{"id":3945,"date":"2016-10-03T20:42:56","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T01:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/?p=3945"},"modified":"2016-10-03T21:00:47","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T02:00:47","slug":"gary-reed-and-a-history-lesson-of-indy-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/?p=3945","title":{"rendered":"Gary Reed and a History lesson on Indy publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gary Reed passed away this weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

The vast majority of you just went “gee, that’s too bad…I have no idea who that is.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Gary Reed was the man behind Caliber Comics.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Oooh…gee, that’s too bad.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, I don’t expect the same reaction as if Stan lee had died.\u00a0 But to many people, he was Stan Lee.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me take you into the ole way back machine for a trip into the history of independent publishing…to a time before facebook, a time before even the internet itself, to a time even before Image comics…<\/span><\/p>\n

At time called…the late 80’s to late 90’s.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I said, there was no internet, no social media to use, no websites, no web comics, nothing downloadable.\u00a0 If you wanted to call yourself a publisher, you had to actually publish something.\u00a0 If you wanted people to know about it, you had to spend actual money on actual ads in actual magazines.\u00a0 You couldn’t just scan something, pay a few bucks for a website, blast off posts on social media and declare yourself a publisher for as long as you were able to lie to yourself.\u00a0 That’s all pretty glib, but there isn’t much other way to point to the difference between then and now.\u00a0 Try to wrap your head around the idea of promoting a book…in a world where there is NO INTERNET.\u00a0 How would you even do it?\u00a0 Gary figured out how.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

If you wanted to be a pro and had an idea, a story, some talent, you could either invest\/risk thousands of dollars on it, or send your portfolio out to every publisher you could find.\u00a0 And there weren’t many.\u00a0 There was the big two, and Dark Horse and maybe a dozen others after that of rapidly diminishing consequence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Getting picked up by Marvel DC or Dark Horse, was a pipe dream and probably not worth the stamp ( you’ll probably have to google “stamp”).\u00a0 After those three it was a crap shoot of a bunch of companies fighting for survival, occasional putting out a book that more than a couple hundred people gave a crap about.\u00a0 Or so it would have seemed.\u00a0 It’s a marathon not a sprint. If you look at fifty yards or so of the race, Caliber Comics and Gary were just another publisher of the time putting out a handful of titles.\u00a0 If you look at the entire race though…you get an dramatically different picture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Caliber Comics published the first appearance of The Crow<\/strong>, and Madman<\/strong>.\u00a0 It also helped launch the careers of \u00a0Brian Bendis, David Mack, Vince Locke, Guy Davis, Michael Lark, Patrick Zircher, Jim Calafiore, Ed Brubaker, Michael Gaydos, James O\u2019Barr<\/strong>, and Mike Carey.\u00a0 <\/strong>That’s just the short list of talent and titles we can thank Gary for.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

That…is one hell of a contribution to the talent pool of this industry.\u00a0 And in the time Caliber was at it’s peak, giving anyone a voice took a hell of a lot of money and effort. And that list of talent Caliber boasted is not luck.\u00a0 That is an eye for talent, that is knowing when to capitalize on something, that is knowing who is worthwhile and is worthy of a voice.\u00a0 This would be a very different industry if not for Gary…an industry much more lacking in talent and diversity of styles.\u00a0 Caliber gave these people credibility and these people gave Caliber credibility.\u00a0 That’s how it’s supposed to work.\u00a0 It doesn’t usually shake out that way.\u00a0 Usually ego’s and pettiness and pretentiousness win the day and neither the publisher or pros amount to much or get any traction.\u00a0 It’s safe to say Gary steered clear of that type stuff for a reason.<\/span><\/p>\n

It could just be because it wasn’t in his DNA.\u00a0 I didn’t know Gary well,\u00a0 I sent a submission to Caliber when I was starting out, just before I said ‘ F it, I’ll do it myself”.\u00a0 Caliber, like a dozen others turned me down.\u00a0 I don’t remember what the letter said other than “no”,\u00a0 but I remember I did get a letter.\u00a0 A letter was written and folded and put into an envelope and a stamp was attached for the sake of acknowledging my efforts.\u00a0 For the time, that was pretty damn professional.\u00a0 I mention all that to say, I did not get my start thanks to Gary.\u00a0 I don’t owe him anything, he didn’t owe me anything.\u00a0 I can say with no pretense, I liked Gary, he was a good guy.\u00a0 We saw each other pretty often at comic book conventions. He’d always stop by my table and say hello, we’d yak a little bit.\u00a0 he was one of the few “pros” I didn’t dread seeing approach my table.\u00a0 He was a stand up guy, no ego, no pretentiousness, no bullsh*t.\u00a0 We never talked about anything important, just surveyed the playing field and had a few laughs.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

About 90% of the time when a pro comes up to say hello, they either want something or want to blather on about how great they want you to think things are going for them.\u00a0 Gary just wanted to say hello and see how I was doing.\u00a0 I don’t think I can convey how rare that is in my profession.\u00a0 Make no mistake, I’m not saying those other reasons are inherently bad.\u00a0 Time is short at conventions, you need to conduct business, you need to boost your ego for the long days in between anyone giving a sh*t who you are.\u00a0 It’s the nature of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Gary was just interested in having a normal conversation.\u00a0 It was a honest break in between doing his job.\u00a0 If any number of other pros had been partially responsible for Brian Bendis having a career…THAT would have been the focus of every conversation I would have with them….they’d been even more insufferable if they had that laundry list of talent they helped discover.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gary had just relaunched Caliber Comics and was building it’s stable of talent again.\u00a0 I never worked for him, he never asked.\u00a0 For all I know , he though I’d be too thought to deal with, or though I sucked, or just never got around to it.\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00a0 I’m sorry now that I never brought it up myself.\u00a0 Because looking back now on what he determined true talent to be, the the quality of what he put out…and likely would have begun to publish.\u00a0 It would have been an honor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gary Reed, quietly, professionally, and without pretension contributed a hell of a lot to our industry and did so at a time when it was very very difficult.\u00a0 He should be a legend…let me rephrase that…He is a legend, and we should all remember that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dig around in these links, if not in memory of the man, than to learn what is possible when you focus on the work and not the praise that might come from it.<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.calibercomics.com\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Caliber_Comics<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

When Douglas is not complaining, he and his work can be found at www.arseniclullaby.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gary Reed passed away this weekend. The vast majority of you just went “gee, that’s too bad…I have no idea who that is.” Gary Reed was the man behind Caliber Comics. “Oooh…gee, that’s too bad.” Yeah, I don’t expect the same reaction as if Stan lee had died.\u00a0 But to\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3945"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}