Olyoptics Timeline - 1987

In 1987, I took a chance and made a trip to an NCGA (National Computer Graphics Association) convention in Philadelphia . It turned out to be the most important convention trip I would ever make.

“Ain’t nothing gonna Hurtchoo!”

  Sometimes you gamble. Go on a hunch. Trust to luck. The NCGA convention in Philadelphia was the biggest gamble I’d ever tried. I’d read in Computer Graphics World that a company called Pixelcraft was working with Mike Saentz on an Iron Man graphic novel that was to be color separated by computer. Mike was the artist who had drawn Shatter for First Comics on the Macintosh computer. Shatter is officially the first comic drawn with a computer, but the coloring was done blueline. The Mac didn’t have color separation capabilities. (The first computer colored comic story was “My Fears” in Mr. Monster #5, Feb. 1986, from Eclipse. However, that was a 4 page weirdo experiment, and not at all suitable as an ongoing technique.)

  Mike was providing the showcase, and Pixelcraft provided the software. I wanted to see what was really going on. I decided that I had to go. I bought a ticket, and tried to get a hotel room. The entire city was sold out. Every hotel I tried was full. I decided to just go for it. I had no idea how, but I knew it would work out.

  How it turned out was that the lady sitting next to me was a bed and breakfast broker for people in the downtown area, relatively close to the convention center. After explaining my situation to her, she made a call when we landed, and I ended up in the home of a lady who worked for the Philadelphia department of education. She rented out her son’s room to bring in a little spare money from time to time.

  My immediate problem solved, I was all of a sudden stuck in her house at 7 pm on a Saturday night, intruding on her and her son. I asked if there was anything going on nearby. She told me that South Street had lots of restaurants, music, and a theater, and was a pretty popular hangout. I decided to go.

  She gave me a key, told me to go one block over, and take a left. I couldn’t miss it. It was just a few blocks. Off I went. It was a warm summer evening. Her house looked to be part of a two hundred year old row of houses, all joined and opening onto an alley-like street. I walked the block over to South St. , where it was pretty dark. I looked down the street, but didn’t see much activity. In fact some of the buildings were partly in ruins, with long dark stretches between the streetlights. There were a few people on the street, so I decided to just walk. The first few blocks weren’t very encouraging. I was starting to get nervous. It was becoming increasingly apparent that this neighborhood was predominantly black.

  Where I grew up, and still live, in the country, there were 3 black kids. No Mexicans. No Asians. It was all white loggers and farmers. Suddenly I found myself in urban Philly getting a little bit scared. I started walking a little faster, putting on the New York walked I’d learned from Howard years before.

  Then I walked by a park, or an avenue of sorts that led off into the darkness. It had benches that people were sitting on. Somewhere in the darkness a boombox was playing. On the bench nearest to the sidewalk two black men were sitting when I stole a look into that park. One of the men must have seen something in my face, because out of the blue he said to me:

  “What choo worried about? Ain’t nothin’ gonna hurtchoo...”

  I looked at him, and he just looked back. I don’t remember a smile. He wasn’t kidding. I just kept walking, but I felt like I had been given a magic potion. A fear destroyer. As I walked, I felt stronger, safer, and totally comfortable. That man gave me a very precious gift that night. He rescued me from my own fear. Five or six blocks further down the street the action district definitely became obvious. For the remainder of that trip, I was virtually fearless. I just went for it. I talked to anyone. I went to all black jazz clubs by myself. I discovered the Rodin museum near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I saw the originals of famous paintings that I’d seen for years only in books. I met a cool girl holographer that I got to hang out with. I maxed out my credit card to pay for the tutorials, which was the only way I could go talk to Mike Saentz and Pixelcraft, who were scheduled to be the very last class of the very last day. I was committed to staying for the whole show. That’s all there was to it. The whole trip, in retrospect, had a fated quality to it.

  After Mike gave his presentation, I finally got to talk to Kenny Giordano, the software developer. His program seemed like just what I had been looking for, but it was still too expensive for me. I got a chromalin proof as an example, and went home buzzing. I didn’t quite know what to do, but I didn’t have too long to wait before I found out.