[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”24985″ img_size=”800×393″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]During my time at the Richmond GalaxyCon, I had the opportunity to meet many of the comic creators from back in the day. They were all friendly and would take the time to talk to you. Paris Cullins did more than that. He took an interest in who we were and where we were from. However, he really lit up when my wife mentioned that I wanted to be a comic book artist in my youth. He asked if I had any samples of my work and told us about his beginnings. I was so impressed by his passion and his energy, I knew we had to have him for GVNation.
Fortunately, he found some time in his busy schedule to talk to us about his career, his advice for young artists, and what he has going on now. It is with great pleasure that we present an exclusive interview with a man with over 30 years in the business. We welcome comic artist Paris Cullins to Geek Vibes Live.
GVL: Thank you for giving us some of your time, Paris.
Paris: Thanks for having me.
Paris: In the Beginning
GVL: Our pleasure. So Paris, you were a Philly child?
Paris: That’s right. North Philadelphia originally. But I’ve been everywhere. North, South, West, you name it. All over Philadelphia really.
GVL: At what point did you realize you had a talent for drawing? And when did you decide that maybe Comics was the way you wanted to express that?
Paris: Well, it started really early on. My mother had a great appreciation for art and for comic books. She wanted to be a painter and she loved comic books. In fact, she loved all kinds of fiction, and she read me the comic books she liked best. She would do all the background voices when reading the comics to me, especially Captain America. Captain America was my favorite. Because she liked particular artists, she would tell me about why they were great. In fact, my Father was an artist too. He was a touring jazz musician but he also loved to draw and paint. He specialized in landscapes.
GVL: That’s where you had the advantage over me. My mother was a big believer in art, but she thought comics were stupid. [Laughs] My father just didn’t understand. He passed away when I was rather young but he was a mechanic. So although he was working with his hands, he did not think that drawing was the kind of thing that his son should be wanting to do. My mother was very supportive of it, even though she didn’t think I was going to make a living of it. But that was Ok. If I wanted to do it, she supported it.
Paris: My Mother wasn’t of the belief that there wasn’t money in art or you couldn’t accrue money. She thought that people didn’t have what it takes to make money through the idea of creating. It’s a fact that we wouldn’t have airplane companies, we wouldn’t have furniture companies without someone creating.
GVL: So you were a young artist and you were really fortunate where your mother introduced you to the comics. So as you drew was there an artist that you wanted to be like? Perhaps you might have even thought, “I could do better than him.”
Paris: Working at an Early Age
Paris: In the beginning there were artists I liked. But my thoughts were if you could be better at something than someone else, then you should be taking a shot at it. I worked very early in my life. I painted signs for people. All kinds of things. Anything that showed up, I took a shot at it. The more I did, the more I got out of it.
I worked for a coloring book company…well they were called coloring books back then, now their activity books. It was at a five and dime I walked into. I looked at their coloring books and thought, I can do better than that. So I got one, I traced, I drew, I did all I could to learn that person’s style and I gathered it all together and mailed a letter to the company who made them.
They replied that we’re glad you sent this in but we don’t accept admissions because we’re seasonal. We only do this at the beginning and the end of the year. When we reach the second season, contact us again. So I did. They gave a coloring book to do. I did the coloring book. I got paid, for me at 11 years old, a lot of money. Books back then had 50 – 100 pages back. I did it…and made a good amount of money.
One Person’s Loss is Another Person’s Job
After that I worked for Larami Toys, I worked for everybody. That was before and after DC Comics. I did a commercial for an animation studio, although I didn’t know what they were at the time. I was walking down the street and a man that was running the deal was screaming at the top of his lungs at another guy telling him he was fired. He could get anyone to do the job he was doing.
He saw me walking with my portfolio and he looked at me and said, “You! Kid! Get over here! Do you have any art in that portfolio?” I said, “Sure.” He looked in my portfolio and turned to me and said, “You’re hired.” He turned back to the other guy and said “You Bum, You’re fired!” All I had to draw for that was a hand extending outward. It was an advertisement for an automotive parts company. So I got the job. I was a kid. I got a job with “Wee Willy Webber” who did an after-school show back then on Channel 17 in Philadelphia.
