Comics that Changed My Life: G.I. Joe #21

This is the third in a series of five posts about comics that made an impact on me growing up. I'm not talking about anything I worked on as a professional, but books I bought that influenced me as a creator and as a person. I'd never seen anything like this comic before. It was silent! It also had ninjas. But it was silent![image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/gijoe.jpg" align="left" border="image_border" link="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1631400355/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1631400355&linkCode=as2&tag=thozahartstu-20&linkId=SMKJGBM5VFJYGSVD" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

I read this comic in the car on a rainy day home from the comic shop and immediately started creating one of my own. It was a young ninja, because I'm all original like that (hey, I was twelve) but the mood and the pacing of the story were inspired from this issue.

This story was the one that showed me how much you could do with the format,  and how much of the storytelling could be carried in the pictures alone. It rocked my world and not only made me want to be an artist more, but it made me want to do something just as inventive.

Comics That Changed My Life: Adventure Comics #480

This is the second in a series of five posts about comics that made an impact on me growing up. I'm not talking about anything I worked on as a professional, but books I bought that influenced me as a creator and as a person. You've just gotta love a George Peréz cover, don't you? I certainly did.

This was the first issue of DC's Dial H For Hero that caught my eye. I remember buying it at a Barney's grocery store. There was something just so interesting about the six colorful heroes on the cover. I read it and enjoyed it, and then I went back and bought all the back issues I could find. Fortunately, they weren't highly in demand, so a lot of them were in the quarter bins.

The cool thing about Dial H was that the fans created the heroes and the heroes. Chris King and Vicki Grant became a different hero very time they used their power dials, and they fought against an ever changing roster of villains. Every hero that appeared had a credit listing the creator, their ages (many were younger than me!) and where they were from. And then they got a t-shirt, too.[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/adventurecomics.jpg" align="left" border="image_border" link="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401226485/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401226485&linkCode=as2&tag=thozahartstu-20&linkId=5PQKWMZ6ECYDDCUO" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

So, I traced the John Buscema bodies from How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way and started creating hero after hero. I remember creating a hero based on the Executioner, Bruce Wayne's pre-Batman identity, from Superboy. I remember a Queen of Hearts character, a gold and green lady and a hero with a car. Along the way, I also created a shape shifter called Any-Body.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/anybody.jpg" align="left" border="image_border" link="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401226485/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1401226485&linkCode=as2&tag=thozahartstu-20&linkId=5PQKWMZ6ECYDDCUO" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

Years later, in The New Adventures of Superboy #35, Any-Body appeared.  I could have used that issue for this as well, but this is the issue that launched me on that path. It was the first time a character I created saw print and my first contribution to a comic book universe. I'd want more.

I'll be at Fiesta Equestria!

It's been announced that I will be at guest at Fiesta Equestria in Houston. The show will be July 11-13 at the Houston Marriott Westchase, and I'll be there along with other Pony People… including Brenda Crichlow, the voice of Zecora. Since I wrote the recent Zecora/Fluttershy issue, I'm particularly looking forward to meeting her. I'll be bringing copies of the Pony books I worked on, sketchcards, and be taking and doing commissions, too. Hope to see you there.

Play Ball

Yesterday was my big day throwing the first pitch and being part of the Akron Comicon day at the Akron Rubber Ducks game. The first thing I learned was that it's not so much "the first pitch" but "one of the first". There were fourteen of us throwing out ceremonial first pitches. So, technically, I was the twelfth pitch. But I don't care, it was still awesome.

I was practicing with my Dad for the last week or so because I respect our national pastime. Also, I didn't want to embarrass myself. We wound up throwing from the mound, which I hadn't practiced, but I managed to clear the distance which was the important thing to me. My pitch was ultimately high and outside, so I like to think of it as practicing my brushback move.

After that, I hung out at my table and signed posters and gave away comics. I think the mini comic con went really well, and I hope that this will be the first of many such events.

I even got to sign alongside Webster, the Akron Rubber Duck mascot. I'm the one without the feathers.

Comics that Changed My Life: Superman #290

This is the first in a series of five posts about comics that made an impact on me growing up. I'm not talking about anything I worked on as a professional, but books I bought that influenced me as a creator and as a person. I don't actually remember my first comic book. They were always part of my life. But this is the earliest comic book that I can remember. I remember my Dad reading it to me. I was reading from a really early age, and my parents used comics as a reward system. [image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/superman290.jpg" align="left"  border="image_border" link="https://www.amazon.com/Superman-1939-290-DC-Comics/dp/B005UQZ540/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=thozahartstu-20&linkCode=w01&linkId=3TPWMPVNUB4TLJ3I&creativeASIN=B005UQZ540" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]Clean your room, get a comic, that kind of thing. We bought them on vacations and at flea markets. They were always around.

