“Now!”
To the astonishment of just about everyone in the room except Kelsey and Josh, Mrs. Sanchez backed down. Mrs. Farber seemed about to protest, but all Stan had to do was fire her an annoyed look as if she weren’t even worth his time.
Then he turned to Josh and, as if no one else were in the room, he asked, “How could Captain Major be Mascot’s father?”
“Wh-what?”
“I said, how could Captain Major be Mascot’s father, since Captain Major’s been around for years and Mascot’s father only just disappeared?”
There was dead silence in the room. All eyes were on Josh, who had never actually worked out the details beyond wishful thinking.
His mind raced, and then he said, “Maybe it could be like what they do in the Phantom.”
“The Phantom? You mean the Lee Falk Phantom? The Ghost Who Walks?”
“Right,” said Josh. “Except he’s not really a ghost. It’s just that when one Phantom dies, his son takes over and nobody knows that it’s a whole bunch of guys. So it would be something like that. Maybe the previous Captain Major died, and Mascot’s father had to become the new Captain Major.” His voice became more excited in the telling. “And the reason he took Josh Mills and made him Mascot is because he’s training his own son to take over after him. And he’s going to reveal the secret when he’s ready.”
“Hunh.”
Slowly Kirby walked over to the couch, and sat, looking thoughtful. “Not original in its concept…but the whole training-without-the-son-knowing makes a nice twist. I like it.” He pulled on his chin thoughtfully. Then he unzipped the portfolio and pulled out the art boards. “I like it. A lot. In fact…I like it a lot better than this.”
And he ripped up the art pages.
“What are you doing?” Josh cried out.
Slowly, methodically, Kirby continued to tear the pages to bits. “No point in doing one story when another story is much better.”
Kelsey, standing several feet away, said, “But…what about the fan vote to kill Mascot?”
Stan Kirby snorted derisively. “Here’s a tip about comics: The fans don’t know what they want until they see it in front of them.”
“And all the other stuff…about Captain Major being an outlaw and Butch Longo and—”
“We write it off. We say it was a hoax or a dream or an imaginary tale. No big deal, kid. It’s comics. You’d be amazed what you can get away with. So…you told me you draw?”
“Yeah…”
“You any good?”
“He’s great,” said Kelsey.
“Well, we’re gonna find out. I could use an assistant. I got a whole book to redraw, almost no time to redraw it in, and it’s going to be late for the publisher. You’re gonna have a houseguest for the next few days, Doris. You okay with that?”
“I…I guess, sure….”
“Good. You! Officer Bob!”
“Actually,” said Wiener, looking confused, “my name is—”
“I don’t care. I got a case full of pencils and ink brushes, a portable draft table, and clean bristol boards in my trunk.” He tossed the keys to Wiener, who caught them out of reflex. “Go get ’em.”
“Sir, you can’t just—”
“How about you don’t give me any grief, and I’ll draw you into the comic. Beef up the muscles and everything.”
Wiener’s face lit up. “Really?” When Stan nodded, Wiener was out the door.
Kirby got to his feet, and he turned to Doris. “Sorry I’m barging in on you like this, but I drove like a nut to get here and I sure don’t have time to head back home. You got someplace Josh and I can work?”
“There’s the den.”
“Perfect.”
“Ex…excuse me,” Mrs. Farber finally found her voice.
“Don’t even think,” Stan Kirby warned her, “about getting in the way of art. Okay, sport, let’s go. Busy, busy, busy. We have to make some magic.”
They set up shop in the den and, as soon as Wiener brought in the materials, got to work. They heard Mrs. Farber arguing with Mrs. Sanchez, and Mrs. Farber arguing with the police officer; that went on for a while. All during that time Stan Kirby discussed the beats of the story with Josh, and by the time Mrs. Farber marched in, Stan had already done thumbnail sketches of the twenty-two pages.
Doris was standing directly behind Mrs. Farber and saying warningly, “You lay one hand on my son and you won’t be laying it on anything else for quite some time.”
