I’ve had a busy month. Comic Con Oakland one weekend, Savannah College of Art and Design’s Editor’s Day the next week, then a trip home for a bit. I’m beat, but things are happening. I have a couple projects I’d like to do this summer, and they’re slowly crystalizing in my head, almost ready for the page. Writing still feels good, and here, in the eight i am david brothers’s newsletter, I’ve got some other things that feel good, plus the return of my NO RELATION video series after a year away:
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four things of no particular relation:
-Les Enfants Terribles: my youngest brother is playing Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. He’s 17. I was 17 when I played it. Funny coincidence. Life is good. Life is la-li-lu-le-lo.
-Best of the Super Jr: New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s Best of the Super Jr tournament is my favorite few weeks of wrestling each year. I love junior heavyweight wrestling, and this is such a good spotlight. I’ll choose wrestlers to follow for the G1 (or other companies’ tournaments, like NOAH or TJPW) but when it comes to BoSJ, I watch everything. I’m a fan of almost everyone in the brackets, so every match has a unique pleasure. Sorry in advance to my boss.
-Art Club: Since September or October, I’ve been meeting a friend at a coffee shop and drawing once a week before work. It’s been fantastic. You should try it, assuming your job isn’t drawing already. I think it’s different when you have to draw, maybe?
-Metal Gear Solid 2: It’s a real trip watching someone play a game you haven’t played in a bunch of years. Like remembering something wrong. You should try this too, if you can. Try it with a friend.
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a twelve-year-old memory, as best I can remember it:
I’m pretty sure I never went on a hike in my life before I met Branwyn Bigglestone.
I joined Image Comics as Content Manager, basically a proofreader-plus on the production side, in 2013. At the time, Branwyn was the senior accounts manager, the person in charge of making sure all the comics creators got paid.
A few months after I started that job, I ran a charity 5k to support PINCC, an organization that works to prevent cervical cancer in women around the world and specifically Africa for this 5k in particular. I saw an ad while riding the 57 bus on AC Transit and, despite never having done a 5k or raised money for a cause, I thought doing a 5k sounded like a great idea. I trained, raised money, and go to it. The actual 5k was a rainy trip around what would become my favorite lake over the years, and ended in a neighborhood that I’d eventually move to around ten years later. A surprisingly auspicious 5k.
I dunno if that experience was why Branwyn asked me to help out on a charity hike the next year, but it definitely primed me to be open to the experience. Even better, instead of a fundraiser, we were gonna do something different. We’d be doing setup for At the Crossroads, a local organization that supports homeless youth in San Francisco in a variety of ways. Their summer event was called “Summer SunDay” at the time, and our hike would be on Saturday to accommodate the setup.
A charity hike attracts hardcore hikers and people who just like to walk around alike, and it’s better if they know where to go when they’re trekking through the woods, you know? Someone has to get out there the day before with a bunch of posts and place all the signs those people use to navigate on the day of the hike. Background work, basically. Set-up crew. Logistics. I’m into it. I love picking things up and putting them down somewhere else. Plugging stuff in and running cables.
I did not bring a hat because I was new to hiking, but I got my hiking shoes (the same running ones from the 5k; I came home with rocks in every crevice of the soles), I got my best sleeveless shirt, and I got up for an early ride to Mount Tamalpais in Marin County with Branwyn.
It was an experience. We hiked up to an outpost and down to the finish line, with a break at the top for lunch and air. We set up posts and flags as instructed, with a little problem solving here and there when the map didn’t match the terrain. My hometown is fairly flat, and around 300 feet above sea level. Mount Tam is about 2,500 feet. I took a panoramic shot from the top of the world.
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nothing happens for no reason:
It felt good to hike. It felt good to help. I’ve gone on a bunch of hikes with Branwyn in the interim, and I’ve tried to keep At the Crossroads in the conversation whenever I talk about ways to help people. I’ve fundraised and volunteered for them ever since, along with other organizations as they cross my path.
I include a little note at the end of every newsletter urging people to help somebody close to them because Branwyn showed me a way to do it as an adult, and I benefitted from places like Boys & Girls Clubs as a kid. Good things happen when we make them happen. Not everyone is cut out for building houses, doing hikes, beating charity runs, or dragging piles of trash from the sidewalk to the bin. A lot of things need a lot of work, but there are a lot of ways to help, too.
My approach to helping is that if all you can do is donate $5 every six months to a cause you believe in, you are doing the best you can, right? I have a desire to save people, but that’s not really how life works, unless you’re one of those almost-mythical altruistic billionaires or a superhero. The best I can do is help. But the best I can do is plenty, because I’m not alone doing these things. If we all do our best…
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okay, but specifically:
This year, ATC is doing a Field Day Fundraiser in Golden Gate Park’s Doughboy Meadow. It’s on Saturday, June 13 at noon, and just under a month from now.
I’m teaming up with Branwyn as Team Accident Prone for this fundraiser. We’re in the mix this time, not doing the setup, and hoping to raise at least $2,000 to support ATC’s mission, but we’d be glad to settle for a cool $10,000 too.
Please give our page a look and throw some support our way, if you are able. Tell a friend if you can’t support monetarily, and send us good vibes if you don’t have any friends sitting next to you. It’s all a help.
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we will destroy milton/bradley with our bare hands:
Let’s make this a friends-only newsletter, huh?
I really appreciate comics creator Jeff Parker. We became friends years ago, and set the convention circuit ablaze with our traveling Parker/Brothers panel. The premise is simple: Jeff Parker and David Brothers talk to each other and their friends about comic books. It’s a conversation, and we went from doing a panel for our friends and people who knew us online to packing rooms in Portland and Seattle.
I love doing panels at conventions, and I’d put what Jeff and I do together up against any other panel on Earth. We have fun, the crowd has fun, and then people in the crowd visit us at our table to talk more about the panel and our stuff. It’s a good loop.
We took a few years off, in part because I mostly stopped doing conventions but also because of COVID, but when we both ended up as guests at the newly debuted Comic Con Oakland…well. Parker/Brothers in my town? I can’t resist.
The Comic Con Oakland organizers were kind enough to give us a room, a tech, and a screen, and we got to it. We enlisted our mutual friend Justin Greenwood, a creator with a stacked resume, for some variety, and sat down and improvised a conversation all about various aspects of comics for about 45 minutes.
This is NO RELATION: “Life is… Parker/Brothers” feat. Justin Greenwood. Please enjoy.
(youtube embed: NO RELATION: “Life is… Parker/Brothers” feat. Justin Greenwood)
See you at Comic Con Oakland next year.
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welcome to paradise:
The other fun thing about knowing Branwyn is that she’s been a gateway to music for me, too. She has deep roots in the Bay Area punk rock scene, and it’s been a pleasure to get various recommendations from her over the years, to explore a side of music I’m still fairly new to alongside someone who’s grown up in it. We’re Team Accident Prone because of Jawbreaker’s “Accident Prone”.
In real life, we are very agile and safe to be around. Excellent drivers, too. I’ve never even fallen down in my life.
See you at field day.
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one last photo before we go-go:
Just for fun, here are two photos taken from the same place, but a dozen years apart. I had an iPhone back then, a 5s. I think I used a 50mm lens for the other?
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That’s it.