Anywhere and everywhere there was work. I did Holiday Cards. If you can try it, do it. That’s the problem a lot of folks run into. Their looking for a specific type of job. That’s what it comes down to. They take those kinds of jobs only AFTER waiting for that opportunity to come to them. They don’t realize they could have probably gotten those jobs right when they wanted them. Even early in their lives. You’d be surprised, Kids these days who do art, they’re really good. They may not be the best, but they’re not the worst in any fashion.
Paris: Pursuing your Goals
GVL: Your attitude was the attitude that I should have had when I was a kid. I had always thought, I’m pretty good. But I don’t know if I was afraid of rejection or what the problem was. But I never committed.
Paris: That’s exactly what it is. Most people are afraid of rejection. Or they believe the business is more sacred and they are making it bigger than it is. It wasn’t that every job I got wasn’t great. Because it was and it was bigger than I could have imagined. No harm, no foul. My mother always told me…you can’t get the girl unless you ask the girl.
Because of that, when I teach art classes…I talk to all of the kids but I am really emphasizing to the girls in the class. Because for some reason, they are taught to rely on the power of attraction. Someone told them that if they looked a certain way, their work would be noticed. That is not the case. You have to pursue what you want. You can’t just stand there and hope all the pieces line up. Because they won’t. YOU line them up.
I tell them it’s like being at the Prom. You’re standing in the corner alone, waiting for someone to ask you to dance. That’s the wrong way to live your life. It might be Ok for the Prom. But do you really want the boy you DON’T like to be the only one to ask and have no one else ask? Maybe the one you DO like didn’t ask because he’s shy. You have no idea. But you’ll never know because you’re waiting for him. That’s what business is. You ask.
Paris: Overcoming Fear
GVL: This is something my wife tells me all the time. She runs a temporary help service. If she waited for clients to come to her, she would never get them. She goes after them. She makes her own breaks.
Paris: Exactly. You might get lucky at some point but it seldom happens. You woke up this morning and you’re still breathing. That was your first lucky break. [laughs] What you do from that moment on is up to you. That thought has stuck with me. It has always been my credo and my motto.
Its not that I don’t suffer from complete shyness. I do. I suffer from major bouts of it. In fact, I have missed out on some great assignments. DC would call me in, and I would be late working on some other assignment from them. I would assume I was in trouble and would hesitate to go. Instead of going in at a reasonable time, I would go in at the end of the day. Hoping they would be too busy to see me. I was so afraid they were bringing me in to tell me off when in reality, they wanted to give me a great job. One they didn’t want to give to someone else.
But because I hesitated, they HAD to give it to someone else. For example, when DC put out their trading cards, I did about half of them. Then they were going to introduce these golden cards. They wanted to give me ALL of them because no one was showing up to do them. But I too didn’t show up. I didn’t get on the train, and I lost that job. That actually lost me $1000’s of dollars. Just because I didn’t get on a train. Fear is your worst enemy and YOU become your worst enemy when you succumb to it.
Paris: Getting on at DC Comics
GVL: As far as getting to work for DC, How did that come about? Did you send them samples of your work?
Paris: I would gather my work and send them letter, after letter, package, after package. It almost got to the point where I was sending them a package every two months. These packages would have 20 – 40 pages of art in it. So one day, I got a call from DC. But I didn’t answer the phone, my mother did. I was downstairs doing something. My mother called down to me: [imitating his Mother] “Paris, someone’s calling you. He said his name is Dick Giordano. I think he’s from a comic book company.” So I’m screaming and yelling as I’m running up the steps, “HOLD THE PHONE!” I was around 17 at the time.
He got on the phone and said, “Have you been sending me artwork like every other month or something?” I said, “yes.” “Well, STOP SENDING IT. I got it, you want to be a comic book artist.” “Come here in three weeks. You don’t have to bring anything. Just come down here. Although I have to tell you something. Don’t expect us to give you your artwork back, because we lost it. All of it. I’m not sure what happened but it’s all gone.” I said, “That’s Ok.”
Paris: Drawing a Lot of It
I showed up three weeks later. Of course I showed up with a bunch more artwork. I did this because…the number one thing in learning how to do comics was to draw a lot of it. I did around 26 pages a month. In my mind, that’s got to be part of the art because Jack Kirby does 4 full comic books a month. While, I NEVER thought I could beat Jack Kirby, but if you wanted to compete, you had to be able to match these things. Not that you just draw characters. But you draw buildings, you draw strange objects, that you draw inventions. That you draw great emotional situations. That you draw things with verve and energy. And the most important thing, you draw a lot of it.