“Josh,” Mrs. Farber said, ignoring Doris, “I’ve spoken to the police officer, and he’s spoken to his superiors, and they all agree that Mrs. Sanchez and I are within our rights to have you go with us.”
“He’s my assistant and he’s not going anywhere,” Kirby informed her.
“Mr…. whoever-you-are…don’t you see that you’re just making this worse? Comic books are what got him into all this trouble in the first place! They’re having a destructive influence on his mind! They’re—”
Suddenly a bright light flooded the den.
Both Doris and Mrs. Farber were startled. They turned to discover that they were staring straight into the lens of a TV camera, mounted on a cameraman’s shoulder. The cameraman was a scruffy guy with a baseball cap worn backward. The light was coming from a high-intensity floodlight mounted atop the camera. Standing next to the cameraman was a smiling man holding a microphone. To his immediate right was Kelsey, and she was grinning ear to ear.
“This is Alan Jackson,” she said, chucking a thumb at him. “He’s a TV news reporter. I managed to get through to him at his TV station because I thought he might be interested in this.”
“That,” said Jackson, “is an understatement. Mr. Kirby, I’m a huge fan. And I hear that you and this young man are in the process of saving Mascot. Is that true?”
“Sure is. Don’t have time to chat, though.”
“You know who you should really talk to?” Doris said quickly. “This lady right here,” and she put a hand on the camera and angled it so that it was pointing at Mrs. Farber. “This is Josh’s guidance counselor. She was the first one to see his artistic genius. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Farber?”
Mrs. Farber’s mouth moved and no words came out immediately. Jackson stepped forward, putting the microphone right up in her face as he said, “Guidance counselors sometimes get a bad rap, but you obviously are a cut above the rest, Mrs. Farber. Isn’t that right?”
“I…I guess,” she stammered.
“At what point did you realize that Josh here was an artistic genius?”
“Well, he—” She cleared her throat and automatically smoothed her blouse. “He was always very imaginative. Sometimes too much so.” She appeared to be rallying, although she was still forcing herself to smile for the camera. “For instance, he…he seemed to have trouble differentiating reality from fantasy. Even Mr. Kirby here would have to admit that everything about his comic book is a complete invention of his mind.”
Jackson swung the camera back to Kirby. Stan had been drawing, but for the first time he looked nonplussed. “Well…now…if we’re gonna go be completely truthful…I have to cop to it…some of the stuff in Mascot’s life, I was drawing from inspiration.”
“Inspiration?” asked Jackson.
“Look…I’m an old man,” grumbled Kirby. “What do I know about kids and single moms? I was getting a lot of stuff from a blog I stumbled across. Some poor woman…she didn’t give her own real name, although she would talk about her son, Josh, which is where I got Mascot’s first name. See?” He smiled at Josh. “There are other kids in the world named Josh besides…”
“This blog,” Doris said cautiously. “Is it written by someone who calls herself Struggling Mom 35?”
“Yeah!” Kirby said, obviously surprised. Then his eyes narrowed. “Why? You know her?”
Doris extended her hand. “Pleased to meet you. The ‘Struggling Mom’ is me, and the ‘35’ is my age.”
Kirby’s face went
slack jawed even as, reflexively, he shook her hand. “You…you’re…the one whose blog I’ve been reading? This Josh…he’s the Josh?”
The only one in the room who didn’t look at all flummoxed was Josh himself, who, the picture of serenity, simply said, “Tol’ja so.”
“So,” the newsman said, unsure of whose face to thrust the microphone into, and—going for the best visual—electing Mrs. Farber’s since she look the most stunned, “Mrs. Farber! You have a celebrity in your midst! Josh Miller, the inspiration for Mascot! And you were the one who recognized his artistic prowess as well! How does that make you feel?”
“Well, it…”
“She wanted to take me away,” said Josh.
“No! No, no, not at all!” Mrs. Farber interrupted with a forced laugh, her cheeks flushed. “That was just…it was all a misunderstanding. Wasn’t it…Mrs. Miller…?”
“Social services is in my living room” was Doris’s icy response.
“Oh! I’ll get that all straightened out. Like I said, just a huge misunderstanding….”
All the chatter was distracting the artists. “Could you all get the heck out of here? We’re working,” Kirby said.
Nobody moved.
“Now!” Kirby and Josh said in unison.
And miraculously, everyone else left the room.
CHAPTER 18
DANGER FROM ABOVE
The fans at the comic book convention surged forward at the autograph table as Josh and Stan sat on the other side, signing comics as quickly as they could manage.
The room was packed, and everyone was talking so loudly that it was hard to make out what any one person was saying, although curiously some of them sounded like they were saying things like “peas and carrots” or “rutabagas” over and over again. Off to one side, Kelsey, Doris, Zack, and Paul were looking on and smiling at the public display of adoration that Josh and Stan were receiving. Daylight filtered in through a skylight in the ceiling.
Suddenly there was a loud scream. Everyone turned at once.
A man dressed as a car had burst in.
His costume was cobalt blue metal. Headlights, set to emit high beams, were mounted in a large structure atop his head, and his face was covered with grillwork. The high beams flared on, causing everyone to flinch, squinting, trying to avoid being blinded by their high intensity. He had spinning tires mounted on his shoulders and hips.
“It’s Auto Immune!” shouted Josh. “The race car robber!”
Without hesitation, Auto Immune grabbed Kelsey, wrapping one arm around her throat. “Everybody stay where you are, or the girl’s roadkill!”
“Let her go!” Doris shouted valiantly. “She’s done nothing to you!”
“Sorry, lady, but the race is to the swift,” said Auto Immune.
“Then this is your last lap!” came a heroic voice from above.
The skylight crashed inward, and two colorfully clad figures dropped down from overhead. They hit the ground standing and assumed fighting poses.
“Captain Major and Mascot!” Auto Immune cried out.
“That retread is looking a little tired, wouldn’t you say, Captain?” Mascot called out, thumping his palm with his fist.
“He certainly does, Mascot. I’d say it’s time for a pit stop,” replied Captain Major.
Everyone froze. Nobody moved. Nobody said anything.
“Aaaaaaaand cut!” came the voice of the director. “Check the gate!”
“Gate’s clear,” replied the cameraman.
“Excellent! Okay, let’s get set for close-ups! That was perfect, everyone!”
All the people unfroze, relaxed, and then started chatting with one another. Auto Immune released his hold on Kelsey and said cautiously, “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Not at all.” Kelsey grinned.
“It’s not always easy to tell in this stupid costume.”
“Hey!” snapped Kirby. “I designed that ‘stupid costume.’”
“Sorry, Mr. Kirby,” said Auto Immune contritely.
With the shot completed, the tech crew started rearranging the walls on the set so that the movie cameras could be moved into position. All the extras who had been playing comic book fans headed to the crafts services table, where donuts, bowls of potato chips, and other snack foods had been piled up. In the meantime the stunt coordinator was unbuckling Captain Major and Mascot from the harnesses that had been used to drop them in through the “skylight.”
Once he was out, Mascot walked over to Josh, who was standing up behind the table and stretching. “How was that, Josh? Did I sound right to you?”
Josh flashed him a high sign, and the actor playing Mascot grinned.
Josh noticed that Kelsey was standing a short distance away, gazing at Mascot. He sidled over to her and said, “Admit it: Now that you see Mascot…he’s pretty exciting.”
She laughed at that. “Josh! After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t get it, do you? You still don’t realize how special you are. In case you didn’t notice, Mascot came over to you and asked you what you thought of him. What does that tell you?”
“It wasn’t really Mascot. It was an actor.”
“Right.” She rested her hands on his shoulders. “He was pretending to be a hero. And Mascot’s adventures are made up, too. But you, Josh…Josh, you may make things up, but there’s nothing made up about you. You get it now?”
He stared at her, considered it. “No,” he said.
She sighed and then laughed. “Well…you will eventually.”
She stepped aside as Paul ran up to them. “Hey, Josh! You were great!” he said. He and Josh high-fived, and Paul said eagerly, “So what’s it like, huh? I mean”—and he gestured around the soundstage—“here they are, making a movie based on the issues that you wrote with Mr. Kirby. It must be great for you. You’re really, really living in a world of comic books and superheroes now.”
Josh looked toward his mother and Kelsey’s dad. Zack had an arm draped around her shoulder, and they were laughing over something. That’s how they’d been for some time now. Maybe getting married? Hard to know, but it was a definite possibility.
Then he looked toward Stan Kirby, who was rooting around in his portfolio case for something. Stan had become a mentor to him, praising his artwork and guiding him toward what Stan was sure would be a promising career as a storyteller.
And he thought about what Kelsey had just said.
“Oh, I dunno,” said Josh. “I mean, comics are okay and everything…but there’s a lot to be said for real life, too.”
“Ah!” Stan Kirby said, and he pulled out from his portfolio a copy of Captain Major. Josh didn’t recognize the cover, though. “Thought you’d want to see this, sport. It’s an advance copy of the next issue. Just to show you I can still produce issues without you.”
“I never thought you couldn’t, Stan….”
Josh’s voice trailed off. He was looking more closely at the cover.
Mascot was being passionately kissed by Large Lass with a big heart drawn around them.
Josh gulped.
Mascot’s greatest challenge! How will he get out of this one?
Then he looked toward Kelsey, who was standing a short distance away. She smiled at him and winked. Josh smiled at her, and then he winked back.
Maybe this was the trap that Mascot wouldn’t be able to escape. And maybe…
…maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing at that.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mascot began his fictional life during a lunch meeting with two former agents of mine, Matt Bedrosian and Frank Balkin of the Paradigm Agency in Los Angeles, as a possible film story. Mascot has changed quite a bit since those early days, but that was where his masked face first popped up, and I’m indebted to those two gentlemen for Josh Miller’s existence.
Also many thanks to editor Jill Santopolo at HarperCollins, whose interest in Josh, and suggestions for story direction, were instrumental in creating the final work
.
The entire concept of fans voting on whether or not to kill off an annoying superhero sidekick owes its origins to DC Comics’ 1988 “Death in the Family” Batman storyline, during which DC set up a 900 number and fans could call in to decide whether or not Robin (Jason Todd, not his predecessor, Dick Grayson, or his successor, Tim Drake) should die at the hands of the Joker. The fans voted to snuff him out, and so he died in an explosion. To the best of our knowledge, no actual fans named Jason Todd freaked out about it, but you never know.
Finally, “Stan Kirby” is an obvious tip of the hat to writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, who individually and together were responsible for almost every memorable Marvel Comics character created in the 1960s. Stan Kirby, however, is merely an homage to those two gentlemen, and the opinions he expresses are not intended to be an accurate reflection of how either of those two comics greats regarded either their body of work or the world of comics fans.
About the Author and Illustrator
PETER DAVID is a prolific author whose career spans nearly two decades. His recent novels include TIGERHEART: A Tale of the Anyplace and DARKNESS OF THE LIGHT. He is also renowned for his work as a comic-book writer, including the Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, and the Fallen Angel. He is the cocreator and author of the bestselling Star Trek: New Frontier series for Pocket Books. You can visit him online at www.peterdavid.net.
COLLEEN DORAN has been a comic-book artist since she was fifteen years old. Her credits include Spider-Man, Captain America, Wonder Woman, the Legion of Superheroes, and the Teen Titans, among others. She has worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, and film conceptual artist and has illustrated the works of Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Warren Ellis, and Anne Rice. You can visit her online at www.colleendoran.com.
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