If You Wanna Be An Artist Carry

Once, I'd Written A Western Story, And One Of The Panels Was Just A Hand Holding A Six-shooter, And There Was A Puff Of Smoke Coming Out Of The Barrel, And A Straight Horizontal Line, Indicating The Trajectory Of The Bullet. So That Page Was Sent Back To Me From The Code Office, Saying That The Particular Panel Was Too Violent. I Asked Them What They Meant, And They Told Me--i Swear--"the Puff Of Smoke Is Too Big." Well, Of Course. So I Had The Artist Make The Smoke A Little Smaller, And The Youth Of America Was Saved.

The "problem" Is That Comic-con Is So Damned Successful. People Who Are There Seem To Have A Wonderful Time. The Very Size Of It Makes It Exciting. Wherever You Look, There's Something Exciting. The Attendees Are Always Looking Around For A Familiar Face. It's Either 'there's A Movie Star!' Or, 'there's A Tv Star!' Or, 'there's The Guy Who Drew The Green Lantern!' It Means So Much To The Fans. It Makes Them Feel Like They're Where It's Happening. It's Like Woodstock.

The Cliché I Tried To Avoid Was I Hated "teenage Sidekicks." I Always Figured If I Were A Superhero, There's No Way On God's Earth That I'm Gonna Pal Around With Some Teenager. So My Publisher Insisted I Have A Teenager In The Series, Because They Always Felt Teenagers Won't Read The Books Unless There's A Teenager In The Story; Which Is Nonsense.

Face Front, True Believers!

Ideally, Anything One Writes Should Have A Social Conscience: If You Can Write A Story That Thrills, And With A Good Message, That's The Perfect Type Of A Story.