GVL: Of course, that was always Jack’s deal. He was prolific at his job. He produced a lot of pages.
Paris: Yes, but when you think about it. And this is something I tell kids…it’s a business and a constant crank out. Sometimes I think comic books strive to be too perfect. They take way too long. I’m not as tied up into the grind as I used to be before. But that is what was required at that time. The new things I am involved into now, it’s not tied into nostalgia, because it is a fresh story. Like Mark Bagley, he doesn’t do old, he does new…and he put’s out enough of it.
Paris: Taking Advantage of your Opportunities
GVL: When you started with DC, they had you doing Horror Anthologies and things like that?
Paris: Yes, I did House of Mysteries, I, Vampire, Weird War Tales, and a number of other eight page stories in the beginning. Then, an eight page story that grew out of House of Mystery was a short story called The Blue Devil. It was supposed to turn into something else. Once again, because someone else didn’t want to do something, I stepped in. It was supposed to be done by Steve Ditko. But he didn’t want it. So DC asked me to take a shot at it. I did it and they loved it and I loved drawing it, so it was good.
GVL: So how long did that title go?
Paris: It went for two years. Maybe a little bit longer.
GVL: So during that time, was there one writer you worked with or were there more?
Paris: No, there was Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin. They worked on it most of the way through, but in the end it was Dan Mishkin and Alan Zupperberg. In the end, what I wanted out of it, and what it became were two different things. It should have been. But everyone doesn’t do things the same way. I didn’t quite get the point of it which is why I’m doing what I’m doing now. I thought the point everybody liked about it [the Blue Devil] got lost.
The Marvel Method
GVL: In the beginning of the Blue Devil, did you get a full script to work from art wise?
Paris: In the beginning, there was a full script, but as it evolved, it turned more into making phone calls to Gary and Dan and discussing what we wanted to see. Hanging out and making clear what we wanted from it. Until finally, it became clearer and clearer, that this was the direction we were going to go in.
GVL: You have done some work for Marvel, and the talk about the famous “Marvel Method.” Did they do things differently as far as your work was concerned?
Paris: Not really. In fact, DC kind of took from Marvel the idea of more discussion and less scripting. This allowed the artist to translate more of what they had in mind. This produced the kind of sequential art that both the writer and the artist had in mind. Energy is how we decide to tell a story. For example, Frank Miller who everyone is in love with for how he tells a story, when he worked for Denny O’Neil, it had the same flavor. But I imagine for Frank, it was over defined. Maybe not.
Perhaps it was because he was younger and tried to keep to the deadlines and it made him keep it tighter. But as they wanted more and more from him, he had to go looser in order to keep up with all they wanted. Especially when he was writing it, and drawing. It probably became necessary. He got a lot of work, so he found shortcuts to get the amount of work completed.But the energy and the distinctiveness of what the story was supposed to be about, only got better and better as he went on. Like a diamond shined. I believe that it worked that way for me. The more I worked, the better I got at what I wanted to express. Which is a certain amount of Kinetics, a certain amount of Dynamics, and certain amount of Theater.
Paris: Doing Cover Work
GVL: Well I certainly see that in your work. I have been submersing myself into it since I knew I would be talking to you. I also noticed that you have produced a large volume of covers in your time. So how does that work? Is it separate from the page work and who decides who will work on a certain cover?
Paris: Once again, it was getting an opportunity. Every once in a while, they would give me work because I was young, and they wanted to keep me busy and working. So it was just work. But it turned into a job when George Perez, who was supposed to be doing the covers for The Who’s Who in DC couldn’t finish. So they came to me and asked: “Paris, do you think you can draw something really busy, complicated yet interconnected? But we want you to do what George does. We want you to make it as close as you can to George’s work.” So I told them I would give it my best shot.
The first one, I was late by a day. But they said that they don’t have time to wait for it be mailed or shipped to us. Can you bring it to us? So I brought it to Connecticut and dropped it off. Straight up to Connecticut, give them the work and straight back to Philly.
GVL: How long do they normally give you to do a cover? What is the expected turnaround time?
Paris: Usually, its within a week. They generally expect it back to them in a weeks time. If it’s for inventory, then they can receive it in a month. But there are some covers they need in a day. It depends on the circumstances.
