What a great time to mention his birthday because we had our first phone conversation in three years. We weren\u2019t mad at each other, just some apathy happened before I got married and he was pre-occupied for some time. It\u2019s best that he explains it since it\u2019s not my place to tell anyone else. I have his cell phone number programmed into my contacts, his new address to send him cool packages and a better e-mail (the one I used to have is a spam magnet).<\/p>\n
It also dovetails with our first meeting over 15 years ago at GenCon 1991.<\/p>\n
Back then I still lived in Milwaukee and I admit, going to GenCon was one incentive (the bigger one was my current girlfriend Carrie) for remaining there after graduation. My friend Phil and I were between events so we had time to kill. Phil wanted to go through the artists\u2019 section. Reluctantly I went along but if I stopped moving around, I probably would\u2019ve fallen asleep. The various booths were pretty interesting and then I saw this one for GDW\u2019s\u00a0Challenge<\/em> magazine which did get my attention.<\/p>\n Now a quick diversion. Normally GDW\u2019s games were pretty dull because they usually published boring wargames to compete with Avalon Hill, Milton Bradley and Games Workshop. The company\u2019s RPG reputation wasn\u2019t much better. Their roleplaying games tended to have a heavy military slant (Twilight: 2000, 2300 AD); disposable characters (Space 1889, Traveller); and terrible mechanics (all of them). There were two bright spots: GDW\u2019s settings were pretty solid so people usually kept their settings but used different rules: GURPS, SpaceMaster or StarHero with Traveller\u2019s backdrop was pretty common. The other plus was\u00a0Challenge<\/em>, an RPG magazine dedicated to the Sci-Fi roleplaying games. The (former) king of RPGs (TSR) stopped publishing adventures in\u00a0Dragon <\/em>with the appearance of\u00a0Dungeon<\/em> around 1986 and neither covered anything outside of TSR\u2019s catalog since the mid-Eighties. Meanwhile,\u00a0Challenge<\/em> was at least half filled with material for GDW\u2019s RPGs and the remainder was other companies\u2019 games; FASA\u2019s Shadowrun and BattleTech; WEG\u2019s Star Wars and Paranoia; SJG\u2019s GURPs Cyberpunk and Space, etc. GDW had also released Dark Conspiracy at this GenCon so\u00a0Challenge<\/em> would now be including horror RPGs: Call of Cthulhu, Chill and Vampire.<\/p>\n As the above paragraph explains, I had a positive bias for the magazine. I was also a typesetter at kinko\u2019s then. One of the constant gripes and arguments I had to deal with at work was Macintoshes being a dying technology, kinko\u2019s should wise up and replace them with PCs, blah blah blah, the same nonsense you still here today. A side project of mine for this GenCon was to survey the publishers on how they produced their books; Mac or PC, PageMaker or QuarkXpress, etc. So here\u2019s this booth for\u00a0Challenge<\/em> magazine\/GDW where one could meet its art director, Steve Bryant. Unfortunately, he was getting his ear yakked off by this geek rambling on about his Champions character (he can correct me if I\u2019m wrong). I could tell he was rather bored and the geek was creating fodder for an SNL<\/em> skit. When I got my chance to speak to him, I asked him my set of production questions: which type of equipment and software did he use to make the magazine. Steve definitely perked up. A question he could answer about something he gave a damn about! More importantly, an opportunity for him to actually speak and not be bombarded about another 18th-level anti-paladin armed with a soul-draining longsword! After his explanation, Steve asked why I wanted to know. I told him I was a typesetter at kinko\u2019s looking for ammo against the PC naysayers. He was pretty enthused and told me GDW needed a new typesetter. Then he saw my name was Steve too and said (paraphrased) \u201cSorry, we can\u2019t hire you because we already have two Steves working there. Nah, I\u2019m just messing with you! Go by the GDW booth and ask for Julia Martin or Beth Bradford.\u201d<\/p>\n The rest as they say, is history. GDW went on to be the most stressful, emotional roller coaster of a job in my life for the 15 months it lasted. Yet Steve and I went on to be friends well after what we branded Games by Disposable Workers, his move to Chicago for FASA and my departure for Austin. We\u2019ve had ugly disagreements too, most of them fuelled by GDW\u2019s deadlines so our friendship hasn\u2019t be flawless. Yet I\u2019m proud to say he is one of the key people who proved how wrong my parents were about friends. For years, they told my brother and me that friends couldn\u2019t be counted upon in a crisis, only your family. This was mainly their rationalization to us when we were upset over moving to another location every other year. I think it also explained why they don\u2019t have any close friends I could really name growing up. When GDW ended badly for me, Steve was one of my biggest supporters. He was a true friend unlike the alcoholic Dave Nilsen, the main architect of my firing. Steve (and Lazz) didn\u2019t distance himself from me to keep his job. We continued to hit the movies, do lunch (he bought many while I was unemployed in exchange for my Mac expertise that GDW now sorely lacked) and socialize. The first 10 weeks of 1993 were rough. I don\u2019t think I could\u2019ve pulled through without him and he\u2019s never asked for anything in return for it.<\/p>\n To my parents, I say \u201cHA! I was right to trust my instincts!\u201d which I have tended to follow more often since 1993.<\/p>\n As for Steve, let\u2019s all wish him a great birthday and cheer him on as he continues to pursue his dream of drawing, inking and\/or coloring a comic book for DC, Marvel or Dark Horse. He\u2019s actually pretty close these days too. Meanwhile, I need to upgrade his Mac stuff and find a way to bring him to Austin for a visit with his son Chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What a great time to mention his birthday because we had our first phone conversation in three years. We weren\u2019t mad at each other, just some apathy happened before I got married and he was pre-occupied for some time. It\u2019s … Continue reading