Dedicated to Salty Seamon; or, My One Published Fan Letter

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A couple of weeks ago, over on Robot 6, the ever-insightful Chris Mautner wrote a column titled "Six 'Retired' Artists We'd Like to See Return to Comics." Mautner put comics cubist Mary Fleener on his retired list, though I'd label her semi-retired instead: I've seen new work by her (though not enough!) in the last five years or so, including a hilarious "one-night-stand" story in The Comics Journal Special Edition volume 5 (on "seduction," 2005).

Chris' mention of Mary Fleener reminded me of the only letter I've ever had published in a comic book. When I was a kid, I hardly ever wrote in to Marvel or DC lettercols; I was sure that they'd never publish anything I wrote when they could run erudite commentary by Guy Lillian III and T.M. Maple instead. I was provoked into action, however, when Marvel cancelled a comic, Amazing Adventures, featuring the science-fiction hero Killraven. In the letters column of Amazing Adventures #39 (November 1976), the editors announced the bad news, but also mentioned that a deluge of protest letters from fans might save the series and the character. I dutifully wrote in, and several months later got an unsigned card, smeared with undefinable black and brown stains, that identified me (in crude early dot-matrix type) as a "mud-brother" and loyal Killraven fan. God, I wish I'd saved that card, but it creeped me out so much that I threw it out and didn't write to (or about) comics for several years afterward.  

In 1994, though, I had a story that I just had to share with Mary Fleener, so I wrote her a letter, which is pretty self-explanatory--and, I think, pretty funny--though it refers to stuff that'll probably be lost on readers unfamiliar with Fleener's comics. (One example: "The Jelly" is a slutty, big-breasted roommate that Fleener skewers in an early autobiographical tale.) Here's the letter:

6/23/94

Dear Mary,

Enclosed is a check; please send me a copy of Hoodoo as per your ad in February's Comics Journal. I've been looking for a copy since it came out a few years ago, but comics distribution is so bad here in Champaign that it's a miracle that I've been able to buy all four Slutburgers.

I confess, though, that ordering Hoodoo wasn't my only reason for writing you. I wanted to tell you a story about a trip that I took to see one of "your" paintings.

Last Friday night, I had just fallen asleep when my wife Kathy woke me up by telling me that some of your paintings were being exhibited in Paris, Illinois, a small town an hour's drive from Champaign. (Kath claims that I rolled over and grunted "Good night," indicating that I was still awake and fair game for a little chat, but I don't remember saying "Good night" then.) Because I was still in a sleepy haze, I didn't understand what she was saying--something about your art on display, about going to Paris--and I responded with several uncomprehending "huh"s. Before I fell back to sleep, though, I did catch that Kath had read about this art exhibit in Etc., a local entertainment supplement included in our Friday newspaper.

When I woke up Saturday morning, I scanned the Etc. and found the announcement: the Bicentennial Art Museum in Paris was sponsoring an exhibit of paintings by you, as well as a number of paintings, prints and sculptures by other artists. (I've sent along the notice with this letter.)

I was especially excited about having the chance to see a drawing by any artist named "Salty" Seamon. I briefly thought that they might be showing the work of another Mary Fleener, but I convinced myself that only you would be in an exhibit with "Salty" Seamon. So Kath and I decided to drive to Paris and visit the art museum: after all, we're big fans of your comics, and our other plan for that Saturday had been to stay home in our scorchingly hot apartment and work on our dissertations.

We quickly recruited Kurt and Heather--two good friends we can always bamboozle into playing cards or seeing movies--to drive to Paris with us. The first leg of our journey was flat, gray, boring highway driving, but after we got off the thruway at Danville, we started experiencing a level of kitsch indigenous only to East Central Illinois. During the second half of our ride--the part Kath referred to as a low-rent Blue Highways--we saw ice cream stands with names like "Kustard D-Lite" and "Hum-Dinger," a fast food restaurant called "Grossburgers," a small home with at least a hundred lawn ornaments in the front yard, historical markers commemorating Indian treaties and forgotten frontier trails, and a greasy spoon, "Mike's Grill," next door to an ice cream parlor called "Mike's Chill." I asked more than once, "Why would Mary Fleener exhibit way out here?" but Kath had semi-convinced me that Paris was a small, utopian artists' colony that managed to remain a secret to the world at large. Our excitement was only dimmed by the faulty air-conditioning in our car, which threatened to overheat our engine every time we went up a hill.

We finally arrived in Paris, a small town of 9,000 that on the surface didn't look like an artists' colony, and parked on a side street near the Bicentennial Art Museum. The outside of the museum had lovely white columns framing its doorway and a plaque near the door indicating that the museum was the oldest brick building in Paris. We walked into a hallway leading to three small gallery rooms with artwork hanging on the walls; a middle-aged female docent stood up from a desk and welcomed us to the museum. The first piece of artwork I saw was a small sculpture of a large man, bent over backwards, with two smaller men pulling at his limbs, squatting on his chest, and (it seemed to me) forcing a pill down his throat. This sculpture, we all quickly figured out, was pretty atypical for the museum. Most of the paintings on display were tame watercolors of flowers, barns, and urban streets. Just as I started wondering where your cubismos were, Kurt called me over and said, "Here's the Mary Fleener painting."

