Which of the Freak Brothers Do You Most Resemble?
This is my April 1 story, not because it is about a prank -- I'm not really into pranks -- but because I think it is sort of funny, which may be a clue about my sense of humor. My friend Tailor and I were at a science fiction convention in the St. Louis, Missouri area, Archon, one of my favorite conventions. It is also one of the largest SF conventions I attend. It has many guests, writers, editors, artists, movie and TV celebrities, cartoonists. It has so many guests that I can even qualify as a "guest" -- by virtue of my history of being involved in the creation of St. Louis area fandom in the sixties. This approach -- having a lot of diverse guests, is obviously one which has been successful for them, as Archon is one of those Midwestern SF conventions which is growing, at a time when many are downsizing.
I was going to be on a comics-related panel with a fellow named Sonny Strait. I didn't know his name, but I was curious about my other panelists, so I was reading the bios in the program book, where I found that he was a cartoonist who had worked on Elfquest and other projects, and who was also very active as a voice actor, notably on Dragonball Z, a hugely popular Japanese anime series syndicated in this country.
I was thinking about how this might be an interesting panel, when I looked up and found a young fellow looking through the boxes of small press comics I was selling in the Huxter Room. "What can I help you find?" I asked, with that annoying way I have. My customer asked me if I had any copies of an obscure old porn comic, the title of which I didn't at first remember. He explained that it was a brief lived title published by Antarctic (under a different imprint), and that he was interested in finding a copy because he had a story in it. So I squinted at his name tag. Sonny Strait. "Oh. . ." I said, "Well, I'm afraid I haven't had any of those for a long time . . . but, well, let me introduce myself. We are going to be on a panel together later today."
Sonny graciously allowed that he had been wondering who else was going to be on that panel as well, and that he was happy to meet me. We chatted for quite a while about this and that, mostly comics I guess. At some point he exclaimed, "You are an interesting guy! I'm going to base a comic book character on you!" I'm sure I looked confused for a bit, but finally the truth dawned on me, and I carefully said, "Sir, I am already a comic book character." I turned to Tailor and asked him if he knew which one. Without missing a beat he said, "Phineas Freak." You know, the least appealing of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Later, on our panel, Sonny told someone else how interesting they were, and that he was going to base a comic book character on them, so obviously he just says that to all the boys and girls.
I checked out Sonny's website a few days ago to see what he was up to. He writes that he is going to do a graphic novel for Tokyopop, which is great news! He also told a story about how he recently picked up the bass guitar, and that he wasn't making much progress with it until, you guessed it, he created a comic book character who played the guitar; then everything started falling into place.