A Short Story...It was back in the mid-80's, and I was attending the Chicago Comicon. This would be during the time it was held at the Marriott O'Hare. It was a nice place, and fairly well spread out, but from the way it'd been remodeled and expanded over the years, much of the exhibition and meeting spaces were scattered all over the place. That year the artists room was a small conference room tucked back in the bowels of the hotel. Eventually I stumbled my way to the artists area, and as I approached I could hear quite a hubbub inside. I figured something worthy of notice must be going on. As I entered the room, here's what I saw. The room was comparatively shallow but wide. Banquet tables ringed the room, with artists sitting behind the tables, with fans clustered around their favorite artists. There were a few artists ranged along the left and rear sides, and one on the right.
The hubbub was coming from a knot -- no, crowd, of fans clustering around someone centered on the back side. Well, the era might give you a hint. Todd McFarlane. Yep, he was the hot artist of the day. There were scattered fans at the other artists, but even they kept casting glances to see if there was going to be an opening in the Todd fan corps.
The artist at the far end? Well, I'm sure you can see where this is going. Jack Kirby. Sitting perched on the table, idly looking around, and absolutely ignored by the fans. I thought I'd stop by just to say "hi", and we started chatting. Chatting -- well, we talked about lots of stuff, and before I knew it, most of the afternoon had passed. And the whole time, Jack was ignored by the fans. If memory serves, the only interruption was once when Jerry Ordway stopped by for a minute.
Jack was quite a talker that afternoon. I tried to pull away a few times, to not monopolize his time, but he kept the talk going. Well, either I'm more a sparkling conversationalist than I thought, or he was feeling a bit alone and abandoned. I had a great time being able to spend so long with Jack -- unfortunately the only time we ever met.
I know that comics has a large "flavor of the month" aspect, along with lots of other fields, but it was more than a bit upsetting to see someone who arguably built the industry left ignored.
