Sharing My Story

(Today is my birthday so here is an extra post.)

In May 1982 we had our headquarters staff training
in San Diego. Shortly after that my AIA magazine editor
John Carvalho told me he had talked with a gentleman
at a conference (in Florida ?) that he was looking for a
graphic designer for his organization. I had discussed
with John previously my desire to pursue other employment
options outside Campus Crusade. John gave me the name
and contact information for this employment opportunity.

I found out that it was with the Narramore Christian
Foundation in Rosemead. Rosemead is in the San Gabriel
Valley about 40 miles or so west of San Bernardino.
I thought this interesting for as a young teenager I had
listened to Dr Clyde Narramore on the radio and had
enjoyed his program. I had my first interview on May 18
and a second interview on Friday, May 21. I met Dr. Lee
Bendell, the vice-President, Ruth Narramore, the editor
of their magazine, Psychology for Living, Roy Mathison,
the retiring company artist/designer and Dr. Narramore
himself. The interview also consited of thorougth and
lenghty psychological testing session. A job offer was
extended and I accepted it on May 28, 1982. The job was
more of a lateral move that a step up. I would basically be
doing the same thing for NCF as I had been doing for
Campus Crusade--working on NCF's magazine and
other print material.

A number of reasons went into this move. One, was the
sense that I'd accomplished about all I was going to in
Campus Crusade on a vocational level. I had more than
lengthened the initial two-year commitment by a factor of 5.
I didn't feel an obligation to stay with Campus for "hiring" me.
On a spiritual level I'd felt that Campus had given about as
much as it would toward my spiritual development.
During the winter of 1979 I took several seminary level
courses (Church Growth & Anthropology-Christology)
offered by staff from Campus Crusade's Institute of
Biblical Studies (IBS).

There was also a social aspect that entered into it.
The social landscape of Campus Crusade during those
years was a rapidly changing milieu. I had gone through
two or three generations of friends and housemates
during the eleven years I was on staff. A good friend,
Jim Lowe, a writer in the CCC editorial department
had moved back to his native Texas to take over the
running of his father's newspaper when he suddenly
passed away. Jim, who I often prayed with, was typical
of those who were in and out for my life over the
course of several years.

Also I saw a lot of friends finding their mates and while
I dated a good bit things didn't fall into place as I
thought they should or would have. There was a
sense of needing a change from the rapidly changing
singles social enivornment that I found myself in
within Campus Crusade.

There was also a long submerged desire to actually be
paid for the work I did rather than having to raise
financial support. Like so much in life this is complicated
as I very much appreciated the people who invested
in me to be on Campus staff (felt humbled and privileged)
but at the same time there was a restlessness to have
the work I did support my living.

This sense of restlessness had been with me for several
years. During 1979 I had made a serious effort at job
hunting sending out many letters and resumes and even
took a week of vacation (June) and traveled to Orange
County (CA) looking for work in the graphic design area.
Since being flooding out of the Hampshire house
(January 1980) the following two and one half years
were a time of transition. The AIA magazine design job
made that period much more enjoyable but did not
radically alter my eventually career path away from
Campus Crusade. It seems as if the time was right and
the doorway open for a new work place (and challenge)
that was congenial to my faith and artistic/design talents.

The last two years I spend on Campus Crusade staff were
(as with previous years) spent in many activities. 1981 was
filled with activities like attending meetings of the San
Bernardino Christian School Board, working with the
Sparks at church, attending book discussions, drawing
with the other Crusade artists at noon and painting with
the group in parks on Saturdays, a car accident (March),
brothers Russ (and Nancy) and LeRoy visiting (July) and
going to Universal Studios with them, going to the
San Diego Comic Convention (July), attending the Creation
Convention with Paul Johnston (November), Jury Duty
(December), Campus Crusade staff training (April & October),
portrait painting class at the Community college plus comic
strip drawing, workouts and dates.

Some of the books I read in 1981 were Art Needs No
Justification by Hans Rookmaaker, Stained Glass
by William F. Buckley, Jr., Addicted to Mediocrity
by Franky Schaeffer, The Book of the Dun Cow
by Walter Wangerin, Jr, The Agony and the Ecstasy
by Irving Stone, Sexual Suicide by George Gilder,
1984 by George Orwell, Lust for Life by Irving
Stone, The Moon by John C. Whitcomb and Donald
DeYoung, The Beginning of the World by Henry M. Morris,
What Ever Happened to the Human Race by Francis Schaeffer &
C. Everret Koop, America BC by Barry Fell and many others.
Also my reading of comics was back in full swing.

This was an enjoyable year as I was working on AIA magazine
(a dream job), Ronald Reagan was in the White House (even
though he took over when the country was in a deep recession
and his abortive assassination), the Iran hostages were freed and
things were busy but fulfilling.

1982 was also one of many activities similar to the previous year.
In March (20th) I moved my office from Arrowhead Springs to
San Bernardino. Campus Crusade built an office complex on
27th Street that would eventually house a significant part of
the headquarters staff. The organization did not want to build
more facilities at Arrowhead Springs making it potentially
prohibitive to possible future buyers. Campus Crusade eventually
moved the entire headquarters operation to Orlando, Florida in 1991.
On April 3 I went hiking with Don Franklin up Mt. Rubidoux
(near Riverside). This year I worked in John Paul Stark's congressional
campaign. I volunteered during his telephone get-out-the-vote campaign
at his headquarters as well as precinct walking. He won the primary in
June and attended his victory party. I also had a lesser involvement in
his Fall campaign which he lose to the incumbent Democrat.

