Snippets #26: January 29, 1985

       This is from a January 29, 1985 letter to Brad Foster, minicomic publisher:

       "Thanks for all the kind words and congratulations. Rather than watch and worry about when this bubble is going to burst (if it does), Kevin and I are going to try to keep our noses to the grindstone and try to keep producing a book that at least some people will want to read. The success of these first two books still seems a bit unreal to me, like it's happening to someone else… I'm sure you can relate to the feeling of, after years of slaving away at the drawing board and feeling like everything you'd done had gone unnoticed, finally doing something that people actually want to pay money for! It's a nice feeling… I hope it lasts.

       I'm still a little hesitant about spending any of my money on special goodies and treats (because of the lurking fear that TMNT will go down the proverbial tubes and leave me floundering once more) but I do have to take the bull by the horns in this one case and send you the $27.00 for a copy of One Year's Worth. I appreciate your offer of deducting the cost of the TMNT figures, but those were a gift to you. I hope you have good luck in selling the remainder of the OY'sW's. (?)

       Kev and i would love to get out to the fabled and legendary San Diego Comic Con this year, but I'm not sure if our resources will allow it. Exactly when is it, anyway? I don't know if the car we have would hold up on a cross-country trip like that… it's kind of a long drive from Connecticut to California. How do you get there?

       I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens… maybe we'll be too busy with TMNTs and other projects to go anywhere. But it would be fun… I've never been to the west coast."

        [Here we have some more evidence of our -- or at least my -- reluctance back in early 1985 to believe that this Turtle thing was going to continue. At the time, that seemed a sensible way to proceed.

       Kevin and I would make our way out to the San Diego Comicon that very year... and we didn't drive.

       Brad Foster was (and I think still is) a prolific independent publisher through his company "Jabberwocky Graphix", publishing his own and many other artists' work. I believe he was one of Kevin Eastman's first publishers, and I think I drew a couple of things for Brad as well. -- PL]