I’ve been meaning to finish and post this for two months, but holidays and other store events got in the way. But with Hub Comics and the Tom Reilly event there getting a mention in this week’s new issue of G.I. Joe (cf. the end of this post), I took that as a sign.
To jump to the exciting part: people were surprised I got Tom Reilly at my shop the week that G.I. Joe issue #1 was released. How did I do it? I asked.
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My store, Hub Comics, has shifted away from traditional author and artist signings. If people show up, our guest is busy for a stretch of hours, there’s a line, and books do get signed. But if people don’t show up, our guest just sits there. From conventions and other store appearances, comics professionals know that anything can make an event more or less populated. Bad weather, a competing event, table placement within a larger venue, poor promotion — all of those and more can mean the difference between lots of people attending, or just a few. We can add to that list of elements one more: location. Everyone converges on the Javitz Center for New York Comic Con. Will anyone take the bus or drive to a destination comic book store? (A subway stop did open near Hub Comics about three years back, and we are on several bus lines, but we’re still nestled a bit off the beaten path.)
As I’d previously twice interviewed Reilly, and I suspected G.I. Joe fans were more interested in autographs and sketches, this would be “just” a signing, no slideshow, no folding chairs for a small crowd, no Q&A.
And it was a big hit.
This all goes back to April. Mark of the Talking Joe podcast reached out to Reilly, who nicely joined us for an episode. This was roughly between when issues #4 and #5 of the startling Duke miniseries were released. At the end of our talk, I realized Reilly didn’t live too far from me, and perhaps we could schedule a June signing for the release of the Duke graphic novel collection. Reilly thought he’d be busy drawing his next project then, but I wanted to come back to the idea. Here’s that two-hour Talking Joe:
Then in July, I got an email from Colin Solan, Communication Director for Wicked Comic Con. This is the Boston comics convention that sort of took over for the old Boston Comic Con. Solan is an acquaintance from the last decade-plus. He’s shopped at Hub Comics, attended past Hub Comics parties and signings, and he always seems to be at Boston-area comics events. He was asking if I wanted to moderate the ’80s Revival panel at Wicked Comic Con in August. Panelists would be Reilly and Soo Lee, who’s writing the Thundercats Cheetara spin-off, and who wrote and drew the Disney Villains Maleficent mini for Dynamite. I said yes. Here’s audio-only of that panel, as I recorded it and Mark turned it into an episode of Talking Joe:
A week before Solan reached out, G.I. Joe #1 was announced with Reilly as artist. As both a Joe fan and a Reilly fan, I was thrilled. When his Marvel Thing miniseries premiered in late 2021, I was struck by how great his work was. His storytelling was clear and exciting, and his sense of light and shadow, of shape and design, looked over to Chris Samnee and back to Alex Toth. (And I’ll throw in Evan “Doc” Shaner as well.) I had sort of forgotten Reilly had drawn a wonderful Morbius one-shot (that’s reprinted in the ten-dollar Marvel-Verse: Morbius sampler), but now I was paying attention. Faintly I thought “there’s no way this guy could ever draw G.I. Joe, right?” His style didn’t fit the end-of-the-Marvel run, or the Devil’s Due era, or any of the IDW stuff, although that most recent publisher of G.I. Joe had had the most variety of styles (Fiffe, Gallant, Liefeld) and was daring with its choices (Scioli, Milonogiannis, the overlooked Nelson Daniel). But surely no one out there thought to ask Mr. Reilly, and Reilly was drawing for Marvel, so he wouldn’t, couldn’t, say yes. Then he drew a 2022 Ant-Man miniseries, and I thought this all over again. What’s especially great is each issue of that story is set in a different decade, and Reilly slightly shifts his drawing style. Both his Thing and Ant-Man work feature the incredible colors of Jordie Bellaire, but in the fantasy comics-casting of some future G.I. Joe issue, surely a publisher wouldn’t think to get her as well! His work would be compromised with a lesser collaborator!
But this notion was out the window, now in 2024. That Reilly would be premiere artist on Skybound’s new monthly G.I. Joe was a killer surprise.
At Wicked Comic Con in August, the panel went great, and walking back to his table from the panel room I again asked Reilly about a signing. But now, I was looking ahead to the weekend after G.I. Joe #1 streeted. He said he’d be at a con around then, but yes, the weekend after its debut day of November 13th should work. I followed up via email, and soon we agreed on a date and time. In October, my shop finalized its order for G.I. Joe issue #1. Normally this would be easy, but with so many variant covers, both limited ratio ones, as well as open-to-order ones (19 in total!), this took some thought. Of note was the blank sketch cover, wherein the cover is blank white, with just a logo, and of a special paper stock can handle pencil and ink. We’d definitely order more of those!