Paris: Being Ready when Called
GVL: So pretty much, when anyone else wasn’t available to do the work, they called on you?
Paris: That was pretty much the thing. When I did that cover [Who’sWho], they told me we’re going to make you assistant cover artist. The main cover designer at that time was Ed Hannigan. His work was great. I loved his Vigilantes, I loved his Batman’s, I just loved how he designed covers.
But every once in a while, there was a time issue. Perhaps with someone like Dave Gibbons, who was working on Green Lantern at the time for Len Wein. They were days when they didn’t have time to submit work and faxing was the quickest they could do it. Especially when not everyone had a fax machine. So every once in awhile when Dave didn’t have time to do the cover, I would do a design and send it to him to look over, he would send me something back and I would do the cover. I did a bunch of Green Lantern Covers, a bunch of what I call Gil Kane covers. Gil did covers like the Atom, Plastic Man, and so many more.
Paris: The Occasional Problems of the Over Ink
GVL: With the covers, and with the pages for that matter, did you just do the pencils or did you do some of the inking as well?
Paris: In the beginning, especially in the beginning, I would just do the pencils and someone else would do the inking. It would have a great effect on what the book looked like. I remember doing a couple of Star Trek’s where Ricardo Villagran did the inking over it and made it look like Ricardo Villagran.
GVL: Now that you say that, did you ever have the problem that someone did so much ink work over your drawing that you didn’t even recognize the work as yours?
Paris: Absolutely. I did an Atari Force cover. It has my name on it but you tell me if you can tell it’s my work. It’s all Garcia- Lopez. I mean, I tried my best to shine, but with Garcia-Lopez on top of your work, you only shine because you look like Garcia-Lopez [laughing].
The Writers
GVL: I know you’ve worked with Gary Cohn, was he your favorite or did you have other writers you enjoyed working with?
Paris: Gary Cohn is absolutely one of my favorite writers to work with. I think there’s something about the way we think, that’s a lot alike. Our sense of humor is a bit the same and how we approach things that way. I also loved working with Len Wein. I loved working with J.M. DeMatteis on Forever People. I thought he did a great job. I also was able to work with Jim Starlin and he was great. He was worked with me on the New Gods.
GVL: It’s funny you brought that up because that was going to be my next question. You worked on both The Forever People and The New Gods which were, of course, Jack Kirby creations. In reference to the New Gods, did you do some of the plotting or writing for that title?
Paris: Yes, I plotted or co-plotted almost to the end of the series.
GVL: So what did that entail as far as plotting went?
Paris: The truth is, some of this stuff I had in mind. But I had two writers that I wanted for this project but I didn’t get either one of them. One was Bill Mantlow and the other was Mike Baron, who wrote Nexus. I thought, at that moment in time, they were the only ones worthy, other than Jim Starling, of that genre.
Paris: Following the King
GVL: Did you feel any pressure doing Kirby’s stuff?
Paris: Yes…kind of but all of that was still a joy. He was the main reason I wanted to work at DC. Because of him. It’s the truth. Especially since my work was really more Marvel oriented. Doing the New Gods was my final destination. In fact, someone once described my work as if Jack Kirby and George Perez had a comic baby.
GVL: You could a lot worse than that. Being compared to them.
Paris: Oh No, I could never begin to do it. I could only take that as the compliment it was. It’s thrilling when your peers notice your work. At a convention, Walt Simonson came up to me. This was after the third or fourth printing of the Blue Devil had come out and he said: “I love the Blue Devil. You’re doing a great job. Wow! How old are you?” [laughs] So when you have Walt Simonson walking up to you, telling you that he likes your books…I was a proud man for a long time.
Paris: Advising a Young Artist
GVL: We have actually broached this subject a bit earlier but I’m going to pursue it a little further. What would be the advice you would give young people who may want to get into comics as an artist?
Paris: The first thing I tell them, because I do this kind of thing all the time now, is that the world has changed a great deal. It has changed in ways that has little to do with the comic books you read. But the expectation of what is out there for you to make up your mind and to live your life. Part of that comes with realizing, the world is becoming automated.
I have worked at McDonald’s, I washed dishes, I have cleaned streets. I have done just about every kind of job you could do with your hands. But most of that stuff is gone now, its become automated. You hardly have store clerks anymore, there are kiosks. So you have a good thing and a bad thing happening all at the same time. The good thing is, you have more time on your hands, to become the thing you really want to become.