Likewise some of the books I was reading in 1982 were Walden Two
by BF Skinner, Marco Polo If You Can By William F. Buckley, Jr.,
The View from Sunset Blvd. by Ben Stein, Entropy: A New World
View by Jeremy Rifkin, The Maze of Mormonism by Walter Martin,
The Tapestry by Edith Schaeffer, The Last Unicorn by Peter S.
Beagle, Decision Making and the Will of God by Gary Frieson
and many others.

Blogger Note: I see that my narrative it getting
ahead of itself so next week I'll return to
the my final years with Campus Crusade.

That left me as the central mailer for the Apa.
I believed that if the Apa were to be a long term
success than I needed others to help carry the load.
I asked several older, more mature Alpha-Omega
contributors to be part of a CCAS Board that would
help direct the newsletter (still being published at
that point) and the Apa and any other publications/
activities that would be generated in the future.

These contributors were John Pierce (Ohio),
Harry W. Miller (Kentucky) and Billy Leavell(Tennesee).
During and after my first central mailer tenure the
Board (pastor-cartoonist Steven Shipley was also
involved) conducted its business entirely by mail
and produced the first CCAS bylaws that has
brought stability to the Apa over the years.
Alpha-Omega has published over 145 bi-monthly
issues over the past 24 years making it a fixture
in the Christian Comics movement.

During the early 1980s I started researching and writing
an article on the early 1970s “Fourth World” comic book
series by Jack Kirby. I believed it was a tragedy that the
series was canceled before any real conclusion had taken
place. I also saw a thread of spirituality running through
the stories—a thread of Biblical Spirituality. Toward the
end of 1983 Paul and I began planning a newsletter. This
newsletter would be geared towards comics fans who were
Christians. We named it Valiant—a sort of revival of the
short-lived fanzine I’d help produce in high school 18 years
earlier. We run a short ad in the classified section of
Comics' Buyers Guide announcing a free newsletter for
“Christians interested in comics”. Our first issue was dated
May 1984 and began with a six issue installment series
of my New Gods article. The letters from Christian comics
people came in at a slow, but steady rate. At the end of
Valiant’s 14-issue two-and-one-half year run we had
accumulated around 200 on our mailing list. We developed
a “phantom/umbrella” organization called the Christian
Comic Arts Society that ‘produced’ the newsletter. Paul and
I were essentially the CCAS at that point.

Through the newsletter, Valiant, we made the earliest
contact with Christian comics fans who are or were well
known in the movement. Billy Leavell, John Pierce and
Harry Miller all responded early on to the CBG ad. One
local Southern California Christian comics fan called
me in the summer of 1984 and wanted to check me out.
Was I a real Christian or just some sort of cultic mole?
Every month or two thereafter and we had some great
discussions on comics and faith. Finally in 1986 I made
a trip to his new home in nearby Santa Fe Springs where
I met him and his beautiful wife. This was Ralph Ellis Miley.

Toward the end of 1984 Paul Johnston suggested that we
produce an amateur press association (APA) publication
where the newly forming community of Christian comics
fans could connect and express themselves creatively.
I thought it was an excellent idea. I had been involved
in a short-lived comics Apa back in the mid-1960s. We
made announcements in Valiant about the upcoming Apa
that we christened Alpha-Omega. The first issue of
Alpha-Omega made its debut in March 1985 and has been
published on a bimonthly basis ever since. About that time
Paul was bowing out of involvement (he did write some
material for Valiant, but never contributed to the Apa that
he had originally suggested).

This was the year I started getting more interested in
comic collecting again. Two titles that spurred this
interest. The first was the New Teen Titans written
by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Perez. This
was a great revamp of the older title that was popular
in the 1960s. The other was the All-Star Squadron
(came out in early 1981) written by Roy Thomas and
drawn by Richard Buckler. This was a retroactive
retelling of the Justice Society of America stories
from 1941-42 with a lot of other super hero characters
thrown in from other companies that DC had
since acquired the publishing rights.

On October 28, 1979 I had dinner with the newly weds
Terry and Ann (Clayton) Walsh. During that time with
Terry and Ann I talked somewhat about my interest
in Christian comics. Terry suggested that I pray for
and find others who shared a like interest in this type
of endeavor. I seems as if a light went on on hearing
his idea. Oh, yes why hadn't I thought of that?! This
was two years after I'd made my Antediluvia Comic
and premieres it at the San Diego Comic Convention
(1977). This is where I date the first step toward the
establishment of the Christian Comic Arts Society.

I started praying about this and almost two years later
on October 2, 1981 I had lunch with Paul Johnston,
a young CCC writer who was a ardent comics fan.
Paul had been around for a couple of years at that
point but we had just gotten to know each other at
that time. We had heard we had a mutual affection
for comics and we had a good chat. We later collaborated
on one of his characters a female who had a Protector
of her own. While I still have the artwork it is not very
good. I basically had to learn perspective all over again
(and I was in the very beginning stages of that). Also
Paul's scripting approach was novelistic (way too
many words). Effective comic book scripting for
adventure/super hero stories uses an economy of
words. The visuals are there to carry the story and
the words are vital supplements to the illustrations.
Both of us were definitely still learning the comics craft.
At that time there was very little "how to" books
(unlike today) about the mechanics of comic book
story creation.