Lolito

Lolito was a rare creature—a die-hard comic book convention attendee who did not have his own ambition to become a writer or artist.

By David Hopkins

Lolito, bane of my existence, pain in my ass. My sin, my suffering. Lo-lee-toe: the tip of the spine shudders taking a trip of three vertebrae downward to tap, at three. Lo. Lee. Toe.

He was Toe, plain Toe, at the live art show, standing five feet ten in combat boots. He was Toto in his oversized Kevin Smith jean shorts. He was Lee at school. He was Lorenzo on the dotted line. But at my booth, at every damn comic book convention, he was always Lolito.

As Vladimir Nabokov once wrote, “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what all geeks and nerds, the misinformed, simple and noble, envied: I had my own booth to sell my comics. I had a base of operations.

He invaded that base on a continual basis.

“Hey John Johnnson.”

Lolito stood over me at the small press expo in Columbus, Ohio. I sat at my table, four feet of space to sell my comics, prints, and commissioned artwork. Lolito’s skinny frame blocked a portion of table from other would-be customers. In his hands, he held a clear plastic dish of nacho chips with warm jelly-like cheese poured over it. He dug around, for what I guess was the perfect corn chip, his fingers covered in cheese. He shoved the chip in his mouth. He then sucked the remaining mess from his twig fingers, but did not adequately remove all cheese. It was noxious behavior, appropriate not even for a child. Lolito was no child. He was in his late twenties and, I assume, my most massive devotee.

I hadn’t published anything new in over a decade, nineteen years. Next year, I will have to say I haven’t published anything new in decades. Plural. It’s demoralizing.

In the early ‘90s, I wrote and illustrated a creator-owned comic book called METRO CITY WAR. The story focuses on a cyborg named Othello who was part of an elite security squad. His girlfriend is killed. He believes it was the mayor of Metro City, and—

“Whatcha workin’ on?” Lolito wipes his hand on his jean shorts.

“Oh, nothing.” I raised my hands to unveil a Shadowcat of the X-Men sketch I promised to a ten-year-old girl. The girl was not familiar with my opus, but noticed I charged for commissions. Her dad tried to haggle the price down from $20. I offered to do the piece for $15. “Shadowcat.”

“Cool.” Lolito places his plastic dish on top of my stack of prints. “So, uh, whenever you’re done, can you draw something for me?”

“What do you want?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. My character Desdemona, the dead girlfriend of Othello, was the real hit of my comic tragedy. People did not purchase METRO CITY WAR for the epic struggle of a lone robot-man against the tyrannical forces of a dystopian city-state. They bought the comic for Desdemona. She had dark red hair, breasts like watermelons that began at her collarbone and hung to almost her bare belly. Her waist was so small; you could wrap your hands around it. She wore an impossible outfit. Black electrical tape crossed her body in the form of intersecting lighting bolts. In the story, she was the model of purity and fidelity. She looked like a psycho prostitute.

I’m not proud of Desdemona or my treatment of her. I would consider myself an intellectual and even a feminist. When Desdemona died, I received letters from women saying I was “slut-shaming” and contributing to “rape culture in America” (important clarification: Desdemona was not raped, and the story did not take place in America). And then, when these same readers found out that the murderer was—

“Could you draw Desdemona bent over, being spanked?”

“I have to charge extra for anything like that.” This was not an actual rule. I made it up years ago, when he kept asking for Desdemona in various compromised positions. “$60?”

Lolito grabs a wad of crumpled money from his pocket. “I have $40 left.”

“I can do it for $40.”

The little girl approached my table. I showed her the finished sketch of Miss Kitty Pryde, aka Shadowcat.

“That’s not Shadowcat,” she frowned.

“Sure, it is.” I indicated she was phasing through a brick wall, displaying her mutant power.

I never worked on X-Men or any Marvel Comics in a professional capacity. But over the years, I have drawn numerous super heroes in the Marvel and DC Universe. Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Wolverine, members of the Justice Society and the Fantastic Four, She Hulk, Punisher, Sandman, Cyclops, Klarion the Witch Boy, Stargirl, Squirrel Girl, Madame Xanadu, Moondragon, Moon Knight, June Moone, Big Bertha, Captain Atom, Captain Marvel, Catwoman, Black Clack, Hellcat—

“That doesn’t look like Shadowcat from the cartoon.” She grabbed the sketch and walked off.

Lolito laughed to himself. It was a short mocking burst of air. His way of saying: Don’t worry, old chum. You’ll always have me. I will always be around to compensate you for turning Desdemona, your virginal victim, into the kinkiest cat at the convention.

“Bent over?” I inquired.

“Yeah, spanked with a tennis racket, and could you have a robot holding it?”

“Sure.”

As I drew Desdemona, Lolito proceeded with his traditional prodding about future projects. Future? Alas, I am past tense.

“You mentioned you might do a monster story for that anthology. Anything happen with it?”

