My friend Skottie Young hooked me up with his art dealer a few months ago. I hate going to the post office and I don’t do enough self promotionaside from drawing and posting of courseso Paolo and I agreed to meet for drinks and talk about the possibility of him selling my art through his site Cadencecomicart.com.
(BTW it’s the same Paolo who thought that Wolverine 2099 was a dumb idea. I think the overwhelming amount of positive comments on Wolverine D stunned him. Welcome to the power of DA, Paolo, where a bad idea drawn well becomes a “win”.)
I’ve had mixed dealings with art dealers, but Skottie’s vouching for him went a long way with me. Skottie’s art is worth way more than my art, so if Skottie said Paolo was cool, then I figured I was pretty safe from the chances of Paolo running away with my art or, say, throwing it off a building. So Paolo and I met on a rainy Wednesday in Brooklyn.
Even though my stuff is sloppy, I’m actually a very neat person. My pages are pretty clean and I use Pro White to clean up everything even the gutters. But once everything is scanned in, I don’t give a crap about the art. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve rolled over a page with my chair by accident, looked down and gone, “oh well.” I’m guessing that I’m an art dealer’s worst nightmare.
So Paolo comes over and I grab my portfolio and we head out for sushi. It’s POURING outside and for some reason I’m wearing a leather jacket (thinking I’m all cool like Constantine), not carrying an umbrella and letting my portfolio get soaked in the rain. I sort of tucked it under my jacket, but I could tell that Paolo was already freaking out about how my pages were probably soaking up water, thus decreasing in value with each drop. But he just met me and I could tell he was trying hard to bite his tongue. At once point he did break down and say, “dude, even if I don’t end up selling your stuff, as an appreciator of art it kills me that you’re letting your pages get wet.” Him saying that sold me on his services, but I didn’t tell him that right away.
8 hours later we’re drunk and at our third bar. It suddenly dawns on us to head back to my place and drink for cheaper on my 7th story balcony. Brilliant.
My balcony rocks. It over looks the Statue of Liberty and a lot of the Brooklyn bay and south Manhattan. I’ve lived in a lot of shitty, dangerous places so sitting out there with the great view never gets old for me. And sitting with beers and watching the rain with friends is one of my favorite things. I know I’m a weirdo.
I was getting along with Paolo really well. The guy has a good business sense and an honorable work ethic. To this day we still clash a bit when I post something negative about comics, art or Michael Bay (Paolo is a business man and knows that controversy is a harder sell more on that later), but overall we’re good friends.
At one point I brought out the small collection of art that I have: a Spider Man 2099 page, a Coffin page, a JP Leon original and a Dave Johnson cover (along with some drink and draw sketches). It ain’t much but I’m really picky. And too cheap to buy art.
So there’s Paolo flipping through the art while commenting on how awesome Leonardi and Johnson arebut not JP Leon. Then he gets to the last page, closes it, congratulates me on my pathetically small art collection, and places it on top of the outdoor coffee table next to him, dropping it on the glass top.
But there IS no glass top anymore. There’s a lot of wind on the 7th floor and it blew off months ago, shattering on the street below. But in Paolo’s drunken statehe just thought the glass was really clean.
I’m mid-sip as I watch my portfolio fall through the table, bounce off the ground and slip through the guardrail and out of sight. It happened in slow motion, just like a movie. We both stand up and watch it float down 7 stories and land on the 2nd floor balcony. At first we were both too stunned to say anything. About $5,000 of art was getting soaking on a stranger’s balcony! Keep in mind that we haven’t agreed to work together yet, so in Paolo’s mind my loyalty is on the line and getting soaked in the rain.
“Shit!” Paolo says as he sprints to the door and runs out into the hallway (BTW he doesn’t know my building at all and has no idea where he’s going). I grab my keys and ran out with him while starting thinking of how I was going to get the art back.
Paolo kept apologizing. He was MORTIFIED. I start laughing.
” Paolo, it’s fine. It’s not you’re fault. The table had no glass. It could easily have been me.”
“Dude it’s your ART collection. There’s a Dave Johnson Punisher cover down there!”
“I know, but it’s only paper. Seriously, it’s really funny. Some wrinkled art is going to be worth the story,” I say between chuckles.
