common programs (jpeg and Word, instead of PageMaker or Indesign). YES!!
I was talking them up at the convention and then the Girls themselves show up at my table. They are swift, cute, together and they give presies – like a very cute creamsicle orange baseball cap which make you wicked aggressive if you wear them backwards, and – eat your heart out, Fantagraphics! – neat stainless steel pocket flasks with the Lulu crest engraved. Terminally cool.
So when Scotty – the guy who always shares a sip of ancient and full-of-character single-malt scotch with me sometime during the convention – comes up this time with an 18-year-old peaty smoky slightly citrusy (touch of leather) scotch, I have something to put it in to take home and share with Dan….
By the by, Dreamcon (http://dreamconwa.org/) is working on my being a virtual guest. If it works, all kinds of older, ailing or distant authors and artists can be guests and panel members anywhere, any time. And we’ve worked out the signing problem for POD –bookplates! (Awright, so it’s just nice labels. Same same dog).
Mark Thompson, Cold Cut Distribution (http://www.coldcut.com/), bet me a milkshake (SERIOUS bet, here – I don’t just bet ice cream for nothing) that it will be four years before Lulu gets POD machines on the SDCC floor. I’m betting next year.
And the Lulu Girls say that if it’s TWO years, they’re buying us both a milkshake.
