ESSAY // 2.27.03

WHY EVERYONE HATES UGLY PEOPLE
by Bryan Miller

A few nights ago I found myself at a party, stuck in my usual party routine: sitting in the corner drinking cheap beer and wondering what possessed me to go to a party.

I have this habit wherein every month or so I decide to actually attend some social function. I convince myself that it's been far too long since I've been out in society (beyond popping by the office or drinking the night away in a pool hall with my buddies). Having completely forgotten how much I hated the previous party I went to, as well as basically every other party I've attended since Kate Frasier's third birthday party, I comb my hair, fetch a clean shirt, and catch a train heading downtown. Inevitably I end up, within an hour or so of leaving my apartment, sitting in a chair in the far corner of some foreign room scowling into my beer and cursing myself for forgetting that I don't much like people and should generally avoid them if at all possible.

At this particular gathering, while I sat perched in the corner and quietly tried to manifest my loathing into some actual physical force that could knock the wineglass out of Pompous Musician's hand and onto the four inch-wide tank top of Yuppie Clubber Girl With Asscrack Peering Out of Her Pants, I overheard a random comment from a girl sitting next to me on the couch. She was talking to some random guy who nodded very sincerely at every word she spoke, and she said something that struck me.

"I mean, nobody wants to have ugly friends," she said. "Then you have to sit around and look at ugly people all the time. Nobody wants that."

As surprising as the outlandishly shallow comment was, the reaction in the room was even more startling. Everyone within earshot nodded in total agreement.

By and large though, she's right. The masses, as I so painfully recall when I mistakenly go outside, are unspeakably shallow. Stark raving assholes.

For the record, I'm in strong supply of odd looking friends, and most of the ones who look normal enough are just well camouflaged. But mainstream America's withering reaction to anything that isn't nicely polished and purty is consistent. Ever notice how British movies tend to feature normal-looking people? It's not like Britain is the Freak Depository. There are plenty of Ugly Americans out there whose designation has nothing to do with misguided patriotism or anything so symbolic. It's just that those kooky Brits sometimes pick the best actors for their movies, while Americans find any film or TV show impossible to sit through if it doesn't feature a full cast of high-cheekboned lumps of man-meat and several emaciated tarts whose principal body mass comes from silicone and collagen.

Thus, we have a bit of a problem.

If comics ever want to move out of the ditch in the floor which is located in the sub-basement beneath the root cellar of popular culture, the industry as a whole is going to have to get gussied up. I'm not just talking about slovenly fanboys who smell like the front stoop of my apartment after a hard rain; I mean the product.

Anyone who wants to get recognized with their self-published comic should pay plenty of attention to the first impression. In the entertainment world-and, at this point, in most other corners of the world-success depends on image. The best book on the market, if it doesn't look nice and isn't sold properly, will likely wind up being greatly appreciated by about five hundred people. Conversely, some truly mediocre work can get a massive publicity boost thanks to a well-groomed exterior.

Having worked at a few newspapers and magazines doing music and entertainment features, I can assure you that the bands who get space on the page aren't always the most talented. When writers are on deadline, when things are tight, what they want is a well-produced press kit with printable pictures.

Diamond is not going to sell your book. Your LCS, no matter how much they like you, is not going to sell that many copies of your book. It's a direct market. No one knows about you, and no one cares. They might care, but you have to give them the chance. It's up to you, the creator, to spread the word beyond a few message board posts (not that those hurt) and a flyer or two. A shocking number of media outlets will run a story on your work, even if it's only a blurb, if you send them a free copy complete with a decent photograph and a nice press kit. If it's a busy day, they just might rewrite your own press materials a bit and send it on to the editor. You now have exposure. Try to look good.

Your product should be pretty enough to fuck. This is the intrinsic beauty of a printed medium. You can be a sour, bizarre-looking, unkempt crackpot (God knows I am), but so long as your product is slick and appealing, you've taken care of the aesthetics issue. Feel free to let yourself go to utter shit, but tart your product up, gloss it to a high sheen.

People do not want ugly. People tend to be rather daft and easily amused. People want flashing lights and dinosaurs. "Oooooh," the people will say. "Sparkly."

A fine example: writer A. David Lewis has produced two issues of MORTAL COILS, a sort of suspense series with sci-fi overtones. The art is professional looking and the stories aren't half bad. The first issue had its share of kinks, but the second was good, solid work. It's worth the money which, considering the price of comics, is saying something.

But even when Lewis was still getting the hang of writing and self-publishing his own comics, he was already two steps ahead of every other neophyte out there. His book looked excellent. The cover stock was nice; the paper was high-quality. He took the time to get advance pull-quotes for the back of the book from respectable sources. Nothing was misspelled. He contacted press outlets (including SAVANT), sent out copies, double-checked on the status of the review copies and the reviews themselves through friendly E-mails.

Lewis, like too many other comics creators (or, for that matter, bands, prose writers, etc.), did not sit back and expect a reading audience to dig around and uncover his heretofore unknown writing genius, nor did he put out a clunky-looking bit of work with some interesting contents. Anyone picking up a copy of MORTAL COILS, without looking at the publisher's imprint, would not know the difference between it and a book from Dark Horse, or any other respected and established comic book imprint. Perhaps more importantly, anyone who rarely or never reads comics would not pick up the book and immediately put it down because it looks like it was printed in someone's garage.

Like the lady said, nobody likes ugly people.

I'm not proposing a sell-out attitude, here. Write and draw the kind of comics you're compelled to write and draw; the kind of comics you want to read. But why sabotage your efforts by thinking small and relegating yourself to a miniscule readership? You may not want some perky VJ hawking your comic on TRL, but an audience of ten, twenty, or fifty thousand intelligent readers would certainly be preferable to four or five hundred astute aficionados. Like it or not, even plenty of kind, discerning people aren't going to cut your slapdash production effort much slack. People will sit through grainy independent movies and listened to kick-ass local bands in a club with a lousy sound system, but this is comics. This is, for now, the sub-basement. Anyone picking up a comic will have already pushed their innate forgiveness as far as it will go.

Your comic, as an entity unto itself, will be much better received if it has a solid polish and is given a little legwork with the press. Comics in general can always use an image boost. Think big.

Meanwhile, I'll be over here in the corner with my High Life, scowling.