First things first:

A shout-out to my fellow Scryptic Studios columnist, Brendan McGinley, who's now more famous than he was a week ago, thanks to this mention in Steven Grant's Permanent Damage column over at CBR.

 
Second things second:

Those of you who've read previous columns of mine (especially this one and this other one) know that I think Aimee Mann's music is beyond compare. For literate, melodic pop and/or rock music, you just can't beat her albums Bachelor No. 2, Lost in Space, and her latest, The Forgotten Arm (which is actually the underappreciated masterpiece in her ouvre, in my opinion).

Not since my parents got me Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits for my 10^th grade Christmas has an artist sparked both my heart and my brain in the way that Aimee Mann does.

So, naturally, I really want to interview her for an upcoming column.

 

* * *

 
After a couple of months of stalling and trying to work up my nerve, I finally emailed the info@ address from her website last Friday. Not too long after, I got one of those cryptic "your email to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it could not be delivered, but we'll keep trying for five days, so don't you worry" emails in response.

 
Aaargh!

 
Well, I didn't worry, and finally this morning I got the official, five days later, "sorry Charlie, no can do on that email you were trying to send" bounceback message.

Never one to be left twisting in the wind without a Plan B, I got her management's email address from checkdomain.com (handy site, that!) and promptly fired off an email to him - basically the same email I sent originally, amended slightly to explain how my original email to info@ had bounced, and so now he was the only way I could think of to get this interview request to Aimee.

Roughly 58 seconds after I clicked Send, I got a bounceback. No such email address exists within the cybermegalopolis that is AOL.

 
Double aaargh!

 
One final chance: I Googled her manager, found his website, and found an email address for him that was not the same as the one I got from checkdomain.com.

So I sent the same email again, this time to what is hopefully a working email address, in which I tried to capture the right tone of admiration and respect for Aimee Mann's music without sounding like a creepy Internet stalker guy.

That was this morning. As of yet, I haven't heard back.

 
* * *

 
And just between you and me, that is exactly the kind of thing that drives me slowly, steadily insane!

I can't begin to tell you how much it bothers me to send a missive of some importance (at least, to me) and have to wait more than, oh, 30 seconds for a response.

I'm trying to teach my son, who's closing in on two years old, about patience. I guess I need to do a little work in that area myself.

Right now, I'm waiting to hear back from the one and only Editor Girl on the script I sent her, that Noel Tuazon is going to illustrate for me for my upcoming Anthology With No Name.

And I'm waiting to hear back from Desperado Publishing on a submission I sent in for their wonderful Negative Burn anthology.

And I'm waiting to hear back from Publisher X, who I submitted Twilife to just a couple of weeks ago.

And I'm waiting to hear back from Moonstone Books on the Captain Action pitch I submitted to them just last Friday.

But other than those four things that slowly eat away at the last vestiges of my sanity with each passing hour, I'm the picture of stress-free relaxation, living the high life of a husband/father/web programmer/columnist/comic book writer who's got infinite reserves of time, creativity, and patience in which to ascend the heights of that fabled hilltop paradise known as writing comic books for a living.

 

* * *

 
I would be incredibly and irresponsibly remiss if I didn't take a moment here to stop and smell the roses.

And by that, I of course mean, plug Sequential Suicide, the anthology in which Elton Pruitt's first published comic book story, "Fall of the Triumvirate," appears.

The feeling of having my first story published is kind of like the feeling I had when I learned my submission had been accepted: absolutely, awesomely incredible - for a couple of days.

And then, it starts to fade away and be replaced by feelings of, "what now?" What's the next story I can get published? What's the next pitch I can put together on the heels of Twilife? When will I finally have a miniseries placed with a publisher and get to experience firsthand the joy and despair of having an honest-to-God deadline to meet, and knowing there are people out there who've pre-ordered the book I wrote and who will actually be reading it in the not-distant future?

Well, that's sort of what this whole column is about - not this particular column, mind you, but the whole Running Up That Hill experience - so there are no simple answers to any of those questions at the moment.


* * *


So let me just leave you with this:

Sequential Suicide was recently reviewed by Steve Ekstrom for Newsarama's Best Shots column, and here's what the 21^st century's newfound arbiter of literary goodness had to say about my story:

"Fall of the Triumvirate" by Elton Pruitt and Juan Romera: This is an ambitious story with a terrific tone and a well handled touch of magical realism for a finish. Juan Romera's work is a mixture of Charlie Adlard meets Dean Haspiel-fantastic.

I should probably point out here that I did not (yet!) pay Mr. Ekstrom a dime for his endorsement.

 

* * *


In the next three weeks, I hope to have completed and in the artists' hands the following:

 

• My first (but not last) attempt at a story about 9/11. It's a small, intimate, quiet story that tries to give a glimpse into the lives of two people who meet by chance on the eve of the worst day of our collective lives. This one's going out to Noel Tuazon, who if there's any justice in the world, is about to receive some serious accolades for his work on the upcoming Elk's Run graphic novel.
• A short story about my Pop. He was my Dad's dad, and he died at the age of 90 last fall. It's been a battle so far, as I've started to work in earnest on it this week. I'm really setting myself up for possible grand failure here, because I've never written something so personal. And I know that in the end, I've got to be true to the story that demands to be told, rather than what actually happened. This is for J.S. Earl's (creator/writer of Pistolfist) upcoming anthology, Frameworks: A Study in Sequential Art. And this one's going out to Renzo Podesta, a heretofore undiscovered gem of an artist who probably won't remain that way too much longer.
• Probably the closest-to-my-heart story of my young career, "By The Southern Grace of God." If you read my very first column, you may recall that this was my pitch for Platinum Studio's (evidently) ill-fated romance comic anthology. It's a story about an apocryphal Lynyrd Skynyrd song, and a girl who's convinced beyond all reason that the father she never knew was actually Ronnie Van Zant. Despite its ultimate rejection by the Platinum powers that be (powers that were?), I've been carrying this story around in me ever since, waiting for the right time and the right artist to bring it to life. Well, this is the right time, and Mario Cau is the right artist.

 
Till next week, I shall remain...

The only man in North America who likes both the Yankees and Cardinals, and has the caps and jerseys to prove it!
 

 

Elton Pruitt's first published work is a short story, "Fall of the Triumvirate," in 803 Studios' new anthology, Sequential Suicide. Currently, he's working on three new short stories, while trying to decide what his next major project (i.e., submission) will be. He also has a top-secret formula for making the Major League Baseball playoffs twice as nice, which one of these days he'll actually share with the world!

Elton's online hangouts include EltonPruitt.com, EltonSpace, and ComicSpace. Visit and befriend him early and often -- you'll be glad you did!