I also don't remember a time where I didn't want to do comics. I've always known it was what I wanted to do. In some way, this is the comic that sent me on that journey.

A Stormtrooper in Lederhosen

My art book is called Rhinos Bowling because I realized that what my world involved one day. Yesterday was Stormtroopers Wearing Lederhosen. I can't say what it's for yet, though once I can, rest assured that I will. For now, I leave you to wonder how they can drink beer through their helmets.

Sometimes People Bring Me Things

I have great fans and friends. At Comicpalooza, I've made the acquaintance of a couple people who work at and with the Houston Space Center. One of them, Rick, was kind enough to bring me some Orion stuff. I can't express how cool this is.

Take Me Out To the Ball Game

I'm on my way down to Comicpalooza today, but I just got the official okay to announce that I'll be at the Akron Rubber Ducks game as part of their comic event and to promote November's Akron Comicon. I've done a poster for the day which features their Webster, the Ducks' mascot and the Crusader from Love and Capes.

Also, I'm going to fulfill a long-time dream and throw out the first pitch. And yes, I am absolutely practicing. My goal is to not appear on YouTube the next day.

The Akron Rubber Ducks (formerly the Aeros) are the AA affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. Just in case you didn't know.

Lessons From Joe Kubert

Joe Kubert taught me a lot of things. They range from how to lay out a cover to the most important of all artist's lessons: get paid. One of the ones that has come to be the most useful is to learn how to do everything. He told me that he wanted to teach his students enough skills so that if they went into a one-horse town with only one art job opening, he or she would be qualified for it. So we didn't just learn to draw, we learned to letter, to ink, to color, to design and more. At the time, a lot of us pushed back on that, knowing that comic book editors wanted to see you specialize in one thing rather show you could do everything.

It may not have been what comic companies wanted to see, but Joe was more right that I could have imagined. As the industry has shifted and self-publishing has become common and necessary, being able to do it all has been essential to my success. He taught us to be able to do every stage of making and printing a comic. I create it and then get the final file to the printer and not need to bring anyone else in. When you're producing on a shoestring, having to hire less people is invaluable. I could not have done Love and Capes or Raider without that broad skill set.

Fortunately, that "Learn everything" stayed with me. The Kubert School didn't teach much about computers when I attended there, so I learned how to use them after I graduated. I learned how to color in Photoshop and lay out a book in inDesign. And I learned how to build websites and shoot video and edit commercials. I've learned how to use MangaStudio. All sorts of stuff. And every new skill is one more tool in my toolbox that gives me more flexibility.

It's something I was thinking about as I was redesigning my website. I never formally learned PHP, but I was able to dig around in enough code that I could make the tweaks I needed to and sought out resources when I couldn't. I experimented with all sorts of changes in the CSS. I Googled more than a few things to learn how to build the site I wanted. And if I broke things, well, it wasn't live and I was the only one who would see it. But I'd learn something along the way.

That's the thing I wanted to share, and the reason I'm writing this atypically evangelical post: Learn things and don't stop. Make yourself better. Don't just be one of those people who learns what button to press, learn why it does what it does. You'll be all the richer for it.

Why I Liked the End of HIMYM, But Not the Finale

Judging by the reactions on the internet, I'm clearly in the minority. There are people who think it's the worst finale since Seinfeld. I don't think it was. HIMYM remains one of my favorite sitcoms, favorite shows, of all time. When it was on, it was clever, touching and funny. The Three Day Storm never leaves me with a dry eye, no matter how often I've seen it. The Robin Sparkles episodes kept getting funnier. I just adored it.

In crafting the finale, though, they set out a pretty herculean task. To make nine seasons of build up come to a satisfying conclusion. There, they didn't do quite as well.

How I Met Your Mother tried to do the bold thing. They created a sitcom that tried to do things different. Characters didn't always get the happy ending. Nothing turns out like you expect. Heck, the creators tried to make the gang sit at different tables at their bar until the realities of making a sitcom intruded and they needed to have a regular table.

Lily never became a successful artist. Marshall never became an environmental lawyer. And his father never lived to see his grandson. Ted and Barney were never the same after Barney started dating Robin. Things didn't work out the way they were supposed to or the way they wanted to.

