Heritage Comics Assistant Auctions Director is also a Publisher/Artist/Writer

Dallas, TX -- "We don't just sell 'em, sometimes we make 'em too!" enthuses Heritage Comics Director of Auctions, John Petty. "Well, actually, all we did was provide a twice-monthly paycheck so that my brilliant Assistant Director could afford to publish his first trade paperback. Man, he is one talented dude!"

Jeff Smith (under his professional name "JE Smith") is preparing the release of the first trade paperback collection of his critically-acclaimed comic book series Complex City. Jim Halperin, Heritage's co-owner is probably more psyched that Jeff. "I've read them all, and I even collect Jeff's original art. He is VERY clever, and the art is just terrific. I highly recommend it."

Complex City: All in a Day's Work is solicited in the current (December) issue of Diamond's Previews catalog, and will ship in early February. Smith, who was only the second employee hired to staff Heritage Comics (joining director John Petty in August, 2001), has published Complex City since October of 2000. "Complex City is what I like to call an 'alternate present,'" Smith said of his creation, which mixes science fiction, humor, and adventure. "It tells the tale of a town where virtually anything can happen, a city that is crossroads for the fantastic. But mostly, Complex City is the story of Bulldog Malone; Malone is the top cop in Complex City, and these are his adventures." Bulldog is just what his moniker might indicate: he's a six-foot talking canine, a craggy-faced, trenchcoat-wearing hound with a taste for Moroccan cigars. But while this blustery bulldog can scrap with the best of them, he's more apt to use his brain than his bite. "Bulldog's a smart guy," Smith says. "He'd rather outwit an opponent than blow them away. After all these years in this strange city, he's learned that there are ways to handle things that don't necessarily involve bullets."

For Smith, publication of the series is the fulfillment of a life-long dream. "Like a lot of other guys, I've always loved comics, and spent most of my childhood writing and drawing my own amateur stuff. After quite a few years of honing my skills, I decided to give self-publishing a shot." While Complex City often has dark elements, the overall tone of the book is humorous. "I love absurd situations, and in fact I'm a huge fan of Monty Python and Blackadder, two of the best of the British comedies. These shows had a verbal wit and also a penchant for the blissfully silly." Smith's biggest influence, however, is the late British author Douglas Adams. "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy definitely changed my life; Douglas Adams created this amazing science fiction universe where the humor derived from the characters and the outlandish situations; before HHG, visual SF comedy consisted almost entirely of spoofs of earlier films, or whatever. Adams really brought the genre of SF comedy to life, and its that kind of quirky, off-the-wall, situation-based humor that I'm always striving to emulate." As for artistic influences, Smith cites the usual suspects: Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Jim Aparo, Steve Ditko, and Bernie Wrightson. "All the guys that were doing great work when I was growing up in the '70s. But my role model as a self-publisher has to be the amazing Terry Moore, creator/writer/artist of Strangers in Paradise. Terry has been doing this for a decade now, and is a truly gifted storyteller."

Self-publishing success stories also explain why Smith has to assume a slight modification of his name when presenting his work to the buying public. "Yeah, well some other guy named Jeff Smith went and got famous before me, so I had to think of something else!" Smith is of course referring to the creator/writer/artist of Bone, a whimsical Pogo-esque fantasy series that is one of the benchmarks of self-publishing. "Bone is one of the great self-published comics, and Jeff has done an amazing job of growing this entire industry out of his own talent. It's an amazing book that just keeps getting better. The only bad thing about it, of course, is that now I have to put 'JE Smith' on all my comics to avoid confusion. Everyone I know just calls me Jeff, but often people who only know my work and have not actually met me will come up and address me as 'JE.' It's very strange!"

Smith is the Assistant Director of Auctions at Heritage Comics, a position that entails many different things, but primarily the production of the Signature Auction catalogs. "I do a lot of catalog descriptions, and I handle getting the original art imaged, which includes scanning and color correction. The actual production of the catalogs is done by our crack Marketing team, but I'm responsible for a lot of the pre-production." For a long-time self-publisher, the process of catalog production is nothing new. "It's pretty cool, actually. There's nothing like opening the box when they come back from the printer and getting a look at the finished product. It's something I've experienced many times in my own publishing career, but our Auction catalogs are a lot slicker than I was ever able to afford!"

Smith is also looking forward to opening the boxes of his own Complex City trade paperback. "I'm really excited about this collection," Smith said enthusiastically. "In addition to being able to go back and polish a few things I wasn't really happy with when these issues were first published, I'm also adding about thirty pages of new material. There's also a cool pin-up gallery where Bulldog Malone is rendered by a bunch of different artists, some of them friends of mine, some people I've commissioned to do drawings; these are all guys I admire and enjoy their work, and the gallery will be a definite highlight of the book." The 128-page trade paperback will also include some new editorial text, and a brand-new cover by Dallas artist Richard Dominguez, in collaboration with Smith and color artist Mark Stokes. Smith is in the final stages of production on the trade, and the book will be solicited in the December issue of Diamond's Previews catalog. "A lot of people don't realize it, but when the book is in Previews is a really critical time for any self-publisher, because if retailers don't notice and order the book, it doesn't stand much of a chance in today's competitive marketplace." Complex City: All in a Day's Work will ship to comic book stores in early February, 2003.