My very first comic was Superman v.2 #50, “Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite Pt. 4” I was nine when I found it in the storage area underneath the basement steps, and I have no idea where it came from. The back cover was gone, the front cover was ripped, and it changed my life forever. It pretty much defined my relationship  with Superman, who/what I expect to Superman to be, and created in me the first job aspiration of my life that would last longer than a week and didn’t involve dinosaurs.

Now that chance has finally come.

I’ve wanted to work in comics since that day, with varying degrees of commitment as the years went by, but always comics. (I’ve had one other dream job in my lifetime, working in the movies, and that’s all thanks to the behind the scenes featurettes of the extended DVD edition of the ‘Fellowship of the Rings,’ but we can talk about that later.) And not just comics, DC comics. I’ve dabbled with other companies, Image when I was a teenager because it was the mid-90s and who didn’t love Image back in the day? Marvel for eleven issues of the Ron Lim-drawn Silver Surfer. (Lim was my first ever favorite artist.) But DC has always been the dream.

There was a group of us semi-aspiring amateurs once. Talking about how great we were and all the wonders we would accomplish if only given the chance. Every time in one of those conversations, someone threw out the question, ‘If you could work on anything, what would it be?’ Pfft, that’s an easy one, my answer hasn’t changed since ’91, Superman. Then this other guy in the group, is all like ‘Wouldn’t you want to work on your own book?’ I almost, almost changed my answer, but didn’t. At the time, I was still updating ‘Buster’ regularly, I’d already started writing down some initial ideas and doodles for Merunga, there were about five or six other projects taking up space in my head, I was already working on my own stuff, which was fun, but what I wanted, was Superman. I don’t bother trying to defend or rationalize it anymore, it’s just the job I want more than any other job. To some extent, I think of Merunga as an extended application for that job. At some point I’ll take a collected edition into a con, wave it over my head, and beg for a job.

So I spent most of last week thumb-nailing and re thumb-nailing pages to draw up, and I spent most of this morning pecking away at a keyboard hoping a personal statement would appear. Six-hours on Saturday disappeared into this perspective nightmare:

Now my old man bum shoulder hurts and I’m not sleeping well because I’m giddy with excitement. It’s not a terrible place to find myself in.