Baujahr!

Somewhere around… oh, we’ll say 18 years ago, because it’s that’s not exactly right, it’s certainly not far off…  I was working in what was my absolute dream job.

 

I was managing a comic shop.

It was, in fact, an excellent comic shop.  And I don’t say that because I was there (although I like to think I held up my end of things).  First and foremost, it was owned by two of the best people I’ve ever had the chance to work for (or know).  Second, the people who shopped with us were just tremendous!  I mean, I loved coming in every day and seeing my regulars, and the non-regulars.

But, also… I was selling comics.  Which, for me, was the only job in comics I thought about getting paid to do.  I was, in some ways, aware that people made comics.  And those people probably got some monetary compensation for it.  But, while I longed to make comics ever since I was a wee boy, it never occurred to me that I could make it a career.  That was unfathomable to me.  I wrote stories, sure.  Comic-type stories even.  But I did that because I loved comics, and I loved telling stories.

 

Still, some of the people I met at that time in my life started making noises at me like, “Hey, Corey…  You should write a comic.”  And some of those people were artists, and they wanted to draw the comics I was supposedly going to write.

 

Anyway, somewhere in the midst of this, I was told by my bank-teller (seriously) about this guy she knew who was married to her cousin.  And he did a comic book.

His name was Levi.  The comic was called Levi’s World.

 

Now, again… I worked in a comic store.  I didn’t own it, just managed it.  I had no ins with any creators.  I was, effectively, nobody.  But I guess there’s some illusions of association people see with working at a shop to actually having clout in the industry.

 

So one day Levi comes into my store.  And he was this unassuming, genuinely nice guy, nervously showing me his sketches.  Why nervous?  I have no idea, because his stuff BLEW. ME. AWAY.

Back then, Levi’s art conjured up comparisons to Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Bloom County…  And if that’s all it was, that would be great.  But he also had a heavy dose of Sergio Argones (probably a lot more than I recognized with my untrained eye at the time), because Levi left very little white space on a page.  One of the things he’d brought with him was a poster-sized piece of pretty much every character from Levi’s World (of which there were hundreds!), and it was filled from edge-to-edge, corner-to-corner.

 

I can’t even explain to you how much I coveted that poster.  Sufficed to say, I was an instant fan.  I asked Levi to leave me some of his stuff, and he actually made a copy of the poster for the shop.  I hung it up as soon as he walked out.

 

(Later on, Bob, the owner of the shop, had Levi redo the poster so it was an ad for the store instead of just Levi’s comic.  Because Bob is an entrepreneurial genius, and I’m just a guy who digs comics.  Point is, Levi did it, and it was just an amazing as the first one.)

 

I would stare at that poster every day, minutes, sometimes much longer (Tuesdays are slow at comic stores).  And I would always see something new.  I would always get more and more drawn into the world Levi had created.

 

And that’s sort’ve how I like telling stories.  A lot of what I enjoy writing is small pieces of dialog between a couple characters, or little scenes.  But I love the worlds that have built.  I don’t ever really think about writing a Batman story or a Superman story, but I definitely have dreamt of writing stories in the DC Universe(s).  Or the Star Wars Universe, or the Forgotten Realms, and so on.  My personal characters are all intertwined somehow, a la Stephen King (but so far away from Stephen King, let’s not kid anybody).

 

In one or two drawings, Levi had shown me a world I absolutely had to play in.

 

Unfortunately, my time at my comic shop (and Michigan) drew to a close faster than I’d anticipated.  Levi had put out a self-printed copy of Levi’s World #1 before I left (which I have and still treasure).  We sold it through our two stores.  But before I knew it, I was in an overstuffed Oldsmobile Cutlass and on my way to California.  Levi and I had talked about me doing a story for his comic after he did the first arc, but it sort’ve faded into the horizon the same as I did.
And then the internet happened.  A few years later, I was scoping about things online, and I decided, on a whim, to look to see if I could find anything about Levi online.  And wouldn’t you know, there was a site (think GeoCities) with some Space Fleas bounding around on it.  And an email.