“No. I never heard back from the editor.”

“Did you ever start the crime comic?”

“I want to find another artist to work with. I’m still looking.”

“Would you ever consider working with Marvel or DC?”

“No. I burned that bridge.”

“You talked about writing a screenplay.”

“And?”

Lolito will interrogate me for hours. He remembers any offhand comment I’ve ever made. During a podcast interview, I mentioned the idea of writing a crime comic. I said I would consider it, because the host asked if I’d make a comic in another genre besides cyberpunk science fiction. Lolito heard this interview, and added the question to his list.

“Any plans for a sequel to METRO CITY WAR?”

I placed my Faber-Castell pen on the table and sighed. The sigh was artificial. I wanted to communicate my frustration at this topic. We’ve had this conversation a hundred times before.

“I’m not doing a sequel.”

“I know, but I thought, maybe you’d thought about it, and changed your mind? That synopsis I gave you?”

“I didn’t read your synopsis.” I did not read his synopsis.

“Yeah, because you’re secretly working on your own sequel, and you don’t want my ideas to interfere with your ideas?”  I did not read his synopsis.

The months that followed, Lolito also followed me. In April, I was at C2E2 in Chicago, and Lolito was there. In late May, I attended Dallas Comic Con and then next weekend, the Phoenix Comic Con. Lolito appeared for both shows. In June, I was at Heroes Con in Charlotte. Lolito was present.

Conventions are a desperate situation where I make enough money from commissions and sales to keep going to the next show. A lot of artists aren’t as lucky. After air travel, hotel, food, and the cost of their table, they barely make a profit. METRO CITY WAR was a landmark independent comic for its time, and it justified my special status at these shows. I have no idea how Lolito could afford to follow me across the country, traveling from convention to convention.

I spent hours, days of my life, with Lolito standing at my table. And yet, I knew little about him. He dropped out of college, theater major, and was unemployed. Only child. Parents divorced. And he ate nachos like a pig.

Lolito was a rare creature—a die-hard comic book convention attendee who did not have his own ambition to become a writer or artist. He was content to purchase commissions from me and watch me draw, only pulled away to meet a new artist or media celebrity.

During my trek across this country, he was with me. I asked if he was attending San Diego Comic Con. The largest most popular convention of the summer, I was certain he’d be there. I hadn’t been in a while, but online sales were good for a reprint of METRO CITY WAR, so I decided to attend. I purchased a room at a cheap motel on the edge of the city, and then took a taxi to the convention center each day. I saved $20 with the whole ordeal.

On the first day, my taxi could not get any closer to the center, due to the traffic and costumed pedestrians walking to the show. I got out and walked the remaining four blocks. I pulled behind me a small dolly with a box of my books and art supplies. Once there, I stood in line for another two hours to retrieve my exhibitor badge.

I arranged my table. The copies of METRO CITY WAR on the right side, two stacks with a price listing in a plastic stand—on the left side, my prints. Behind the stacks, I had my pencil bag and a tin box from Fossil to hold erasers, pencil sharpeners, a small cloth, and extra cash.

The day was crowded, but few people stopped by my booth. No one expressed any interest in my books or my prints. For the first time ever, I went a full day without a single commission and at San Diego too. It was unimaginable. And for the first time in a long time, Lolita was nowhere to be seen. Did he miss the convention? He annoyed me, but on a day like today his presence was missed.

I packed my art supplies and left the books under the table. It took forever to get a taxi, but in an hour I was back in the quiet of my room. Some Jedi occupied the room next door, and I could hear their muffled chatter through the wall. They were getting ready to sojourn back to the Gaslamp Quarter for drinks, and the hopes of meeting a Slave Leia and Shaak Ti they encountered earlier.

Where was Lolito? These conventions had been my connection to a fanbase, one that had shrunk to the singular truth of Lolito. He loved my comics. He wanted more from me than I was willing to give. He stood there and watched me draw.

The next day, I saw him. I was on my way to the restroom when I saw his thin frame standing in front of another table in artist alley. I looked once, then twice, then walked straight ahead. Who was this other artist? Forgetting the restroom, I looped around to get a glimpse.

His name was Sid, just Sid. The hanging banner behind his booth displayed his name with an exclamation mark. Sid! I had heard of him. He had some success this year with a bleak Noir adventure called “Van Kid.” It was creator owned, but released through the new OPH imprint. This publisher specialized in herding comic book creators into a farm system for hungry Hollywood producers. Most likely, “Van Kid” was already in production, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel or some other young stars.

I had film companies interested in METRO CITY WAR, but I made too many demands. I wouldn’t let them make any changes. I wanted to have direct oversight of the project. The film companies stopped calling. I bragged about this professional disaster and called it “artistic integrity.”

Sid wore oversized white-rimmed sunglasses and an orange suit. He had a full beard and long hair. Jesus Christ on the cover of Esquire. He looked like an idiot.

