A look back at a comic about September 11

My indie comics origin story

Hi friends! Sorry my posts have become a bit more sporadic recently! There have been a few more things to manage around here, so I have to prioritize the essential things over the “nice-to-haves” like this Substack. Thanks for your understanding! It’s always fun to get back here and find old comics to share!

This week, I thought I’d venture away from my old sketchbook, “The Drawing Book,” and take a look at a comic that was written around the same period. It’s about the events of September 11th, 2001, and it was my first published comic. Last week was the twenty-third anniversary of September 11th.

Before I share the comic, I thought I should explain how this all came about. This is long, so if you just want to get to the comic, scroll ahead!

In 2001, I was a flight attendant with Air Canada. I was living in a small apartment on the second floor of an old house just off 17th Avenue SW in Calgary. That summer, I bought… a computer!! A Dell desktop computer! No more internet cafes for me! My computer-savvy cousin set it up for me. Right away, I searched for two things. First, I looked up Margaret Mahy, the New Zealand writer whose work I had just discovered. That led to some adventures you can read about, here. Then I looked up “comics.”

What did I find? The San Diego Comic Con. I don’t remember if I’d ever really even heard of it before. But I knew I had to go.

I think that was in July. The Comic Con was in August. There followed a memorable trip. I got to the Calgary airport, planning to get on a flight to San Francisco and then connect to San Diego. But the SFO flight was delayed. I was going to miss my connection! I had already cleared security, I was already at the gate! I asked the customer service agent if I could have my suitcase taken off the flight to SFO and put onto a flight for Los Angeles that was leaving within the hour. The answer was: sure, no problem. I jumped on the LAX flight. That’s what it was like to travel on standby, a month before September 11th 2001.

I arrived in LAX late in the evening. I rented a car and drove to San Diego. I knew I’d need some driving music, so I’d brought along a CD my friend Phil had just sent me: Tom Waits’s soundtrack “Alice: The Original Demos.” This made for a spooky drive on a dark highway. Just check out “Alice” and you’ll see what I mean.

The San Diego Comic Con

In San Diego, I stayed at a motel that was so far out of town, I could see the Mexican border from my window. The Comic Con wasn’t such a big event back then, the way it is now - but it was already selling out hotels.

At the expo, I met all sorts of interesting and amazing people, like Scott McCloud. I caught glimpses of comics icons like Sergio Aragones. (Sergio Aragones is still around, in 2024!! He’s 87!!) I put my name in a lottery and won a portfolio review with… Marvel or DC (I can’t remember). I hadn’t brought along a portfolio, just my drawing books - the ones I’ve been sharing on this Substack. The reviewer told me, “this isn’t where you belong. You should go and check out the indie comics.” That was the first time I heard the term.

In the indie comics section, I met Jeff Mason of Alternative Comics. He looked at the drawing books and made all sorts of suggestions. “You need to read this,” he told me, thrusting Eddie Campbell’s “Alec: How to be an Artist” into my hands. He added a new book by James Kochalka, and maybe a few more that I can’t remember now. “And read this too,” he added, handing me a tiny zine called “How to make mini-comics” by David Lasky. That little zine opened up a whole new perspective for me. It inspired me to write this mini-comic about the house where I grew up. All these years later, I’m still writing zines for The Sprawl!

In the indie comics aisle, surrounded by all those books and people, I had an experience that I’ve never forgotten. Someone was telling me about some great book I had to check out. “Just a sec, I need to get a pen to write this down,” I said. Instantly, five or six hands reached out, all offering pens. All of the pens were drawing pens: Microns, brush tips, markers. In that moment, I knew I’d found my people.

September 11

Jeff Mason did more than just recommend indie comics to me. A month later, when I was back in Calgary, the towers of the World Trade Centre were destroyed on September 11th. Jeff organized a comics anthology that would contribute funds to the American Red Cross, and he asked me to submit a story.

I’d been writing autobiographical comics for years, but this was the first time I’d written a story for someone else. Here’s what I wrote (with a pen… this was long before I drew anything digitally).

I got up and turned on my TV. I didn’t have cable, so I was only able to get a garbled signal with audio. But enough to find out what was going on. Soon enough I got a call from Air Canada, letting me know my flight was cancelled.

Note: I’ve mentioned the awesome Salad King restaurant in a couple of previous Substack comics.

And indeed… Bob Dylan’s album Love and Theft was released on that day.

The boyfriend who ditched me: we haven’t gotten to him in my drawing book comics yet, but I did mention him in a couple of my Bob Dylan comics, like this one.

For twenty-three years, I’ve suspected that I made a mistake in my German text: “Diese arme Menschen” should be “Diese armen Menschen.” Those poor people.

Those red bugs still live in my backyard, just like they live in all Calgary south-facing backyards. I still try to respect all life, but I have a lot less tolerance for red bugs who come in through my window, than I did twenty-three years ago. You can read more about those red bugs here, in another drawing book comics page that I haven’t gotten around to posting yet.

The work of dystopian fiction I read, when I was thirteen, was John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids. I hadn’t read anything like it before, and it did make me think about how the world doesn’t look the same for everybody. It might have been the start of a lifelong journey of definitely not taking anything for granted! (Although, ironically, maybe that book should remind me that some things do NOT change, since my son had to read it last year at school, in the same grade I was in, when I read it! Wow.)

And Nose Hill? Nose Hill is still a magical, remote, peaceful place that I haven’t been to, in way too long. Maybe soon. Autumn is here and the leaves are turning…

Throughout all this post, I haven’t really said much about the actual stuff that happened on September 11th, 2001, or the stuff that it led to, afterwards. I guess I can say that, twenty-three years later, all that stuff just makes me sad.

Anyway, thanks for joining me on this ramble through the story of an old comic! There are a few more things to say about this comic and the 9-11 Emergency Relief anthology, but they can wait for another day.