In 1975, there was a significant community in Los Angeles of folks who created comic books, comic strips and related forms of print media…but who did not know one another all that well. They didn't meet at "the office" because they all worked through different offices, often in other states. They didn't meet a lot at comic conventions because there weren't many of them and most professionals did not attend the ones that existed. It just felt like there was a void there.
I occasionally had dinner with two friends at a Numero Uno pizzeria on La Cienega Boulevard…within walking distance of where I then lived. One was Don Rico, a comic book writer, artist and editor whose credits stretched from 1939 until the present day. The other was Sergio Aragonés, then best known for his work for MAD magazine. It was over one of those dinners that we got the idea to start a kind of social club for local professionals in the field.
I think — I can't swear to this but I think — the impetus for this idea was me complaining about so many people in the field calling and asking, "Do you know a good letterer?" or "Where's a cheap place to buy art supplies?" Calls like that. Regardless of the flash point, I recall — and may still have somewhere — a Numero Uno paper placemat with Sergio doodles on it and me writing out possible names for the organization. We settled on "The Comic Arts Professional Society" or CAPS for short. In July of that year, we held an organizational meeting at a "street church" on Hollywood Boulevard that Don Rico and his family sometimes attended.
They had a community room that was available to just about any group and that would donate any amount to the church. I went up there and gave them $40 and the minister was delighted. He penciled us in on his calendar between two other groups that met there. One was "Alcoholics Without Partners" and the other was "The Lesbian Softball Team." I may have those adjectives reversed but I saw him write "Comic book artists" on the calendar and I wondered if someone was going to think, "Well, now you're letting some weird fringe group meet here!"
The first meeting was a success. The moment I most recall was when a fellow who'd been writing comic books for Western Publishing met an artist who'd been drawing his scripts…for something like twenty years. It was the first time they ever met.
CAPS had monthly meetings thereafter. It kept changing where it met. It kept changing who ran it. I was President for a while, Sergio was President for a while, Don was President for a while. Members came and went including Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Milton Caniff, Dan Spiegle, Roger Armstrong, Don R. Christensen, Alfredo Alcala, Stan Sakai, Steve Gerber, Roy Thomas, Rick Hoberg, Dave Stevens, William Stout, Christy Marx, Willie Ito, Scott Shaw!, Jerry Eisenberg, Tom Luth and I shouldn't have started this list because I'm leaving out several hundred people. Quite a few were folks who made very good livings in their field but whose names you might not know.
The focus of the group changed a lot over the years. At one point, I was very unhappy with some of the things some current leadership was doing and I resigned. Sergio resigned almost every month for a time there but I don't think anyone knew it because he kept attending meetings. There were banquets and awards and projects and I remember some meetings being a lot of fun and others having some angry disputes.
I will probably tell more stories about CAPS in the future but, as you may have figured out from the subject line, this is an obit. I've received an e-mail from someone in the current leadership (someone I don't think I know) saying, in part…
CAPS is ending. There's a lot of reasons for this decision but the most prominent ones are the clear ones — Leadership has not been good and participation has been waning for some time. With the most recent update of the current president stepping down, the board had a discussion and found that no one would like to take the position, so we found it best to thank everyone for being a member but to dissolve the organization by the end of this year (2024.)
There will apparently be one more in-person meeting at a time and place to be named later. Frankly, I think the organization lost all reason to exist once we had an Internet and frequent comic book conventions. Everyone who did comics seemed to know one another without attending monthly meetings. I'm sorry to see it go but I've kinda felt that way for the last 20+ years.