So it seemed as if things were progressing nicely with Eclipse Comics … I was writing “Night Watchman” stories, my artist was drawing panels, and my editor was getting married and moving away. Good times for all concerned! Sadly, good times never seem to last …
Unfortunately, while Graeme was out on his honeymoon, the wheels at Eclipse seemed to grind to a halt, and then to start spinning in reverse.
After this, the responses from Eclipse pretty much dried up. I couldn’t seem to get in touch with Graeme’s replacement, or with anyone from Claypool. It was as if, upon Graeme’s departure, everything he had been working on (at least, everything I was involved in) got tipped into the circular file and forgotten, if not actively ignored. If I ever received another response, I don’t have a copy of it — and I keep everything I get.
I continued trying to break into comic books for a while after the Eclipse proposals fell apart, but never came this close again. I eventually concluded that to really succeed in the field, I would need to draw as well as write, and I’m just not a very good artist; and so I shifted gears to books and short stories instead. I think I’m probably better at writing novels than I was at writing comic books, but going through this stack of paperwork from Eclipse, I can’t help remembering just how many ideas for comics I used to have. Maybe I could have ended up making it in that world, if things had fallen a little to the left or a little to the right. Oh well. As Nero told Kirk in the recent Star Trek movie, “… but that was another life.”
Incidentally, Dennis the Vizsla has a number of friends in New Zealand. If any of them know a former editor from Eclipse named Graeme Thompson, tell him Jim Viscosi says hello. And don’t forget to vote for the next scene of the month!
Viscosity 
There must be thousands of people like us out there. On more than one occasion musical chairs within TV companies put paid to any progress I was making with them. Unfortunately I failed to keep any of my correspondence.
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Graeme sounds like a lovely man, it makes it all a bit easier when somebody like him tries as hard as he did. Doesn’t it? Kinda sorta?
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Oh boy I’m so happy this happened to you! That does not sound right. What I meant was: I’m so happy this ed-gone-job-gone is a global thing, not just an Asian one!
You’re going to make it, James. One day your name will be as big as Marvel and I’ll say, “I knew him when….”
Hey, if you happen to meet a romance publisher, send her/him my way. My two books are doing well, and I think I’m signing a kid book deal next month, but I’m in the mood to REALLY branch out.
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Yikes, painful. Graeme did sound like a nice man. It may well be that you got caught up in something going on betw him and the company, nothing to do with you at all (and aren’t you being decent about it?) Reminds me of the graduate students who get caught between warring professors sometimes, even to the point of being denied their own Ph.D’s. NOT nice at all!!
Aren’t a lot of comics co-produced by writers and authors? All I’m saying is, if you ever want to revisit all those ideas you had (have?) I wouldn’t necessarily say “never”.
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