 

A couple days later, and I got a phone number in my inbox, and then I’m talking to Levi again.  It had been a while, but he was just as cordial and funny and kind as he’d been the day he walked into my shop.  He’d gone further with Levi’s World, and eventually gotten the whole story done.  There was a trade of it and everything (but good luck finding it now.  GET ON IT, LEVI!!!!).  I eventually got a copy and got to read the whole story of Xavier, Glen, and Mikie Beople, and it was everything I wanted it to be and more…  And it was also so perfectly done, I realized that I’d probably never get my chance to write my way into Levi’s World after all.

I was so happy and so crushed by this beautiful book.

 

But it was okay, in the end, because as I talked to Levi more and more, we became better and better friends.  Our lives grew and changed, and we would just play catch-up every few months or so.  The internet allowed us to keep up with each other better, though, so we never lost track like when I’d first moved away.

 

Around the time of my 35th birthday (I think), I was feeling a particular melancholy about what I’d accomplished creatively, and I posted something on my LiveJournal (shut-up!  Everyone was LiveJournaling then.  You kids and your Facebook wouldn’t understand) that I really wished I could just make a comic some day.  Just once.  If nothing else, a comic book with my name on it would be fine.

And Levi, ever the gullible fool…  I mean “nicest of guys” posted back (publicly!) that if I wrote a comic, he would draw it for me.

 

Now, we’ll get to that comic (some day).  But what happened after that, among other things, is that I began thinking about writing for Levi again.  And I still had this dim thought in the back of my mind, covered with a heavy blanket, in a large crate with the lid chained down, in the darkest corner, that I might get to play in Levi’s World itself.  Even if Levi wasn’t planning to go back there himself, maybe I could drag him in (or con him if necessary).

 

I needn’t have bothered, though.  Levi’s World decided to tug it’s namesake back into it’s realm without my help.  Levi started writing Baujahr…  I don’t know what ever prompted it (never do with his stuff, I guess it’s better that way).  It was several strips in before I realized Baujahr was actually taking place in Levi’s World proper.  Just one day, as much a surprise to me as it was to everyone else, there were the guys, wandering in, singing about Baujahr’s silly hat!

 

And still I didn’t think I was going to get to play.  Sure, I had my own story, and I had plans (OH! the plans I have!).  But Baujahr is Levi’s baby, definitely.  So I just took the ride with everyone else, content to get new strips each month.

 

Then, one day, Levi said he was stuck.  He’d killed off the main character of his comic strip, and he wasn’t happy with his ideas of how to get him back.  And I, just trying to help push him out of the hole he’d gotten himself in, made (what I thought was) a very simple suggestion.  And Levi laughed and said, “Hey!  That’s pretty good!  I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that.”

I thought he was humoring me.  But, hey, cool.  Do what you wanna’ do with it, I said.

And then it happened.  I was completely caught off guard.

Levi said, “You want to write it for me?”

You know when you wander through the woods or some place where it’s pretty quiet, and you’re just making your way through, and you see a deer or a rabbit or some other wild creature.  And you don’t want to make any sudden moves or noises because you don’t want to spook it and send it scurrying away?  That was me at that moment.  I didn’t say anything for what seemed like a long time, because I didn’t want to see this dream hop off into the woods.

 

“Uh… Okay,” I finally managed.

 

And now, if you look up (way, way up, past this overly self-serving novella of a blog post), you’ll see my name credited as writer of Baujahr.  A comic strip that takes place in Levi’s World.
Yeah.  That happened.

 

Oh, and I also wrote an ashcan comic with Levi too (“Baujahr and The Frums”).  And I’m writing the strip again, currently.  And I still have this other comic on it’s way (whenever Levi has time/inclination/boot to his posterior to make it happen).

 

And it only took 18 years (give or take) to see it all come to pass.

 

What kills me, really, is how Levi acts like I’m somehow doing Him the favor when he asks me if I will write these things with him (and I emphasize…  Levi may have given me “Writer” credit, but these stories are his to tell.  I’m just taking his ideas and fleshing them out or putting words into people’s mouths).  He just doesn’t get that this was all part of a long, drawn-out master plan.  Not even the longest one I’ve ever had in the works.  (Olivia Newton-John:  Soon…)

 

So, back to that comic up there…  In it, Jeff says, “Then the wish must’ve worked after all!”

Yeah, I wrote that.  And, if it wasn’t completely clear, he’s not the only one who’s wish got granted.

And I’ve still got a couple more to go in my lucky coin purse.
Thank you, Levi.  And thanks for reading, everyone!