For a couple of weeks now, since I upgraded my computer, I’ve had a new screensaver.  It’s the cover of Howard the Duck 16 which you can see about halfway down this page.  It’s not the best cover of the series, but it’s the issue that gave me some insight into what it is to write for a living, and which I read and reread in my teens.

It isn’t even a story: writer Steve Gerber had messed up and missed his deadline, and rather than reprinting an earlier issue, which was how such matters were typically dealt with, he instead put together a comic that infuriated some readers, and delighted others.  The comic comprised a dialogue between Gerber and his web-footed hero, and a series of hastily penned essays and accompanying illustrations.  Some of them, I suspect, had been in Gerber’s possession for years, and finally found a home in the pages of this unique publication.

Let’s be honest: it isn’t even particularly well written in places.   But there’s something altogether fascinating about it, exposing as it does some of the wiring of a writer’s head, and with that insights into how Gerber did what he did in this often remarkable comic.  A quarter of a century before its time, this comic was a DVD commentary about the series and its creator, and it fascinated me.

The issue is titled Deadline Doom, and that concept too enthralled me.  At that point in my life, the only writing I did that had a deadline was for homework.  Not long later though, and I’d be writing for fanzines, and that gave me a greater sense of responsibility than anything I’d had to do for school.  Plus, it introduced me to a community of older guys who put zines together, and they were an interesting and welcoming bunch for the most part.  For some reason, women didn’t seem to be involved in zines, at any rate the ones I was aware of, but I barely noticed at the time.

I kept up my involvement in the zine scene through my student years, and was then left with the question of what to do now I’d got a degree.  There was no obvious answer, but I knew I liked writing so applied for jobs that seemed to have something to do with it.  Monday Guardian jobs basically.  And one day, under the influence of whisky and painkillers following a wisdom tooth extraction, I applied for a job with a letter in the style of Raymond Chandler.  That letter secured me a meeting with an ad agency in Herts, and they offered me a job as an advertising all-rounder.

It became evident pretty quickly that of all the aspects of being an advertising all-rounder, the bit I found enjoyable was writing the ads.  And thankfully that’s the way things went for me, albeit for tragic reasons.  The agency’s only copywriter, also a director of the business, was very ill, and I had to step into his shoes.  They were loafers, this being the late 80s, and he wore them with a white suit that had its sleeves rolled up.  Anyway, the ads had to be written by someone, and that person was me.

What that meant was, I had a lot of deadlines.  Bottom line is, the Watford Gazette is not going to take a recess because the agency hasn’t got its ad sorted out: space has been booked for the ad, and an ad will appear, and not a half-arsed excuse for its absence told in the form of a duologue with a cigar-smoking duck.  OK, that ad may not be the best one on its page, let alone the best you and an art director have crafted, but damnit the ad is there for the world to see.  Or all of Watford, at any rate.

Deadlines are important because they produce adrenaline.  And adrenaline is important because it stimulates the fight/flight response.  You either take one of those options, or the chemical rush impels you to conjure a solution from wherever concepts dwell.  And there’s a buzz about that experience that never leaves you, whether you’re still knocking out ads for local papers, or slaving away on a feature film treatment that’s got to be with the producer for tomorrow morning.