I haven’t talked that much yet about being what my life is like being married to one of the relatively few lucky and talented people able to make a living as a comic book artist.  There are a few reasons for this, among them being stuff I’m not allowed to reveal in a public forum because of various confidences.  (For instance, it’s driving me nuts not being able to talk about Robin’s next inking assignment, and ComicMix readers will understand why once it’s been officially announced.)  I walk a fine line between wanting to crow about the comics I see in their formative stages and realizing that any specifics thereof will often require massive doses of pre-approval before I talk about them.

But I can still indulge in generalities, one being a topic on which I’ve briefly touched before — the blurry line between being a fan and being a pro.  Today I want to talk specifically about dealing with pros from a fan’s point of view.

What brought this on was my musings after attending the Dave Cockrum memorial last week.  I was acquainted with Dave and Paty from the days when they used to appear at NYC comic shows, mostly the Fred Greenberger ones but I think they were also at some of the "church cons" that Mike Carbonaro held before those shows moved across the street from Penn Station.  When Dave was at the VA hospital a bus ride away from my apartment, I visited him once in the bitter winter because it was the right thing to do, not because he was This Big Name.  I’ve been lucky enough to get to know a lot of luminaries from those old cons as people and friends before I really knew any of their work.  And I remember when I used to mention their names in Usenet posts, the way I’d mention other friends and acquaintances, I’d often receive nasty accusations of "name-dropping" from my fellow comic fans, with an attitude of "how dare she talk about these Names as though they were — people!"

It seems far simpler for many fans to think of pros as abstracts on whom they can project their own entitlements than to interact with them as fellow human beings.  And whether this consists of treating fictional characters as more important than the real people who create and work on them, or erecting pedestals and shrines to the objects of your affection, the result is much the same.

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