Brush With Greatness

[johncomic]

It was the summer of 1976 [so that would make me 19 -- you aren't here to do math...], and I had just been visited by a nearby publisher who was enjoying solid critical and commercial success with The Canadian Children's Annual, the first of its kind here -- although the sort of book that British audiences would find deeply familiar. (I dunno if American kids are all that familiar with the concept of the children's annual or not...) There had been two CCAs published so far, and I had contributed comics and illustrations to both. And now Mr. Publisher Guy was bringing me work for the third book, so I was happy to see him. But this time he brought me more...

Last year's Annual was the first to feature the work of a new cartoonist whom I admitted was quite good... nearly as good as me. ;) At that time I felt quite confident that I was one of the best things in the Annuals, because my work featured lots of crosshatching with a very fine pen. [Yes, that's actually how I thought about things back then. Duh.] This "new lady" was the first "real competition" to come along in these books, so she interested me a fair bit. [BTW, looking back I can see that, at that time, she was so way better than me. Thirty years later, I now feel like I might be catching up to her in terms of cartooning quality... maybe.]

Anyhoo, today Mr. Publisher Guy had brought my scripts to illustrate... but he also had some for The New Lady. Because it turns out that she lived in my town [at that moment, at least -- she was apparently in the midst of extensive relocating]. And since he had to hurry back outa town, he asked if I might be able to deliver her scripts to her and thus save him some time. I immediately agreed, cuz I wanted to be A Good Guy for My Publisher, y'know?

So now it was evening and my dad drove me over to The New Lady's apartment building -- cuz it was pretty far across town, I didn't have a licence then, and the local bus service was, shall we say, spotty. I went into the lobby of her building with an envelope of her scripts, caught and held the inner door as someone came out, and took the elevator up to The New Lady's floor.


Now dig this. I lived in a small town of like 50,000 people. And this was back in a time when kids routinely went out alone after dark and always came home safe. And no one thought anything of it. We were not all that vigilant or security-conscious in that time and place.
See, I was familiar with the concept of the controlled-access building cuz I saw them in TV shows and movies set in New York. To me, the controlled-access building was a New York thing. But I had never actually been in one in my life, and never expected to be. So I never really noticed or paid any attention to all those rows of little buttons near the door in this lobby, I just walked past them and went in as the other folks went out, like I said.
I also hadn't phoned The New Lady ahead of time to let her know I was coming. For one, I didn't have her number... but also, this was a time and place where strangers would drop by unannounced if they had legitimate business with you. And, again, no one thought anything of it, at least as far as I could ever tell...


So I found her apartment door and knocked. There was a longish pause; I thought I could hear a TV. Then there was an unlatch-ey sound and the door opened enough for this lady's face to peek out... and she had the strangest expression. Sort of a combination of wary, perturbed, annoyed, guarded, but mostly confused. Like an alien had just beamed down to her doorway. I had no idea why -- I wondered if she had "issues" or something. She was younger than I expected, too. For some reason I was expecting some middle-aged mom, but she looked not much older than me. [Actually she had ten years on me, but that still meant she was under thirty.] And I also noticed that she was actually kinda hot, in a long-haired, heavy-lidded dreamy-eyed sorta way. I bet she woulda been even prettier if she'd loosened up a bit and maybe smiled instead of giving me the Wary-Confused Ray.

She blinked and just said "Yes?" and froze there, watching me with this look that I didn't understand. I told her that Mr. Publisher Guy had asked me to deliver these to her. She looked at the envelope, relaxed about one notch as she took it from me, said "Okay thanks"... slipped back inside and shut the door. And latched it.

That was it. I went back down, got in the car and we went home. It was years later before I connected the dots regarding the buttons near the lobby door, me not buzzing to get in, and her look, and then it made more sense.
That year's CCA was the last one that The New Lady's work ever appeared in. She went on to do a few book collections of single-panel cartoons for Mr. Publisher Guy, then never worked for him again. [I've heard rumours that there was some sort of acrimony between them, but I think it was mainly that she got busy doing something else.]

S'anyhoo, that is how I once briefly met Lynn Johnston.