By Theo Valley
Well hello. My partner Randy tells me we have readers from all over the world now. My contribution to the blog will be humorous, cutting, witty, direct and probably a bit opinionated at times.
So here we are moving into our fifth year of producing our publication and bringing “funny papers” to people as some may call it. I’ve got a mixed feeling about being called a funny paper. I wonder if it’s the same thing that a call girl goes through when she’s referred to as a hooker. She’s sort of the same thing but, the call girl has more class and is worth more.
That is the extent of which I will compare what we do to selling our bodies. The joy of Flint Comix & Entertainment is that it is unmistakably a great product. In A recent article I wrote for the 50th edition of the publication I mentioned the importance of comic strips and comic books. The importance dates back to ancient cave drawings to making and breaking political careers. This is also, culturally worldwide. Ancient Rome, Greece, the Orient, Western Europe and Great Britain have all been affected by the illustrator.
Comics (and this word shall be used widely to represent all forms of illustrations; panels and strips) have become media and movies phenomena’s. Into the vernacular of every country characters like Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Ironman, Hulk, Captain America, and yes other such characters like Judge Dredd, Popeye, Flash Gordon, Henry,…oh, I could go on. If this was just something you could dismiss as “funny papers” it wouldn’t be so widely adopted into the culture of so many societies.
Now to celebrate our 50th issue we have the world renowned illustrator George Pérez doing the cover. Oh, yes…I did say, world renown. Mr. Pérez has drawn recognized covers like the death of Supergirl on the cover of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and the number one issue of “The New Teen Titans”.
I believe our little publication, that is done on a local level and surpassing records of some publications on a national level, has been either overlooked, missed or perhaps; dare I say it; IGNORED? We haven’t been the squeaky wheel, we haven’t been screaming from the mountain top nor have we been stomping our feet to get attention. We have quietly been doing our work on a professional level, producing a quality product without making a sound.Little fanfare was made when we passed the year mark. No noise makers were handed out after our second anniversary, nor did our third or fourth year herald a parade. But, in the publishing arena, making it to issue 50 is a tremendous occurrence. We bow our heads in gratitude to the great George Perez for recognizing our accomplishment. We are humbled and honored that such an accomplished talent would take the time out of his busy schedule and lend his great talent to our cover.
Yes, now I can say, “loose the pigeons and let the word go throughout the land” Flint Comix & Entertainment has reached issue 50 and the cover was done by one of the most acclaimed artists in the industry. If we have been ignored in the past, perhaps now it will be very difficult to turn a blind eye to two guys in a small town in the Midwest. Will Ted and Randy, a couple of guys in Flint, Michigan, that came up with a crazy idea to produce a publication; when most newspapers were either closing or diminishing their print issues, be as easily ignored anymore? Stay tuned to the continuing adventure of two intrepid individuals that have risen from obscurity, that simply want to work hard, create a quality product that everyone enjoys and have fun along the way.
We’ll see you in the funny papers.
From the beginning of our Flint Comix venture we knew our name and logo was vitally important to our success as a publication.
I was originally going to call the publication "Flint City Comix" but once I had teamed up with Theo he pointed out that the word "City" was way too limiting considering the area that we wanted to be distributed in (All of Genesee County - BUT "Genesee County Comix" wasn't going to make it either!). 
Behind the words "Flint Comix" I added what is probably THE iconic symbol of the area, and that is an arrowhead. Formed on the banks of the Flint River, the area was originally a main dwelling area for our local Native Americans and was named (obviously) for the primary stone they used for their arrowheads. They use an arrowhead on the Flint City seal, as well as in the recognized logos for bother the police and fire departments. Using an arrowhead graphic to unify the logo was an obvious choice.