Paris: You Make the Job
The second thing is, while focusing on what you want to do, you don’t have another option available to fall back on. Unless, YOU make that job. You have the option now of getting up in the morning and making your OWN comic book. Used to be there were only a couple of comic companies, a couple of comic stores, or toy stores who sold comics. It was all limited by the amount of access you had. But now, you don’t need access. You yourself can design a toy, create it, take it to a toy company and sell it. You don’t need the world these days to give you permission to do anything.
Paris: Putting Your Creativity Out There
For example, there was a guy (I don’t remember his name) who liked Final Fantasy. So he would do his own stories 2-3 pages a month online. He was consistent with this for almost two years. So much so that people were looking for his stories. Finally someone from Final Fantasy contacted him and told him to stop. Quit doing it and come do it for us. We’ll pay you to do it for us, because you have the world’s attention. He was beating the people they had doing for it for them. They just liked his better. Even DC has purchased things they weren’t planning on buying, but they were so good. You can look online now and see great content. My favorite is Batman vs. Joker vs. Predator vs. Alien. Wow! It was a good job. Just a good job.
There are many self-made books available that are making money that no one knows about. All it takes it the willingness to make it happen. There are examples all over. Even Mike Mignola. His books didn’t sell initially. But he created Hellboy and eventually things took off. They start off without worrying about being big. They just want to be expressed. Get the work out there and someone will notice. Anything you want to create, will probably make money.
But first you have to make it. You don’t have to have a reason for it, or validate it, you just have to make it. It happens. By a great deal. There are a lot of books out there making far more money than either Marvel or DC pays. But kids today, don’t see it that way. They are intimidated. But they might find they would do better, if they just do it themselves.
GVL: Its like what I tell my Grandson. He’s 8 years old, but he likes to write. He does scary stories. I tell him, if you like to write and you’re happy with it. Then do it. If nothing else than just for yourself.
Paris: The Comic Artists Reality
Paris: Exactly. The worst thing I ever saw, was around 1995, when I went into Marvel looking for some work. I found it, but so was Sal Buscema. Sal Buscema…more than 50 years in comics. He couldn’t find work. I don’t know why. Maybe he was not producing enough for Marvel’s needs. But I said to him, and he was dressed to the 9’s. He was looking good. Here he was, THE Sal Buscema that I always admired and I always strived to be like in my own way.
I told him, “I don’t know what their numbers are, that you’re not meeting. But I know that I would always buy a book of yours. And I know this, you could get 20-30 thousand people to buy a comic book. You could easily sell 20,000 comic books and 20,000 comic books would add up to 20,000 dollars…on your own. I mean $20,000 a month, maybe ever couple of months. Doing something you can do with your eyes closed. How is that NOT a big deal?” I could tell he heard me…but didn’t understand me. Because he couldn’t understand the idea of walking away from Marvel.
The Time Capsule
GVL: I have one last thing. Here’s a hypothetical for you. We are starting a time capsule. In it, we will be putting in the very best examples of the comic genre. We are asking YOU, Paris Cullins to contribute to the time capsule. What of your work would you put in it?
Paris: [Laughing] I have three things…maybe more. I am not stuck on them in the same way. But they are all things I am doing myself. These are books that I am doing. Here’s the thing. All the work I put in to get to the New Gods. All the effort. When I was done, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. I really didn’t. I had done everything I could to get where I wanted to be. Whether I was totally satisfied with it is another thing but I got to the goal that I wanted. So afterwards, I went, “Wow, What’s Next?” So I decided to start making my own comics. And it was far more intimidating than working for Marvel or DC. Because unlike working for them, I turn in the work, I get a check. There’s no check initially with this.
I also knew that making black comics, back then, they barely got anywhere. What I didn’t know, was that it was probably because they were not turning in a comic on a consistent level. It just needs to be in someone’s face constantly. It was when Brother Man by Guy A. Sims came out that things changed. He broke the rules, came out consistently and it became a hit that no one could stop from happening. It wasn’t being picked up like it was supposed to. A lot of things weren’t happening and yet they succeeded. I knew then that the only thing stopping me was me.