He laughed like an idiot too, loud eruptions at anything anybody said to him. People surrounded his table. A beautiful and bored woman sat at his table too, collecting money from sales and keeping track of his long commission list. Sid stopped from signing issue one of “Van Kid” to pose for a photo with a fan. The comic book cover featured a large conversion van, the kind that child molesters owned, with a young hipster sitting on the back bumper holding a shotgun.

I snorted. He was a good artist, but “Van Kid” looked ridiculous. It lacked the scope and dramatic depth of METRO CITY WAR. The sweet twists and turns culminated in the discovery that Desdemona was killed by—

“Excuse me. Are you gonna move?”

A fat man in a stained Fantastic Four t-shirt shoved his way past me, under his arm he had a portfolio book. I pushed him back. He stopped, looked at me for a second and then kept walking.

That day, I did not sell a single thing. My thoughts fixated on Lolito and Sid. Why wouldn’t Lolito stop by to say hello? He knew I was here.

The next day, when Lolito was not at Sid’s table, I walked over to meet the illustrious illustrator. New sunglasses, new monochrome suit.

“Hello Sid. I’m John Johnson.”

“Who?”

“John Johnson, the creator of METRO CITY WAR.”

“Oh.” Sid nodded his head, but I could tell he didn’t place the work.

“Have you heard of Desdemona?” I held my hands two feet in front of my chest to indicate her endowment.

“Like Othello?” He asked. I shrugged my shoulders. “So, does Desdemona get offed by her boyfriend in your story? Like in Shakespeare?”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, maybe the surprise ending wasn’t too unexpected. The cyborg had removed the memory of his murder, which set him on the path to punish the mayor. He was projecting his own guilt onto the whole city, the mayor being its personification. At the time, the ending was a shocker.

Sid looked at me, waiting for me to say or do something. Then, he spoke.

“Did you want a sketch or want me to sign something?”

I gritted my teeth. He thought I was a fan. He then nodded to the line forming behind me. I excused myself and returned to my table.

As if my frustration could somehow be channeled into a mutant power, the lights in the convention center flickered. The summer was much hotter than normal in southern California. San Diego had problems with infrastructure, politics, and the power grid. Rolling blackouts were reported throughout the city. A quarter of a million people in the exhibit hall groaned as the lights winked off and then on again. Then the lights went out.

The exhibit hall did not let much natural light in, a design flaw the city will consider with the convention center expansion project. We were all in the dark. Until, one by one, a quarter of a million people illuminated the cavern with their cell phones. This strange glow hovered four to six feet from the floor.

People made their way to the exit, calm and well trained. The convergence jammed the exits, and it took a while. Other people grew restless and panicked. Occasional yelps and shouts chimed from the otherwise quiet scene. Teenagers looted the tables. These transgressions caused a minor riot in the darker center of the exhibit hall, which crescendoed. Stormtroopers rushed to the scene to maintain peace. A gang of Ghostbusters intercepted them. A fight broke out between the two franchises.

As Nelson Muntz once said, “Shoplifting is victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark.”

I saw Sid illuminated by his iPhone, held in one hand, as he put his merchandise away in a flat box. I walked towards him. He looked up, and I punched him hard in his Jesus face.

I put all my force into that punch, and it surprised me how much it hurt. I fractured a few bones in my hand and wrist. My knuckles bruised.  Sid flew backwards, falling over his chair and crashing into his banner.   

Months later, I found Lolito’s apartment. I owed him a Desdemona sketch from Heroes Con. I could have mailed it, but I was in the city to meet with my CPA, and why not? Lolito opened the door and did not look surprised to see me.

“Come in.”

Lolito’s apartment was bare. Most of his furniture was constructed of Wal-Mart grade particleboard. Prints and original art from comic book creators covered the walls in his TV room. It was beautiful in its own way. To the uninitiated, this room was a monument to the sad life of another loser geek. To the enlightened, this room revealed a life devoted to high fantasy, heroes cast in the Platonic ideal. I touched the print of Superman flying through the clouds, a kingdom by the heavens. I wanted to cross over into Metropolis.

“I never actually read METRO CITY WAR,” Lolito said. “I only liked how Desdemona looked. I thought you should know.”

He heard about my altercation with Sid and was trying to hurt me. I did not receive criminal charges, but Sidney Quilty sued me for a consider sum of money, money which I do not possess.

“You wouldn’t be the only person.” I turned from Superman to Lolito. Had he grown in the months since I last saw him? He looked older.

“Anyways. I’m not really into comics as much anymore,” Lolito admitted. “I want to design my own table top game. I have a prototype in the kitchen.”

“Really? Can I see it?” I had nowhere to go for a few hours.

“Yeah. Sure.”

I am thinking of cyborgs and cities on a hill, the secret of durable Silver Age comics, prophetic story arcs, the refuge of a board game. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolito.