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TOM BELAND'S TRUE STORY
by Alex Segura Jr. (Newsarama)
Tom
Beland wants you to get to know him a little bit better.
Beland, the creator of True Story, Swear To God,
doesn't want readers to find out about his life through interviews
about his comics or other means. For Beland, comics are his
life. Literally.
We're not talking super hero wish fulfillment here. When
Beland puts pen to paper, he doesn't use capes and cowls as
metaphors. He doesn't use them at all. His strips aren't ripped
from the headlines. They're directly tied to what he experiences
every day.
What Beland is dealing with in True Story, Swear
To God is something most readers can relate to: Romance.
Specifically, the span of his relationship with his wife,
Lily.
"The concept is romance and how it can make you do things
you've never dreamed of trying," Beland said. "It
may seem like the tag line for a Meg Ryan movie, but that's
pretty much it. I went to a certain gigantic theme park in
Orlando on a job assignment for my paper in Vallejo, California
and met Lily at a bus stop. She was on assignment for her
radio station in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We hung out all night,
talking and dancing and just hit it off. So the series deals
with romance and the problems, as well as beauty, that come
with it."
The title of the book stems from a phrase Beland used with
friends. And according to him, is totally accurate. These
are true stories, swear to God.
"As a kid, we used to start off stories with that phrase.
We'd say 'Hey, true story, swear to God... I was walking home
from school and I saw this blah-blah blahhhh,'" Beland
recounts. "I did a cartoon strip about a roommate of
mine who killed his pet crab in a bizarre little story, and
my editor came up to me and asked if it really happened. So
I said 'yeah, true story, swear to God' and even jotted that
phrase down in the first panel. That became the name of the
comic strip and also the comic book series.
"And for the record, yes, everything really happened
this way. I met her at a bus stop, the movie on the plane
ride home was in fact, As Good As It Gets, my brother really
did throw a fish sandwich at a McDonald's employee and is
banned from that store, the priest at his wedding really was
plastered...etc, etc. Everything in the series happened in
real life."
While the main focus on the book is of course on Beland and
Lily, anyone that happens to cross their paths could potentially
find themselves in the strip. "The main characters are
myself and Lily," Beland said. "But after the first
issue, the cast really exploded to include my family, her
family, our working environments, Napa Valley and San Juan.
But the main focus of any love story has to be the two people
in love, of course."
By presenting himself so directly, some might say Beland
is putting himself in a very vulnerable position. That's never
been a fear or problem, Beland said.
"Never been an issue, ever," Beland said. "I
really got into autobiographical cartoons via Keith Knight's
K Chronicles and Joe Matt's Peepshow.
Those guys talk about everything and anything. Hell, Joe Matt
talks about stuff I'd never talk about, but wouldn't mind
trying. When you open yourself up to the page, you create
the possibility of a reader connecting with you deeply. Comedy,
at its greatest, comes from the audience connecting with you
and feeling, I don't know, relieved that they're not the only
one in the world thinking or doing what you admit to saying
or doing out loud.
"The trickiest thing to talk about thus far would be
a moment where I saw
Lily get pissed for the first time. She invited her folks
over for dinner and all sorts of things go wrong before they
arrive and we were somehow able to overcome these obstacles
before they arrived. And after all that, as well as making
dinner and being nervous about them meeting me, her mother,
as she was leaving, leans into Lily's ear and comments how
sloppy it is to not wear earrings at a dinner party. Lily
was so busy trying to get things ready for them, she forgot
to put them on! This being the only thing her mother said
about the night put Lily into a tailspin. Portraying this
moment, while not showing her mom as some sort of bitch was
very tricky. And we weren't sure how she was going to react
to reading this scene. But she was cool with it."
The idea to recount his life on the paneled page came to
Beland on a plane, and kept going from there. "I sketched
the first issue on the plane ride home from Orlando,"
Beland recalls. "I sketched 40-pages that night and I
just remember being on a creative roll. I then created all
the pages and put the book in a box, then put the box away.
I never once considered myself as someone who could do this
for a living. But then she convinced me to do some mini comics,
which contained 12 strips per issue, just to test the waters
in a way. The stores started selling them and I began to get
emails from readers who enjoyed the strips.
"Then I decided to try to do an actual book and it took
off from there. Sales have been really good, considering how
we spend zero dollars on advertising."
Thanks to the skills gained from doing a weekly strip, which
first saw the light in 1995, Beland gained the confidence
and ability to actually start thinking his artistic work could
support him, both creatively and financially.
"I'm not a guy who came out of art school and had total
confidence in my abilities," Beland notes. "I had
high school art classes and a semester in life drawing. That
was it. When I read comics, I felt like if you didn't know
how to draw buildings, cars, guns, and realistic renderings
of people and different perspective angles... then you could
forget about making comics. Period. And I could do those things."
"But, thanks to doing a weekly strip, I learned how
to do pacing, timing and how to express myself in my work.
Where perspective and inanimate objects are my weak points...
I think my comedic timing and my willing to write about anything
without feeling stupid are my strong points.
"But could I make money doing this? Never thought so.
The readers tell you if you can make money at this. I'll know
I can make money at this, and this is going to sound so f***ing
stupid, but I've always said that when I see Tom & Lily
figures for sale in Previews, I'll believe I can make some
money at this. That would be utterly surreal. The Internet,
however, allowed me to offer sneak previews to web sites,
which allow people to see what they were getting. I got some
good reviews online and that's helped a lot also."
The strip and comic have developed from a heavily influenced
work similar to K Chronicles into the autobiographical
serial of today. The change was not something that happened
instantly, Beland said.
"I've gone from trying to write gags, to focus on expressing
myself," Beland said. "The first three years, I
was trying too hard to be the K Chronicles,
which couldn't be helped because I was so into Keith's work.
But then I began to write about things such as my parents'
dying of cancer while I was still in high school and how that
still affects me. People say that time heals all wounds? Well,
no. It doesn't. With every achievement you accomplish, you
miss those people that much more. You learn to live with the
fact that they're gone. But getting over it? Now.
"So, by expressing those moments, I think that separated
me a little bit from trying to be the same cartoonist as the
one I emulated. I began to focus on some personal subjects
that I never talked about in public. The strip at this time
almost became a form of therapy for me.
"Then, when Lily came along.... The readership shot
up. It was such a different way to meet someone, that readers
wanted to know what was going to happen. She was the only
romantic partner I'd ever put into the strip. She just fit.
The strip definitely took on a more romantic flavor at that
point."
While Beland tries his best to make sure the events portrayed
in True Story, Swear To God are as realistic
as possible, even he admits that sometimes his point of view
can be a little skewed. Because he's not merely telling a
story but actually experiencing the events, it can sometimes
be hard to separate himself from what's going on.
"There are times when I think I'm being dead-on accurate
in a strip, then
Lily will tell me that I'm wearing the rose-colored glasses,"
Beland said. "It's hard not to be a bit nicer in the
strip. You're in love and sometimes chocolate shakes taste
f***ing awesome because you're drinking it with this incredible
person next to you. But when you drink the same shake when
you're there alone, it's just a chocolate shake.
"I tend to be pretty brutal on myself in the strip.
I show myself warts and all. It was tough to show this side
of Lily in the beginning, because I didn't want to do anything
to upset her. But then I'd slip this in, or that in. I was
able to gauge what was and what's not acceptable. Very little
is unacceptable with her."
The strip's origins can be traced back to the Napa Valley,
where Beland faced a few editorial bumps in the road. "Originally,
it appeared in a newspaper in Napa Valley," Beland said.
"It was a nightmare to work there. I had an editor who
spent more time worrying about subscribers, calling to complain
about something they might read into the strip, than in letting
the staff push themselves to do better work. He'd lose a handful
of staffers every year and then never wonder why they were
leaving in droves. I did a political cartoon about the Catholic
Church that was approved for print while this guy was on vacation.
The calls started coming in when he returned and the guy just
left me out to dry. He was telling everyone whatever it was
they wanted to hear. Ugh. Nightmare. Everything had to be
approved by him after that. Paranoia struck deep.
"Then I moved to the next town, Vallejo and it was freakin'
paradise. My editors worked with me instead of against me
on my strip. If it didn't work, they'd
try to find a common ground to please everyone involved, or
allow me the decision to do something else for that week.
"The strips were about me and my family in the beginning.
I'd talk about actual stories of my childhood and it was fun
to do. Then I talked about this woman I met at a bus stop
and how we'd get together for a weekend at a time. When I
finally decided to move to Puerto Rico, a local bar owner
called me and told me that he'd read the strip since Lily
and I met, and then he let me use his bar – with free
liquor – for a huge good-bye bash involving family,
coworkers and readers of the strip."
So far the people depicted in the strip have reacted positively,
Beland said.
"They've been very cool about it," Beland noted.
"Of the seven years of the strip, I've had zero negatives.
The touchiest one involved my older brother. I once did a
strip about how his daughter never listened to anyone and
that she was always drinking everyone's water. A couple of
months later, they found out that she was mildly autistic.
That cartoon hangs in their home, but it's always strange
to see it."
One of the benefits of working on a comic series based on
your own life is getting a helping hand from readers. For
Beland, that hand came from the mouse himself: Disney.
"Disney found out that we met there and that Lily worked
in the media in Puerto
Rico," Beland said. "When they found out that there
was a comic book that told our story, they ate it up. They
kept offering to marry us, as long as they could use some
of the footage for their advertising. We kept saying 'Thanks,
but no thanks' because we were planning a wedding in Napa.
"But they called, like, a month before we were going
to Napa and offered one last time. I looked at Lily and we
thought 'Well... it is a free wedding... and we did meet there...
why not?' and took them up on the offer.
"It was unreal. Very cool. We were there for a week
and they took care of everything. I'm in no way under any
obligation to say good things about Disney, but it was one
of the greatest weeks of my life. Every detail was taken care
of. F***ing amazing place."
While producing the strip, Beland has tried to be as honest
as possible. From discussing his relationship with Lily to
currently easing readers into the topic of Viagra. Bringing
up personal situations and topics has never been a problem,
Beland said.
"I'm slowly addressing the issue of me taking Viagra,"
Beland explains. "Lily was a little worried about this,
as far as people laughing about my problem, but I told her
I didn't mind. It'll talk about the good, the bad and the
ugly of Viagra. It's good stuff, but it's not Christ descending
from the heavens and healing your wang while the angels sing
his praise."
Still, having a strip based on your life also changes the
way people react to you, and what they're willing to say.
"My sister used to tell me when she'd done something
stupid that day," Beland said. "I'd take it and
run it in the strip and we'd all have a good laugh. Then,
I noticed that she'd slip in a 'You can't put this in your
cartoon...' speech before she'd tell me a juicy story. I hear
that a lot now."
Beland's career began in the newspaper business, where he
picked up some needed computer skills while at the same time
honing his strip.
"I started off as a paste-up artist for the Napa paper,"
Beland said. "They'd throw Photoshop at me and say 'learn
this' and I would. Then they'd toss Quark at me and tell me
to 'learn this' and so on. I began to do color corrections,
page designs, illustrations, political cartoons and stuff
like that.
"Cartoon-wise, I've done the strip, the zines, the comic
books and also a piece for the 9/11 Emergency Relief book
by Alternative Press last year. The zines were nominated for
an Ignatz Award at the Small Press Expo, the comics were nominated
for two Eisners this year at the San Diego Con."
The subtle romantic element of the strip is what Beland thinks
sets True Story, Swear To God apart from
the other comics, indie or not, on the rack.
"I think it's the ability to actually be a romance book,
and yet, not something a guy would be embarrassed to buy at
the comic shop," Beland explains. "There aren't
any Will George Notice Me? covers to my books – although
I'd love to put one on an upcoming book.
"I get emails from guys who've said they've bought the
book, let their girlfriend or wife read it and then they never
get the book back. I sometimes compare the book to the TV
show Mad About You, which was fun to watch for both men and
women."
True Story, Swear To God is one of a growing
handful of books with an autobiographical slant. The books'
underground feel combined with increased distribution through
book dealers has helped give them a share of the spotlight,
Beland said.
"I'm not sure," Beland muses. "Maybe it's
because autobiographical were considered 'underground' material,
which were hard to find. But nowadays, you can get Maus,
Pedro And Me, Mail Order Bride,
Peepsho and books of that genre in stores
like Barnes & Noble or Borders. They're easier to find
and influence a broader scope of younger comics readers."
Though it would have been easy for Beland to self-publish
a collection of the four issues of TSSTG, working with Larry
Young as his publisher has been a breeze, he said. True
Story, Swear to God: Chances Are will be released
in February by AiT/PlanetLar.
The key for working with Young was simple, according to Beland:
"Have Larry Young like your stuff," Beland said.
"Have him run to your table in San Diego and go off on
your work. Take ten minutes to find out not only how cool
he and his wife are, but also how respected they are in the
comics industry...and you'll be able to answer that question.
I was immediately comfortable with them, as a company and
as people in general.
"Plus, they publish Jeff Nicholson's Colonia
line. Jeff's one of the greatest guys in the business and
he confirmed what I already thought of Larry and Mimi."
Meanwhile, the strip will continue to deal with Beland's
personal life, including his quest to publish his comic, which
may become a handy reference for fans. "I move to Puerto
Rico. I give comic book publishing a shot. Viagra. The wedding,"
Beland listed. "There's new stuff every day to put in
the book. The comic book publishing story will be very interesting
to read for those of you out there who think they can't do
comics. They'll relate to this storyline."
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