Paris: Doing My Own Comics
So I started working on a comic book called Marcus Arena. I’m still working on it. It should be coming out at the end of next year. In the meantime, I am working on one that Gary Cohn and I had worked on and off forever which was the Blue Devil, which they [DC] took to Catholicism. We don’t want that. We want what we had in mind, which was chaos, craziness and happy. So we’re working on the New Devil, that’s what it’s called. New Devil would definitely go into the time capsule and so would Marcus Arena, since it is my first venture into making my own fiction. It is my first work of fiction, well true science fiction. Its about how you change the world and how the world changes you and how we’re all affected.
And finally, something called Afro-Punks. I really don’t know a lot about that culture. But I thought, what a wonderful new world to explore. A new culture to learn about. It kind of explores the punk without the anger, although it has it in places. How could it be punk without some anger. But not like regular punk and not like the hippy movement of the 60’s and Woodstock and all of that. It is something different and its wrapped up in a look and an idea that this country doesn’t deal with that often. But the amazing thing is that although it is truly black, and African and a lot of other countries merged together, it was created by two white guys.
I liked the concept that this idea sparked and I want to make something from it. And its for women. Which is not something I have too much of in my bibliography or is in my wheelhouse. But, I want to make something my daughter would love, my wife would love, or any girl I know would like. That would go in there…It has to.
Bodacious Bovines
Last but not least, is this new thing. I just met this man named Mike Dow from Richmond, and I’m creating a story with him about Cows. It’s back to the “Hay Day” of comic strips. I loved the Sunday paper. I loved getting up in the morning and reading Charles Schultz, and reading Hank Ketchum with Peanuts and Dennis the Menace. Then here comes the one and only Calvin and Hobbes, and I was lost…in love. If I could do something like that, before I die, I’ll be a very happy man.
GVL: You had me with Calvin and Hobbes. I was so disappointed when Bill Watterson retired and stop making the strip. On the wall in my drawing room, I have the complete hardcover three volume set. In fact, I can hardly lift it because its so heavy, but I loved Calvin and Hobbes. So what is this new strip called?
Paris: This is called Bodacious Bovines
GVL: So what’s it about?
Paris: It’s about a farmer who likes this cow a little too much. It’s a cow that likes the farmer a little too much. Naturally his wife is kind of upset about the whole thing. And why shouldn’t she be? It goes from there to include a lot of cow enemies, like the cow mafia, and the cattle mafia. They’re called The Intolerant, but what they really are, is lactose intolerant. There are just a bunch of crazy things. There are real cow girlfriends, which are bulls. It will contain all different kinds of cows and other animals. We even have a set of good guys called the Guardians of the Pasture and just a whole bunch of things. If it was crazy and funny, we put it in there. But the main character is this one cow.
GVL: That sounds like fun. Well, I have to thank you. That’s exactly the kind of answer I was looking for in my time capsule scenario. I asked you what you felt best represented you and your work and you delivered. Nice job.
Personal Appearances
Paris: I am excited about these new projects, these new ventures in my life. Because after I finished with the New Gods, and I was in the middle of my change of life or something, I was stone cold bored. I was bored. But now I have a lot going on, so I am happy with that.
GVL: So where will Paris Cullins be appearing in the future where fans can meet you?
Paris: I’m hoping I’ll be at Comic-Cons in Baltimore. I know I’ll be in Philadelphia. I should be back again in Virginia and hopefully one in Arkansas and Texas.
GVL: If you have the opportunity to talk to Paris and all the comic book creators, take the time to speak to them. Especially if you love comics and love to talk about them. They will treat you well and I challenge you to leave from talking to Paris Cullins and not feel inspired. If you’re not, you probably weren’t paying attention. Thanks for your time, Paris.
Paris: Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about my work. That’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last two years. Getting the information out about my product. I love talking to people. I love talking to kids. I’m inspired by them and I hope that I can be an inspiration to them.
GVL: Well you were to me. Thanks again Paris and we’ll hopefully talk to you down the road.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Senior Writer at GeekVibesNation – I am a 50 something child of the 70’s who admits to being a Star Trek/Star Wars/Comic Book junkie who once dove head first over a cliff (Ok, it was a small hill) to try to rescue his Fantastic Four comic from a watery grave. I am married to a lovely woman who is as crazy as I am and the proud parent of a 18 year old boy with autism. My wife and son are my real heroes.