When I looked at "your" painting, I saw pastel sailboats floating serenely in a beautiful bay, with no trace of shoe fetishists or "the Jelly" anywhere. From behind me, the friendly docent asked, "Oh, did you know Doctor and Mrs. Fleener?" and Kurt suppressed his laughter by walking into another room. So, OK, it was a wild goose chase. Even "Salty" Seamon's picture let us down: it was a small, precise, neatly-inked drawing of the museum itself and not the S. Clay Wilson explosion of weirdness that name had promised. We wandered through the museum for a few more minutes--partially to see the art (much of which was very nice), partially because we didn't want to be rude to the docent, and partially because the building was air-conditioned--and finally left. Kath told me that the women's rest room was impeccably clean, while Heather said that she saw your doppelganger's name on a plaque of sponsors for the museum. (Could Doctor and Mrs. Fleener be your parents, or am I deluding myself again?)

The ride back was fairly uneventful; we ate at a real grungy diner, walked by a lake in a public park, visited a carnival where I almost got sick riding the Tilt-A-Whirl, and had dessert at the Hum-Dinger. But it was all a disappointment, since I didn't get to see any of your paintings. Anyway, I thought you might like to hear the story of a fan dedicated enough to drive to Paris, Illinois to see your work.

Take care, and thanks for sending along Hoodoo.

P.S. I noticed that one of the illustrations for your Comics Journal article was a cover from a mini-comic called Betty Rages: does this mini-comic critique the fanboy obsession with Page? If so, where can I get a copy? A good friend of mine is writing a scholarly analysis of the whole Betty phenomenon, and I'd like to give him the mini-comic as a present.

About two weeks later, I got a surprise in the mail: a personal response from Fleener. I've always loved Fleener's lettering--bold, confident, bursting with the energy and enthusiasm that race through her strips--so it was terrific to receive a letter hand-printed by her.

Then, about a year-and-a-half later, Fleener included a lightly-edited version of my letter in the first issue of her Fleener comic, published by Zongo in 1996.

 

 

 

And there's my only published letter in a comic book (so far). It'd be hard to top that presentation--as I recall, the "long way from Paris" illustration was originally published in Entertainment Weekly and then re-used to compliment my letter. I have yet to meet met Fleener face-to-face, though I certainly hope to someday. Maybe I should whisk her off to Paris...?

Comments

[Ben Towle]

You know... I read a fantastic Mary Fleener story really recently. I think maybe in some of my pre-Eisner readin--but I can't for the life of me remember what it was in. I assumed it was recent, but I could have been wrong.

[Kurt Austin]

Ahhh, good times. Thanks for posting that, Craig. I can't believe that our "adventure" happened nearly 15 years ago--or that I still live in Champaign, while the rest of you have moved on! I might just need to take a drive over to Paris again one of these days . . .

[Rob Clough]

In addition to having a story printed in the second volume of Hotwire (and she'll have another one in the third volume later this year), Mary's also had a bunch of stuff published in Mineshift, aka "The Last Great Fanzine On Earth".

[CharlesWHatfield]

Great story, Craig! Sound like a sweet and memorable outing (if disappointing at the time). Just the idea of visiting a small local art museum, where the currents of modernism and conceptualism seem not to have washed up against prevailing tastes for the domestic and picturesque, has, for me, an odd charm. Sounds mostly like artwork caught midway between formal training and some unselfconscious vernacular. So what if it's middlebrow and tame?

Your story is a bit of a time capsule as far as bearing witness to the effect of letter columns and letterhacking in comics, once upon a time.

I had a minor, fitful sub-career as a would-be letterhack in the late 80s, maybe into the early 90s, starting c. 1985-86 when I got back into comics (I don't remember when my first letter saw print). I was on my way to making letterhacking an avocation of mine (damn you, T.M. Maple, etc.) before I gave it up. I had a few letters in DC titles: Swamp Thing ran one or two of mine, in the Veitch era, and I believe I eventually had a letter in Sandman, in response to the "A Game of You" storyline. Sometime later, I had a letter published in Milestone's Static, for which I received a signed copy of that issue. :)

I might have had a letter in Grendel; I don't remember (Comico era? Dark Horse?). I was following a lot of Comico titles in the late mid-80s, before they crashed.

I remember being very happy to see a letter of mine in an early issue of Larry Marder's Tales of the Beanworld.

I wrote a long and probably tiresome letter to DC when they broached the idea of an in-house rating system c. 1987, which Miller, Moore, Chaykin, Wolfman, et al., vociferously opposed. For this I got a polite form letter in reply, on DC letterhead. I argued the Miller/Moore/etc. line about ratings posing a threat to DC's creative revival, etc. I now believe I was wrong about that.

(As an aside, I've long suspected that Vertigo was an attempt to create in-house rating in a positive rather than negative way, by branding the "mature" comics as different and cooler. It created, ipso facto, a place to put the "mature" titles. In time, this proved to be a successful strategy, I think.)

I could have sworn that I had that first issue of FLEENER, yet I don't recall reading your story before -- odd, because I usually pore through everything in the comics I get, including the indicia (with the general exception of the hype pages in the Marvel and DC comics that I buy these days). I will have to go digging!

Dig this online info about Omer Seamon, painter:

http://www.fineestateart.com/artists/denzil_omer_seamon

BTW, Happy (belated) Birthday, you!