[I'm borrowing a page from my good buddy Caleb Monroe and posting reruns of my former Scryptic Studios column, Running Up That Hill. This is the first column I ever wrote, originally airing on November 30, 2006. For each column, I'll do a Then and Now thing: Then being the column as it originally appeared, and Now being my reaction to the column today. Should be fun... and quite possibly embarrassing, too!]
THEN - 11/30/06
March 2006. We're in Atlanta visiting
my wife's dad. As we're getting ready to head out to dinner, my cell
phone tells me I've got a voice mail. It's Barbara Kesel, the editor
of Platinum Studios' romance comic anthology (to which I've submitted
a pitch not two weeks ago).
“By The Southern Grace of God is a
lovely and wonderful story...” she begins. My head is spinning.
She likes my pitch and wants me to send her a plot synopsis!
I call her the next day from the
Georgia Aquarium. The synopsis looks good; it's just what she needed
to be able to recommend my story on up the line to the higher-ups.
I'm on cloud 17. My first-ever pitch to a comic book publisher looks
like it's got a seriously good chance of being accepted.
Back home in Little Rock a few days
later, I get an email from Barbara. The powers that be at Platinum
have requested bios from all potential contributors. Holy moly! Here
I am, a never-published aspiring comic book writer, being asked to
write a bio that will be included with my first published comic book
story, in the event it is actually published – which is seeming
more and more likely at this point.
Here's what I came up with:
When, at the age
of eight, Elton Pruitt authorized his mom to sell all of his comics
at a garage sale, he thought he had outgrown them. Sadly, these
included numerous issues of Neal Adams’ now-legendary run on Batman and Detective Comics.
Years later, Elton
regained his senses and rediscovered his love of comic books. Around
this time he also discovered a passionate dislike for Southern rock –
Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special, you name it – and proudly attested to
its worthlessness throughout the halls of his high school in Searcy,
Arkansas.
So it seems only
fitting that his first published comic book story would revolve
around a Lynyrd Skynyrd song.
Prior to his work
in comic books, Elton worked as a copywriter for a small ad agency in
Little Rock, where his pitch to Roller Funeral Homes of Arkansas (“We
put the fun in funeral”) never quite caught on. His work for Five
Miles Out writing the screenplay for their Immercenary video
game was better received and led him into the fabled land of The
Internet, where he has spent the last ten years programming custom
web applications for Aristotle Inc.
Today – at the
exact moment you are reading this, in all likelihood – Elton is
hard at work on his next comic book project, a little something he
likes to call Descartes the Zombie. Watch for it – and check
out EltonPruitt.com for more information on Elton and his ongoing
quest to become the 22nd century’s second greatest
living comic book writer (after Drew Melbourne, of course).
I look back at that bio today, 7.5
months later, and don't know whether to laugh, cry, or have another
beer. So, because I'm committed to writing this column tonight –
and because Diamond Bear's new Presidential IPA is a truly fine
example of the India Pale Ale that is the pinnacle of beer-drinking
pleasure – I'll have another beer and continue.
I've come a long way since writing that
bio in March. And to borrow a phrase from the Grateful Dead, “what
a long, strange trip it's been.”
I'm still not published. That's the
albatross around my neck that I work every day to rid myself of. More
(much more) on that in future columns.
What
happened to my romance anthology submission that seemed so promising
last spring? I have no idea, honestly. On June 3rd, I got an email from
Barbara informing me that my pitch for "By the Southern Grace of God"
was rejected. I know she liked it, so I can only assume the higher-ups
did not.
Drew Melbourne was my idol at that
time. I'd only recently discovered his Think Like Tomorrow
columns on this very site, and they gave me a huge dose of
inspiration and education at just the right time to convince me to
embrace my dreams and flip off my fears and take a serious shot at
becoming a comic book writer. (In a future column, I'll share with
you the first-ever email I sent Drew, in which I did a fairly good
job of aping his uniquely comedic style.)
Today, Drew and I are Archenemies,
in a friendly sort of way, and I have him to thank for inviting me to
write this column. Descartes the Zombie is struggling to be
born (much, much more on that in future columns). And in the very
near future, I'll be working with the perfect artist to bring “By
the Southern Grace of God” to comic book life, as a self-published
story.
I hope you'll tune in to future
installments of Running Up That Hill, in which I'll divulge
important tidbits such as “why I'm glad my sister-in-law is a
shrink” and “what I've learned from Luke and Laura in the last
quarter-century.”
NOW - 10/18/08
I think this actually worked pretty well as a "pleased to meet me" sort of column.
This actually seems more like 5 years ago than a mere 2!