Let’s jump ahead to the actual signing for these next two photos, an in-process Destro and the final piece:
(back to the set-up)
In October, Talking Joe host Mark nudged me to reach out to Skybound for help promoting. I made a series of jpegs in the size preferred by Instagram, and requested a Duke poster. I didn’t think there was a proper G.I. Joe #1 poster sent to stores, or I would have asked. While of course a Duke poster promoting a spring 2024 miniseries doesn’t directly point at the November 2024 G.I. Joe #1, it is a big Tom Reilly drawing of four key characters, and I could always tape a piece of paper to it with the “G.I. Joe” logo. Skybound’s PR and social media team kindly responded on both counts, with tips for how to tag social media posts. (Because of how my shop orders Image books, we don’t actually get Skybound posters, so we didn’t have a Duke one from the spring in the first place.)
In late October, I checked in with Reilly. Three Duke posters arrived. As I’ve already noted here at the blog, I spent a lot of time sorting, bagging, boarding, and pricing extra G.I. Joe comics from all eras. I started this early because I didn’t want it bogging me down the day before our big event.
And suddenly, it was November. Our shipping invoice arrived, listing what we’d get the next week: lotsa G.I. Joe #1! And then a bunch of wonderful but tiring things happened in the week before Tom Reilly. I needed to fly to Iowa for a toy convention. Then I needed to read issue #1 and record a special Talking Joe episode with Mark mere hours after my flight got me home! And then, because when it rains, it pours, I had to pull off two other events at my store before our Tom Reilly event. First was a meeting of our monthly Hub Comics book club. Then we hosted the brilliant commercial and comics artist/graduate school department chair Nathan Fox for an artist talk and signing for his Image Comics trilogy The Weatherman (which you should read). And then it was a full day of prep for Mr. Tom Reilly’s arrival, and then the Tom Reilly signing itself. I confirmed with him one more time the day before.
I was so excited that I woke up three hours before my alarm. I finalized the jpeg for our TV marquee, and headed to Hub Comics. I skipped breakfast and prepped for another two hours — bringing out a small table, getting the tablecloth, moving more comics around. We’d need room for people to stand! Manager Jesse arrived an hour early. We opened at our normal Saturday time of 10am. Reilly kindly emailed that he had departed and would arrive in an hour. Two new customers showed up, asking about the signing. They wanted to know if we were charging for signatures, or had a minimum (like you have to buy something to get a signature), or if there was a maximum on signatures. Totally reasonable, but these questions caught me off guard. (The answers: no, no, and not really.) Hub Comics is a graphic novel store. Yes, “comics” is in the name, but we are 80% graphic novels, 15% single issues (new and old), and 5% other (t-shirts, posters, bags and boards, capsule toys). Our signings tend to be with Young Adult authors talking about their new 200-page book aimed at 5th graders. Or like when I interviewed Erica Henderson for Danger and Other Unknown Risks. (Which won an Eisner.) Or grown-up books, like Nathan Fox’s The Weatherman. Traditional signings, where a line of 50 people snakes out the door as the guest scribbles on the new issue of something, well, geez, has it been ten years since the Babs Tarr signing for Batgirl #35?
Two more people showed up early for Tom Reilly. Then two more. Hey, it’s Frank Saunders, Talking Joe listener! Hey, it’s Richard Borges, Talking Joe listener! It’s great when G.I. Joe fans visit Hub Comics, and even moreso when they mention our podcast. This does not happen as often as you might think. Like I said, my shop is a little off the beaten path.
What I started to realize was that the hardcore G.I. Joe fans such an event might attract were likely the people who’d already gotten their copies of G.I. Joe issue #1 in the previous three days. I certainly hoped folks would drive from Rhode Island, New Hampshire, or Western Massachusetts for this, but it wasn’t release day, and folks have their own local comic shops. That’s okay, but it did suggest a mental revision of how many comics we might sell. At 11:30, Tom Reilly arrived. He put down his pens, and we went next door to grab him an iced coffee. The signing started on-time at noon, and those two gents who arrived early got to be first in line.
I continued to price some older Joe comics. Manager Jesse fielded a few phone calls — was Tom Reilly here? Did we have a minimum? The new issue #1 sold briskly, and I talked several people into some prelude sets at better than half price (see earlier photo). At one point, our modest back issue section was full up with Joe fans flipping through and pulling out Marvel, Devil’s Due, IDW issues, and Skybound variant issues!
