The Mariner

I grad­u­at­ed with a bachelor’s degree in art, but in the art world, that degree is only worth as much as the paper it’s print­ed on after you draw some­thing on it. There are no guarantees.

That twist­ed cliché is what runs through my head as I put .5mm mechan­i­cal pen­cil to Can­son brand com­ic book art board. Page 1, pan­el 3, of my first issue of the Tales of the Mariner series, The Demon Purse. Wait…panel 3, that’s a bit of an odd place to start?

Nope. It aint. Not at all.

The Mariner sits at the bar, cradling a shot of rum. Nobody sits near him, his slouched pos­ture, his rat­ted gray mane, his odd dress. His shab­by exte­ri­or does not invite guests in this crowd­ed estab­lish­ment. He does not belong. The bar buzzes with tales from the mun­dane to the mag­nif­i­cent and he mere­ly lis­tens. A wit­ness, an observ­er, a con­sumer from his bar stool as the crowd around him con­tin­ues their enter­tain­ing chat­ter. They tell their tales. Tales of humor, tales of vio­lence, tales of debauch­ery. Tales of tri­umph. Tales of fail­ure. Tales of the shared human expe­ri­ence. Tales that invite oth­ers to lis­ten. Tales that engage. Tales that repulse. Tales to enter­tain any who would listen.

And he does, he lis­tens. There are count­less sto­ries to be told. Each offers its own van­tage point. Each offers its own per­spec­tive. Each has mer­it, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly an audi­ence. Tell the right tale to the wrong indi­vid­ual and it falls on deaf ears. Tell the wrong tale to the right indi­vid­ual and inter­est fades. It’s a roll of the dice, but sto­ries are made to be told.

And in the next pan­el, the Mariner takes his shot.

And in the next, he stands to find his audience.

That is how it begins.

Pen­cil to paper. Page 1 pan­el 3.

And right­ly so…

–chris

Tales of the Mariner: An Overhead View: Part 1

When the idea of the Mariner was first described to me by Chris (Co-President…try to keep up), I almost instant­ly thought of a mem­o­ry from when I was first able to drink legal­ly. Before I get to that I need to explain a lit­tle bit about what drink­ing meant to me in when I turned 21. See, like most at that age, I got rather excit­ed about drink­ing, but what I feel set me apart was the excite­ment was usu­al­ly for the set­ting not the ine­bri­a­tion. Of course the result was the same, but some­how dif­fer­ent intent gave me an extreme­ly unearned sense of self-worth. I didn’t drink to get drunk, oh no, I drank to expe­ri­ence the live action equiv­a­lence of all that music, movies and comics had taught me; in the right set­ting, booze = tales for the ages.

The mem­o­ry that par­tic­u­lar­ly stood out hap­pened while in this phase. I asked to help move a fam­i­ly mem­ber to South Dako­ta, then an image of me sit­ting at a run­down bar lis­ten­ing to an old run­down man tell some amaz­ing tale flashed into my head. I declared that I would only help if such a scene would be a pos­si­bil­i­ty along the way. I received a semi-con­fi­dent con­fir­ma­tion that it was a pos­si­bil­i­ty, so we were off. For 5 hours I pon­dered what tales I would hear. Maybe he was a FBI agent from the 50s who could shed con­fi­den­tial secrets about the gangs of old. Or pos­si­bly he was a retired jew­el thief wait­ing decades to dig up hid­den scores. Would it be pos­si­ble that he was a fuck­ing cos­mo­naut? I don’t know! Shit, I even thought maybe he could be all three!

That evening, after the move was com­plete, I found myself walk­ing into a run­down bar locat­ed in a town com­prised of a grain mill and a 2 sto­ry apart­ment build­ing. There at the bar sat an old run­down man. I had my set­ting and if I played this right I would have a tale for the ages. I walked up to him and sat down. When I looked over to him I saw some­thing I couldn’t comprehend…a sign that said “Incred­i­ble Hulk Shots $2.” I turned to the Bar­tender and ordered two, then got shit faced drunk with my broth­er while try­ing to play $5 worth of darts. Word to the wise…$5 in darts takes forever.

So, how does this relate to the new com­ic Alba­tross Comics is putting out called “Tales of the Mariner”? For me this book is gonna be every sto­ry that man would have said had I not been tempt­ed by Com­ic Book themed shots. The only dif­fer­ence is there will be far few­er slurred words and way less disappointment.