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We ended 2001 feeling pretty good about ourselves. We’d just released our first full-sized book, we had nationwide distribution, our con games were overflowing with players, and we beat Steve Jackson at TOON!. For 2002, we had even bigger plans, focused on two things: first, we’d go to the GAMA show in March. Then we’d release M-Force, our monster hunting game, at Origins.
Before we move into 2002, I need to point out that SupaGenius had a very good job while all this was going on, pulling down 2-3 times what the rest of us were making. Granted, the rest of us worked shit jobs, but the important thing is that he was bringing in more money that most of us could imagine. This will be important later. That didn’t matter, though, because he and his wife were terrible with money, so he was always broke. The reason we actually had money to do things like join GAMA was thanks largely to a character who hasn’t been introduced yet. We’re going to call him Corporate Sugar Daddy (CSD for the sake of brevity).
To explain CSD’s involvement, you need to understand that I, Leighton, SupaGenius, and several other Hex people went to a small private college in Kentucky. I suspect the others, like me, thought it was the closest we could get to a prestigious college in Kentucky. In reality, it’s where the state’s wealthy send their kids so their $100K a year entry level job as Vice President in Charge of Getting the Mail doesn’t seem like total nepotism. So there were a lot of rich people there, and CSD was one of them. This was good (for me at least) because I only knew CSD in passing when we were in college and he turned out to be one of my favorite people in the world. It was bad because he CSD lost a shitload of money (to us if not to him) by getting involved with us.
Either in 2001 or early in 2002, SupaGenius informed us that the bank had offered us a $10,000 credit line. Leighton and I were vehemently opposed to taking them up on this, but SupaGenius talked us into it, in part by pointing out that it was a way to build up a credit rating as a company. The idea was that we would only use the card if all 4 of us (and maybe some other people) agreed, and we’d only use it if we could immediately pay it back (for credit-building purposes) of if there was an emergency that we all agree warranted dipping into the credit. It didn’t work out like that, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
In the lead up to Origins, SupaGenius created an M-Force preview booklet, got me to adapt some sales sheets we’d used in previous GPA booths into distributor/retailer-facing literature, and probably did a lot of other things. He did not, however actually BUY A FUCKING BOOTH. Thankfully, we were saved by the Insane Clown Posse. Ok, technically a game company called Dark Carnival, who were partially funded by the ICP. They made a game called Morton’s List and were good enough to agree to let us rent half of their booth.
Don’t worry, though: not having a booth wasn’t the only huge failure. Some months before, Maxim magazine (which was new and huge at the time) announced a road trip contest and suggested that everyone who entered would get a write-up in the magazine (they ended up getting way more entries than expected and just mentioning the top 10 or so), which sounded like good publicity. So the plan was that 5 or 6 of us would take a road trip to GAMA. In the months leading up to the trip, we started losing people, mostly to the fact that we were all in our early-mid 20s and trying to establish productive adult lives. By the time March rolled around, it was just me and SupaGenius in a van from Louisville to Vegas and back.
Since the number of people we were splitting expenses between had dropped from 5 or 6 to 2, the group decided that we should use the card for travel expenses. If I’d paid more attention to when the card was actually being used during the trip, I probably would have realized something was amiss earlier. As it was, the only iffy thing that happened was that we didn’t have a hotel room when we got to Vegas because our credit card had been declined. This seemed odd, since I thought we’d booked the room on the Hex card (which to my knowledge had never been used), but SupaGenius told me something that sounded plausible enough I didn’t think much of it.
I probably would have been more alert if I wasn’t so tired. SupaGenius is the most terrifying driver I have ever ridden with. He pays attention to everything but the road and I don’t think I ever rode with him without nearly getting into a fatal accident that he was completely unaware of. That being the case, I drove as much as possible (luckily I worked as a taxi driver at the time and was used to driving 10-12 hours a day). By the time we got to Vegas, I was exhausted. Since the actual GAMA show mainly involved me manning the booth all day while SupaGenius schmoozed (at least he wasn’t annoying me), I spent most of my evenings trying to catch up on sleep. One night, SupaGenius woke me up to let me know that he’d won some money at blackjack and then spent it all at the Spearmint Rhino strip club. This will be important for making sure you’re filled with rage later, probably around part 10.
We’ll pick up here next time.