Overall, the signing was great! Several dozen fans came through the store. It was busy enough to feel like a success, but not so busy that anyone had to wait for too long or missed out. Everyone who showed up got signed whatever they bought or brought. Everyone got to chat a little with our guest. There was time for Reilly to draw five or six sketches, including one for podcast Mark, who’d put in a request with me a week earlier. (Am I shipping this to England? Is Mark not getting this until June 2025?) The event was a bit crowded for the first half, and then calmer for the third hour, and then pretty sparse for the final hour. That allowed Reilly time to take a break or two, for us to chat, and throughout the day for me to properly introduce him to three important people. The first was my manager, Jesse Farrell, who recently published his newest comic, Action Draculas, which comes with a vinyl record with a cast recording of that printed story. The second was muralist/gallery artist Michael Talbot — he’s at Hub Comics all the time and we carry his children’s books. Reilly paged through Tortoise and Hare: The Rematch and remarked at Talbot’s great color work. And the third was indie comics maker Dave Ortega, whose self-published series Hacienda sits in our Local section, and whose graphic novel Dias De Consula resides in Non-Fiction. Reilly noted that Ortega’s comics are hand lettered — no fonts. Somerville has an arts scene, and Hub Comics both benefits from and reflects it.
Here’s how the signing looked at its most busy:
And here’s how the signing felt at its least busy:
A pair of regular customers, a dad and his son, showed up. They’re reading most of the Energon Universe comics (I had suggested that Cobra Commander was too bloody for this youngster), and a week earlier I’d reminded them of our Tom Reilly event. Hearing the dad explain to the kid that someone actually draws these, and that the artist who actually drew these (Duke, G.I. Joe #1) would be at Hub, and they could come meet him, was great. And now during the signing, they did. Even better, the boy showed Reilly his own art.
Originally I wasn’t going to get a sketch. I’m a fan of Reilly’s work, yes, but hosting him is in some ways better. But after he finished Mark’s amazing sketch of Major Bludd–
–I started thinking if would be fun to watch him draw something for me that I could take home. And I wouldn’t be making anyone else wait with the line thinned out. We talked a little about what he might draw. Weapons are a challenge, this was at the end of a tiring week where he’d already traveled by plane, and whatever issue #3 pages he had drawn and would next draw at home were filled with weapons. Maybe something without a specific firearm. I thought of a scene from G.I. Joe issue #1 where Duke looks pensive, and suggested something like that. Duke isn’t my favorite Joe, but I do like the idea of having an artist draw a character they’re identified with, and since Duke’s the main character and Reilly had already done that Duke miniseries, the decision was made for me.
The final piece is subtly sublime.
Reilly had his tiny art folder with him, selling inked pieces for not-a-lot-of-money. I think these are 5 inches by 8 inches, and a great pick if you can’t afford a full page of original art.
It was extra thrilling to see these as Reilly didn’t bring any G.I. Joe pages. Everything was either in-process, or with his art rep and now out of his hands. Two more of the smaller pieces:
Gosh, Reilly is one of those artists who I’d be happy to see draw any comic series or project.
At 4pm, we wrapped up, and Reilly and I went across the street for Thai food. I asked about what he had done between the Duke miniseries and the new issue #1 (it turns out: a lot of prep for G.I. Joe issue #1!), work he had turned down because he was now busy with G.I. Joe, as well as characters he’d like to draw. We also talked a little about non-comics things, like where he lives, and playing video games. Also, both Tom Reilly and I went to the same art school, and even had a teacher or two in common, and talked about particular homework assignments. Then, due to some uninteresting extenuating circumstances, Reilly hung out at my shop for an hour after dinner — no one noticed him and we weren’t hyping this, he was just sitting on our couch — reading some Chris Samnee and Doc Shaner Superman comics I dug up. We said goodbye and he headed south to ink some pages of G.I. Joe issue #3. Yes, even after a long drive and a four-hour event on a Saturday, Mr. Reilly had to get back to the drawing board.
It was great, and I hope to do it again some day.
Thanks again to Tom Reilly for taking time out of his busy schedule to visit us, meet some fans, and sketch some gorgeous art!
Post script: Two months later, in the pages of G.I. Joe issue #3, Talking Joe listener Scotty Cameron got a letter printed! He kindly mentioned my shop:
Thanks, Scotty! Wish you could have made it!
For those keeping track, this is Hub Comics’ second G.I. Joe-specific signing (Larry Hama in 2012), but G.I. Joe folks like Larry Houston, Chi Wang, Hooded Cobra Commander 788, and Billy Penn have all stopped by in the last year, so as I sometimes joke on Facebook, you never know who you’ll see at Hub Comics.
A Real American Book! 