Ok after reading another blog from a comic guy I'm reminded of a couple of stories from my days in the industry. Ha! Nothing quite as exciting as actually working on a comic book but still interesting stuff.
The story I shall tell today happened when I worked for a local distributor in the Seattle area. He was from Portland, Ore. and was expanding into Washington as he had customers all over the Northwest. I was tapped to manage the warehouse in Seattle and so when he opened there was a big open house to get all the stores up to speed and show people that he was serious. We had freebies from Marvel and DC, this was in the days before Image and most of the other companies, so the big two were pretty much it.
The reps from the companies were also there to smooosh the store owners. We had food and posters, comics and give-aways galore. We also had Peter David before he was Peter David. By that I mean he was still in the Direct Sales Dept (that's what they called the comic book store accts) and had actually just sold his first story (at least teh first one that drew attention). At that time one of the things the big two had been experimenting with were cardboard stand-ups of certain characters. DC had provided a couple of Superman standees and of course Marvel not to be out done sent us some Wolverine ones. So here are teh Superman and Wolverine standees next to each other and if you know your comic heroes it was quite funny as Superman was the same height as Wolvie. Why is this funny you ask?
Well Wolverine was actual size and in the comics he's like 5' 2" tall and of course Supes should be around 6' 2". Peter David started laughing and then, by the way there of course was a DC rep there in attendance too, he grabbed the Superman and Wolverine standees and proceeded to dance them next to each other while chanting, ' Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy.' It was damn funny to see the look on the DC rep's face as everyone started laughing so hard tears started rolling down our faces. That was my introduction to Peter David. I wonder if he remembers that? Probably not but now it's immortalized on the internet.
Next time I'll talk about a woman who most insiders consider the heart of Marvel Comics in teh late 70's and 80's. You more than likely have never heard of her but when she passed away suddenly in the late 80's everyone felt Marvel changed for the worse. She also taught me how to pronounce one of the most difficult names in comics.
Next time.
The story I shall tell today happened when I worked for a local distributor in the Seattle area. He was from Portland, Ore. and was expanding into Washington as he had customers all over the Northwest. I was tapped to manage the warehouse in Seattle and so when he opened there was a big open house to get all the stores up to speed and show people that he was serious. We had freebies from Marvel and DC, this was in the days before Image and most of the other companies, so the big two were pretty much it.
The reps from the companies were also there to smooosh the store owners. We had food and posters, comics and give-aways galore. We also had Peter David before he was Peter David. By that I mean he was still in the Direct Sales Dept (that's what they called the comic book store accts) and had actually just sold his first story (at least teh first one that drew attention). At that time one of the things the big two had been experimenting with were cardboard stand-ups of certain characters. DC had provided a couple of Superman standees and of course Marvel not to be out done sent us some Wolverine ones. So here are teh Superman and Wolverine standees next to each other and if you know your comic heroes it was quite funny as Superman was the same height as Wolvie. Why is this funny you ask?
Well Wolverine was actual size and in the comics he's like 5' 2" tall and of course Supes should be around 6' 2". Peter David started laughing and then, by the way there of course was a DC rep there in attendance too, he grabbed the Superman and Wolverine standees and proceeded to dance them next to each other while chanting, ' Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy.' It was damn funny to see the look on the DC rep's face as everyone started laughing so hard tears started rolling down our faces. That was my introduction to Peter David. I wonder if he remembers that? Probably not but now it's immortalized on the internet.
Next time I'll talk about a woman who most insiders consider the heart of Marvel Comics in teh late 70's and 80's. You more than likely have never heard of her but when she passed away suddenly in the late 80's everyone felt Marvel changed for the worse. She also taught me how to pronounce one of the most difficult names in comics.
Next time.
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