1st page!
I'm so slow...

But, right, a story.

My coworker is a big fan of Spiderman - he even has a tattoo of the logo on his arm. A bit out of place on a late-30's family man photographer with social skills and a well-paying job, but there's a reason for it.

Before Mark (name changed to protect the geeky) decided to become a photographer, he had spent years training to be a graphic novel artist. He was pretty damn good, too. He even got noticed by Marvel - and not just noticed, he actually got a job offer with them, a multiple-comic contract for his own subseries. He would be the principal artist on an entire Spiderman comic book, with options to continue if he did a good enough job. Little known fact - each principal artist that has ever drawn Spiderman is given the task/honor of drawing his spider logo their own way, which is the official logo for every comic they create.

If you were a huge Spiderman fan and were offered a chance to draw an actual Marvel Spiderman comic for millions to buy and read, your name top on the credits, and Spiderman himself wearing the logo you designed, what would you do?

...He didn't take the job.

At the time he was halfway through college, with a serious girlfriend/future wife, and decided he would rather continue his education than take a job offer that would force him to drop out mid-year and move across the country.

He tells me he's happy with how his life has gone - he has a beautiful wife, a son, and a decent job - but the Spiderman logo he got tattooed on his arm forever represents that road not taken - taking that step past fandom and into creator itself.

Great guy, he is. The office would be so much more dull without him.
(TheManWhoWas SlightlyKnackered, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 21:04, Reply)