Cliff Galbraith, the best kind of con man
Cliff Galbraith has worn a lot of ratty hats in the comics biz. Artist, writer, Rat Bastard, entrepreneur and now, con man. As in, con promoter.
The devout Jersey guy is, along with his partner and buddy Rob Bruce (more on him tomorrow), the driving force behind the Asbury Park Comic Con, which is not only a thing, it’s a cool thing and a growing thing.
The first APCC had 32 tables in a bowling alley that had been converted into a rock club. The most recent, at the landmark Convention Hall on the boardwalk, drew 170 exhibitors. Next April, the show is expanding to two days, with more than 200 exhibitors (see asburyparkcomicon.com). And Cliff’s now looking at expanding his burgeoning con empire.
Dude on the left is Mad legend Al Jaffee. Dude on the right is some guy named Cliff, who still owes me a button from the con.
Cliff, this came out when you were 5. Was this the one?
Moebius!
Black costume!
One of the best comics ever!
Kirby!
Next week is San Diego Comic-Con, a massive, dizzying, awesome, spectacle that really can only be understood if you go there. It is a cavernous exercise in sensory overload, with movie studios, TV networks, video-game manufacturers, dealers, and, oh yeah, comic-book publishers, all vying to grab your split-second attention span.
It’s gross in the best possible way.
But it also feels fitting to give a serious shout to the guys who keep their cons about comics, which have, let’s face it, formed the foundation of today’s popular culture.
I hate the term “keeping it real,” but that’s what these guys do.
So, anyway, here’s a Q&A – about comics — with Busy Cliff, who you can also check out at crucialcomics.com.
What was the first comic you bought? Do you still have it?
Funny, unlike my first record or first anything, I can’t recall the actual issue I first owned. I must’ve been 4 years old and probably Superman. I did have a subscription to Superboy at a very young age and one of those comics remains in my collection. I do remember my first Jack Kirby comic — I was getting a haircut while visiting my grandparents in Neptune, N.J. (Ed.: my birthplace!) and the barber gave me a copy of the Fantastic Four sans cover. The art was very different — it blew my little 5-year-old mind.
What’s your all-time favorite single issue?
Whatever early issue of Heavy Metal in the late ‘70s I picked up and found out there was a Moebius in the world and he was making art that appealed to my teenage mind. He made me want to do what he was doing.
Around that time I met Frank Thorne, showed him my sketchbooks where I was influenced by Moebius and Star Wars, and he told me to come to his home or call him. Thorne lived in the next town over from me. He wanted to help me with my career.
I never followed through because I was young and stupid or a stoner or both. Instead I started a T-shirt screen-printing business and put my dreams on hold, but continued to look for Moebius and all the other great artists of Heavy Metal’s early days.
What are your five favorite comics storylines? Why do you dig them so much?
1. Secret Wars got me back into reading comics as an adult — as much as anyone in their 20’s is actually an adult. But I’d moved away from comics when I was around 9 or 10, my interests shifted to records, sports, and whatever else came down the pike. Then one day I walked into a 7-Eleven to pick up a pack of cigarettes (back when I was smoking) and there was this cover with all these Marvel characters and Spider-Man had this crazy black costume. I just picked it up and brought it into work and everyone in the studio wanted to look at it. I know the story was created to sell a line of toys, but it just grabbed me — I was hooked.
2. Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns had a huge impact on me in so many ways. There was this sense that comics could be so much more. There was a narrative and art style I hadn’t seen before. There was this sense that society was coming apart at the seams. Movies like “Dirty Harry,” “Death Wish,” “Mad Max,” and “Taxi Driver” were the type of films my friends and I were consuming and Dark Knight Returns put the Batman in that genre and then went beyond anything the films were doing.
3. The New Gods — I didn’t read it when it came out, but I picked them up when I would go to cons in the 90’s. I go back to it all the time. I have some of the hardcovers and trade paperbacks. Every time I open one of those books I’m more amazed than when I first saw it. I love all of Kirby’s work, but this is full-on cosmic Kirby firing on all cylinders. (Ed.: That’s Kirby’s DC period, for you newbies.)
4. Cosmic Odyssey by Jim Starlin and Mike Mignola (also DC). To me, at the time, Mike Mignola was not getting the attention that he deserved. I really loved his deceivingly simple style, his use of stark blacks and negative space. The entire universe is threatened by the Anti-Life Equation and the Justice League and the New Gods join forces to save the day. There’s a great bit of dialogue where Lightray, speaking about Batman, says to Superman, “Besides, this task appears to be more than a normal human could handle.” And Superman replies, “Who told you Batman was a normal human?” I love Starlin for that. It made it okay for me to think of Batman as a really strange dude.
5. If I have one last choice it has to be Kurt Busiek’s Astro City: Life In The Big City (DC, again). It really entertained me. It took the superhero genre somewhere that I wasn’t expecting. It just seemed like Busiek wrote it with a lot of love for superheroes — something that I’d grown tired of, but he hadn’t, and I was grateful for that. Brent Anderson’s classic drawing style doesn’t try to draw attention to itself — he just tells the story with his art.
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