It was Sunday morning and I had to wake up earlyish for a wedding. I reached for my phone and saw the normal gmail notifications that I routinely dismiss as spam or some employment service matches that I’m simply too lazy to unsubscribe from. I see an email from my website. Now, I don’t normally get a lot of traffic on my site so I get excited when I get an email and incidentally I had received one the previous day. The email from before was a request for some character art, which I was more than happy to entertain. I remember asking something like ‘how did you hear of me’? I realized when read Sunday’s email: “Ron Perlman likes your work and is reaching out on fb”
My ears filled with electric cotton-balls and my mouth held open for probably longer than it should have. Naturally I thought “yeah right” in the back of mind. Also in the front of my mind. Then I googled and clicked and there it was:
My SOA piece I did a few years ago. I’ve never posted this anywhere other than my site and my personal facebook. No idea how he saw it (WELL, I DO HAVE A THEORY TO BE EXPLAINED LATER IN THIS VERY POST, STAY TUNED). In any case, he did and posted it to is facebook, but didn’t know who drew it initially. Some Ron Perlman fans took to internet-sleuthing and found me here. He had already found out who I was and actually gave me credit as you can see in his edit, which is totally amazing. It seemed as though his entire post, was to show it off and give me credit. He didn’t have to do that. He made a point that I get credit and I have a huge amount of respect for him now, beyond what I already had for him. I fucking love Ron Perlman as an actor.
I saw him first in Beauty and the Beast and then loved him as Clayface in Batman the Animated Series(though of course I didn’t know that at the time). The first time I really took notice to how cool and tough he is was in Alien: Resurrection. He’s the kind of actor that makes you want to watch him because he’s so intriguing. I’ve never said “oh Ron Perlman’s in this… pass”. Hellboy movies are some of my favorite comic book adaptations. I honestly don’t think anyone but Ron could fill those shoes. And fucking Sons of Anarchy.. Clay is a goddamn iconic character.
Unfortunately, I think my thanking him in comment form may have been lost in the sea of comments on the picture. I suppose I didn’t need or expect him to respond personally. I mean, he’s Ron fucking Perlman. He did plenty for me when he didn’t have to. I just hope he at least read it, to know that I appreciated what he did.
I also hope that Kim Coates saw the picture too. I really enjoyed him as Tig and I’m glad Sutter gave him more depth. Great character.
THEORY TIME:
So I also discovered that I was featured on the Major Spoilers site for the Torq fan art I did. This is also a big deal for me. I love the Critical Hit Podcast, though I haven’t listened since the season break when they went into 5e. Not due to lack of interest, but time. I had actually tweeted the pic to Matthew, who plays Torq, a while ago when I had finished that piece. It was a way to say thank you to them for the hours and hours of entertainment they had given me for free. I didn’t know if they had all seen it, because I just sent it to Matthew, but now I can be sure.
Here’s what I think happened:
Because of the post on Major Spoilers, someone saw my website and art and forwarded a piece of it to Ron Perlman who sought me out publicly to tell me he liked it. Fucking A.
Thank you Stephen Schleicher. I think I can say I owe this to you.
EDIT
It appears I was wrong. I had forgotten about my deviant art account (http://churchofrobot.deviantart.com) so this could have been another source. Also, in looking at Ron Perlman’s Twitter, I saw that Kim Coates had actually been the one to tweet it and that’s how Ron Perlman saw it originally. So I’m not sure if this fits into my Six Degrees of Schleicheration, but I thank him just the same for the Art Appreciation post. I’ll never know for sure because I can’t get anyone to respond to me. They’ll respond one day. Oh, they’ll all respond.
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