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 arbbh correspondence don chin downloads scans links  |
CorrespondenceHere are edited highlights of the email I have received recently:
We're not doing too much comics stuff these days...I'm in real estate and Parsonavich is a boilermaker in the S.F. Bay area. Take it easy, Chin & Parsonavich!
Talk about being able to knock me down with a feather - I've been fishing for information on ARBBH for years, received nothing, and the first I hear is from the authors. You gotta love the 'net. Great to hear from you, good to know you're alive and well, shame you're not doing more comics. As you can gather from the site, I really enjoyed the comics (still do) - I won't make you nauseous and claim to be your number 1 fan or anything, I just enjoy them - and would love to see more in a similar vein. Do you guys keep in regular contact? Any more info on the history/background of ARBBH you care to give me for the site? It would definitely be cool if you could source those missing issues - even better if they were signed. 8-) hey, gotta take advantage... Thanks for the mail, Todd. PS - this still really spins me out, ARBBH had a bit of a cult following in Canberra, Australia when I was growing up & hearing from the people responsible is very cool.
Strangely enough, me and Parsonavich hadn't seen each other for close to 10 years since today...he showed up at work at my door begging for food. (Just kidding...he actually bought me a nice Italian lunch) I went on to publish Entity Comics & Parody Press Comics from 1992-1996, and still have a lot of those comics that I wrote. We even did some updated, repackaged Hamster stuff under Parody Press. Most of the Eclipse Hamsters stuff is packed away in storage, but I think I have some other items that I'll try to get back to you on. For the earlier issues, I'd suggest you visit the following site--they apparently have them for sale at a decent price. http://www.sonic.net/yronwode/comicswarehouseA.html So, what do you do for a living? Don Chin
Sorry for not replying more promptly, work just caught up with me. Speaking of which, I work as a programmer for a web development company (Emerald Interactive Services - http://www.emeraldis.com.au) that basically does Enterprise web sites, as well as some traditional software development - yep, I'm a computer nerd. DC: I'm impressed by the "slickness" of your web page design. I've done a little design using (don't gag) Microsoft Publisher. Our site is at: http://members.aol.com/expressweb That's the business my wife and I operate part time. Currently we still color and letter other people's comics and help them package them. We have also worked on toy design packaging for Skybolt Toyz. Comics publishing went really downhill over the past three years, so we bailed out of that. I did a lot of Parody books (Oldblood, Unfunny X-Cons, Cyberfarce, etc.), but also wrote some "serious" stuff, like Enchanter and Stargate movie adaptations. Here's a bio I drudged up: ABOUT THE WRITER... DON CHIN, 34, is the writer/creator of a number of popular comic-book titles, including the cult fan-favorite ADOLESCENT RADIOACTIVE BLACK BELT HAMSTERS, a satire of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Chin's comic-book titles have sold well over one million copies worldwide. Chin has written for the national satire magazine, CRACKED, and been a columnist and cartoonist for THE COMIC BOOK BUYER'S GUIDE. He has also been a newspaper political cartoonist and drawn for children's programming on PBS. As Founder, Publisher and Editor-In-Chief of Entity Comics from 1992-1997, Chin oversaw the development and production of over 200 assorted comic-book titles, many of which have been optioned for feature-length motion-pictures, toys and animation, including METAL MILITIA (Dino DeLaurentiis Communications), ZEN INTERGALACTIC NINJA (Sceneries Entertainment), SNOWMAN, NIRA X: CYBERANGEL (Skybolt Toyz) and ADOLESCENT RADIOACTIVE BLACK BELT HAMSTERS (Rankin-Bass Animation). He recently wrote the official comic-book adaptation of the Roland Emmerich/Dean Devlin film STARGATE, and edits the ongoing line of STARGATE graphic novels for Entity Comics. Chin has collaborated on numerous comics projects with the creators of the animated X-MEN TV show, JONNY QUEST, EARTHWORM JIM, MTV's THE MAXX, and DC Comics' popular SANDMAN comics series. He began writing and directing science-fiction, comedy and music-video films at age 12 and has won awards for his work at independent film festivals. Chin received his B.A. degree in Journalism with an emphasis in Theatre Arts/Film in 1986 from Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA. Chin resides in Northern California with his wife Laura, and daughter Melissa. In his spare-time, he enjoys watching movies, fishing, videogames, reading, weight-lifting, sports, listening to contemporary gospel music, designing web-pages, and entertaining people. I'm currently trying to market a movie concept called "Buggy", and have an agent in Los Angeles trying to line up deals. Thanks for the lead on the missing ARBBH comics, I'll be putting in an order. DC: You're welcome. I'll see what non-Eclipse stuff I have around that I might be able to send to ya. Some parts of the conversation where removed from here to protect the guilty... As I've already said, anything you can dredge up would be most welcome, as I'd like to actually set up a reasonable web resource on ARBBH and related topics 'coz there is not a lot out there. When I lay my hands on all the issues of ARBBH I want to scan the covers and put up a brief overview of each issue. I know that's extremely nerdy but I went looking for this info and couldn't find it, so there must be other people (with similarly deranged minds) looking for the info, and what the people involved went on to do (the obvious one being Sam Keith doing "The Maxx") and an answer to that question everyone asks - did it start life as a piss-take of TMNT? DC: I actually liked the crude fun of the early TMNT before they got really commercial, and I usually only make fun of stuff that I admire. I was really surprised that ARBBH sold so many copies. (We sold 53,000 copies of the first book) We had a hard time getting distribution initially. Eclipse said that they would help us distribute the first few issues, but wouldn't put up the money to print it. I got a loan from my Dad to publish it and personally helped box them up at the local printer to ship them out. It was one of the single biggest orders that my local printer had received in decades, and they were running late to keep up with the demand after we got the advance orders back--I remember being up to my neck in boxes, and loading them up into the UPS truck to send out...what a exhausting ordeal. (I don't know where Parsonavich was at the time...probably out sleeping, reading comix, or drinking beer...) Anyways, after it became a big commercial hit, Eclipse really wanted to publish it and distribute it--it went on to sell 1/2 million copies worldwide, and was mentioned in the Chicago Sun-Times, and also on a Jeopardy! game show question. Someone else said that David Letterman had it on a top ten list, but I never saw that show. Strangely enough, Weird Al Yankovic has done a song about "radioactive hamsters", but I don't know if he got the idea from us or not. Whew. That's all for now. I'll try to think of other interesting "Hamster Droppings" I can pass along to you. Sincerely, Don |
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