Liquid America

This Other Time When Patton Oswalt Wasn’t An Asshole

I read this a little while ago, and while it seems like maybe the person writing it’s got a point, it reminded me of my own story involving Patton Oswalt. Back in the summer of 2010, I wrote, drew and self-published my first comic book, “Have Love, Will Travel,” which was sort of the fruition (or at least a fruition) of a lifelong dream. It was available on the shelves of my LCS, Jim Hanley’s Universe, and has since sold out it’s HUGE ten-copy first printing. I’m considering a holofoil variant second printing for the tenth anniversary.

ANYWAY, a few months after it hit the shelves, I went by Hanley’s and, as was my wont, checked to see if any copies had sold (they hadn’t) and went to do my normal browsing, when I ran into Patton Oswalt browsing in the Batman section. I recognized him immediately from his various movies and TV shows, and I started to say “Excuse me, are you Patton Oswalt?” then stopped myself, because that’s stupid, I knew exactly who he was, so instead I said “I don’t want to bother you, just wanted to say I’m a fan of your work.” He seemed genuinely pleased to hear that, shook my hand, and we both went back to browsing.

Then, a few minutes later, I realized Shit, Patton Oswalt’s on Bored to Death. You LOVE Bored to Death. You would punch the Pope if it meant you could write for Bored to Death, and you’ve got an example of your writing right over there in the minicomic section. IT’S SELF-PROMOTIN’ TIME!!!

So I went over and scooped up a copy of Have Love, Will Travel, and scanned the store, relieved to see that Mr. Oswalt was still around, waiting on the checkout line. So up I went. As he was paying, I introduced myself again and offered him the copy of the book, explaining what it was and that I’d written/drawn/published it myself. Again, he seemed really pleased about the offer, thanked me enthusiastically, and put it with the rest of his books.

I paid for my purchases, chatted with the folks at the register about how cool that was, and headed back to work, but as I did I figured, “Hey, your Twitter handle is on the back cover of the book, maybe he’ll tweet something about it.” So I pulled up Twitter on my phone, and sure enough, he’d posted the following: “

Thanks @Brendan42 of @atriumcomicsfor giving me a copy of your comic HAVE LOVE, WILL TRAVEL in Jim Hanley’s Universe!

which was pretty awesome.

Now, it didn’t lead to my writing for Bored to Death (that ship has sailed, fuck you very much HBO), and as far as I know it didn’t lead to any big Patton Oswalt fans stampeding over to Jim Hanley’s Universe to buy a copy. But it was an acknowledgement of the work I’d done- I worked like a maniac on that silly little comic, maybe harder than I’ve ever worked on any creative endeavor- by someone who’d achieved a degree of success in a field in which I hope to one day work. Honestly, to that point, it was the highlight of my writing “career.”

So, okay, maybe Patton Oswalt was curt with a lady filming him at a nightclub. But back in October of 2010, he made a struggling comic book creator’s week. So… you know… there.