My neighbor on the 2nd floor wasn’t home, so we ran out into the street. It’s easily a 20-foot climb up to his balcony, so even standing on Paolo’s shoulders wouldn’t have worked. I could try to grab a rain pipe and shimmy up there, and even though I’m good at climbing, I AM still completely wasted. But as drunk as I am, I realize that falling 20 feet onto my back isn’t worth a Dave Johnson original (sorry Dave).
But then I notice the building next door is only 4 stories high. ”If I can get onto the roof,” I thought, “maybe I can climb down to the second floor and get the portfolio.” I explain my idea to Paolo as we race up the steps of the neighboring building.
“How is that any safer than climbing up the front?” he asks. (Typical businessman attitude with his cold, hard, irrefutable facts. How dare he point out a complete flaw in my plan!)
“Let’s just get up there and see what our choices are,” I say while still laughing.
The building was a realtor’s office. And realtors in New York are total assholes. Time is money for them, so a rain-soaked madman talking about Dave Johnson art isn’t something they want to talk about. I tried telling them about the genius of Rick Leonardi but it was too much all at once.
“So you want to go onto the roof?” he asks while still talking on his phone.
“Yeah.”
He walks over to the window, opens it up, and then walks away. (Not that I was planning on getting hurt, but it was stupid of him to do that because if I WAS to get hurt, the building owner or the realtors would be liable.) I yelled something about being DC exclusive and having insurance, but the realtor had already left the room. Asshole.
So I climb through the tiny window and dash out onto the 100-year-old fire escape, then climb two stories to the roof. At that point I assumed that Paolo was working things out with the realtors and making sure no one shut the window (you know normal art dealer tasks). Finally I got to the side of my building and look down and see the art. It’s still a two-story drop but at least I’m closer than I was before.
Without thinking, I hop onto the 4th story balcony, let my feet dangle off the side and lower myself onto the 3rd story balcony all Splinter Cell style. And I remember thinking two things: 1) it’s a good thing I’m drunk because otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this, and 2) it’s a good thing I work out because the only thing saving my life right now is my Kung Fu grip.
So I’m safely on the 3rd story balcony when I look through the glass doors: there’s some guy watching TV who totally doesn’t see me standing there. Quickly I press myself against the side so that I’m mostly out-of-sight. And I do a little choose-your-own-adventure in my head.
1. Knock on the glass and explain the situation, so that he won’t freak out when he sees me.
2. Hop down again and hope he keeps watching Jeopardy.
If I knock on the glass, I know there’s going to be an initial freak-out, followed by me trying to explain the genius of JP Leon. In NYC people are very guarded, so he’s likely to call the cops. ”WAY too complicated,” I think as I hop over the balcony again and climb down to where my art is. I’m pretty sure he never saw me.
Finally I’m standing in front of my portfolio! The JP Leon page is a little warped, but the other stuff is intact. I shuffle the art back into the plastic and look up 40 feet to where Paolo’s tiny head is looking down at me and wondering how the hell I climbed down (Paolo is afraid of heights it turns outand usually I am too.)
“How’s the art?” he yells.
“Fine! One’s a little warped, but don’t worry about it! I’m too drunk to care!”
So I toss the art back up to the 3rd floor and Metal Gear my way up after it. The guy is still watching Jeopardy, but I play it safe and stick to the wall while pulling myself up another level. Finally I was in reach of Paolo. I toss him the art.
“So the Dave Johnson is okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, but JP Leon is a little trashed,” I reply. Paolo face doesn’t seem to reflect the amount of respect that someone should have for JP. ”He’s a different kind of artist Paolo, the kind we rarely see anymore! It’s like we still have Zaffino around!” I insist. It’s still raining. I make a mental note to force Paolo to like JP at a later date.
With Paolo’s arm I’m able to climb back up onto the roof. He did a good job for someone who was afraid of heights, and if it wasn’t for him I’d still be stuck out there I’m sure.
Of course, if it wasn’t for him chucking my art off the balcony in the first place
So climb down the fire escapes and head back through the window when Paolo says, “I can’t believe you just climbed that.”
“Whatever dude. Daredevil does this shit every day.”