Tragedy was always part of the show. The Mother (yeah, I know her name is Tracy, but she'll always be The Mother to me) lost her first true love early on. We already mentioned Marshall's dad. Robin finding out she could never have kids, even when she didn't want them, was heartbreaking. It was woven into the fabric of the show.

So, it feels organic to me that Ted's story includes The Mother dying too young and leaving Ted alone. It's not out of left field. They foreshadowed it this year and even last year in The Time Travelers episode where Ted gives an impassioned speech to an unseen Mother about how, if he had those forty days extra he'd want to spend them with her.

(Full disclosure: That's when I figured out The Mother would die. I say this not to show off how smart I am, but because I know me well enough to think that part of why I liked the end was the satisfaction of being proven right. But seeing the bad coming, like the countdown when Marshall's dad died, helps you prepare for it, too.)

But, while I liked where the show ended, I wasn’t thrilled with the last episode.

It reminded me of that one episode of Moonlighting where they run out of time and budget and Dave and Maddie wind up telling Whoopi Goldberg and Judd Nelson how the episode was supposed to end. The last hour was a series of vignettes that touch on the high points quickly, and as such it’s hard to get the true impact of them.

We’re left trying to intellectually fill in emotional gaps, and that’s always unsatisfying. I fully believe that Ted never looked back once he met The Mother. He never pined for Robin or wondered what could have been. When they met, she was his everything. But, one hour of seeing them as a couple isn’t enough to make feel that.

We spent nine years with the gang as they were, and no matter how good Cristin Milioti was, and believe me she was great, we’re just not going to love her the way we really needed to.

I’m okay with Ted winding up with Robin. I’ve heard that The Mother is the consolation prize until he can wind up with Robin, but that’s not so. If anything, Robin is the consolation prize to Ted for losing his true love. But true love, that’s the thing…

The show played with so many tropes, that I think it was also playing with the “There’s only one person for everyone.” There’s certainly a right person for everyone, but everyone doesn’t stay the same. There’s no way Ted and Robin would have ever worked as a couple. Ted wanted a family way too much. Robin wanted her career way too much. But neither the Ted nor Robin at the end of the show is the same one from the beginning of the show. They’ve achieved things and they’re different people.

Change has always been part of the show. Ted even says it to Robin during her moment of crisis before the wedding. “I’m not that guy anymore.” None of them are the same. Marshall realizes that environmental law isn’t where he wants to make a difference. Ted becomes a teacher to share his love of architecture. The Ted that meets The Mother is the one that would have been blissfully happy to stay with her forever. But because he loses her, he’s a different person.

There were things I didn’t like about the ending, most of them with Barney. It’s so obvious that Robin is his gateway to changing to be a different person that it’s painful to see him try to convince himself that he likes being the Old Barney through the last hour until the birth of his daughter. In fact, I would have preferred that he and Robin had never gotten married at all. It’s the biggest seam where I think they were finding new things to do when the series kept going.

I didn’t like Ted’s wedding, or lack thereof, either. He seems like too much a traditionalist to skip out on having a big ceremony. It’s okay that it wasn’t a big grand one (thought it probably should have been) but it served to make things feel small. I think they were trying to make the wedding the thing that brings Robin back, but there are other things they could have found to make that work.

I wanted to see more of what happened to The Mother. Her death was too quick. And from the construct, Ted probably doesn't need to tell his kids what she died of, but we needed to know. We needed to feel Ted’s pain so it wasn't an afterthought, or one we needed to intellectually fill in.

But there were lots of things I did like. I like that we found out about nearly everyone from the show, and that they went to the trouble of shooting images of everyone we’d seen in this season sitting in a pew watching the wedding. It made it feel like the moment it should have been.

Of course, that’s what part of the problem was. A year build up to a marriage that, ultimately, fails and becomes an obstacle. Meanwhile, Ted’s wedding is introduced and executed in a minute. I wanted to feel the same way about Ted and The Mother’s wedding as I did about Robin and Barney’s.

And the biggest thing I liked was that they executed the plan they had nine years ago. And it never occurred to me that the kids would participate in the story rather than just listen to it. They’re the ones who tell Ted that it’s okay to go after Robin. And they’re the ones who figure out what the story is really about. It’s not Ted trying to convince the kids as some people have said, and as I suspected it might be, it’s about the kids realizing what the story really means before Ted does.

The ending should have been bigger. It should have been longer. There are a lot of little things that I would have done differently. But their failing wasn’t the ending itself but how they chose to tell that ending.

It’s not everything I wanted, but I’m so happy I went on the journey that was How I Met Your Mother. No misstep at the end is going to take away my enjoyment and love of the show. For that, I give it the highest of high fives.