Vandy Beth Glenn and Edward Hall

00:04 My name is Edward, Austin Hall.

00:07 Today's date is Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019 and I am at storycorps Atlanta with my good friend.

00:17 Writer and artist Vandy Beth Glenn

00:24 My name is Vandy Beth Glenn. Today's date is Tuesday, December 3rd. 2019. I'm at storycorps Atlanta. I'm being interviewed and interviewing my friend at Hall.

00:38 Writer and Bone level

00:43 And I've known him for many years.

00:47 Was it at breakfast club that we met it was before then it was you edited some of my writing for Hogan's alley that's right way way way back in the day you would Aaron sled recently came back into my life if you wrote about for Hogan's and idea.

01:08 I think I reviewed a collection of classic comic strips or something like that. Right? Somehow. I did a couple of things for Hogan's alley in a couple of things for Comics Journal back around the same around the same time as you've been in, external. It was just like a it was like a road up the comics track at DragonCon one year for, external. It was utterly forgettable, but it doesn't feel good to have a tcj byline. I just came across Eric Reynolds their publicist business card cleaning up my office Comics email listserv, which Eric was also a member of until I met him. I met him a couple of times.

02:08 At a meet up for that group at the small, press Expo weapon with us. He was never at the comics Journal per say he he was at fantagraphics. Okay? Yeah, and he is still at fantagraphics. Yes. Okay, and he really wrote a very sweet thing a few days ago after Tom Spurgeon pass a Stride Rite.

02:44 Missouri sad

02:49 I actually have comic books that once were in your house there now in Maya.

02:54 Yes, I think I got bitten by the bug. When did it start for you. Remember the first comic was whispered, Camry as a very small child the first comic the first comic I ever got I no longer own and I have not been able to find it ever since then it was it was called Calvin.

03:23 And it was not related to Bill Watterson comic strip. It was it was a it was a funny comic book about a little boy. I guess the character was maybe 8 or 10 years old African American kid named Calvin. You can't find it. I don't know if Calvin was even the title of the comic book where it was only the main feature of it, but

04:00 It was like that maybe like at a much Tamer version of The Boondocks similar similar setup, and I remember and it was mostly short gags. And in one of the only one I can remember is

04:22 A little girl who is a friend of gallons of showing off of a new ring that she's wearing to him and he asked her. Is that a real diamond? And she said well if it's not I've just been gypped out of a dime.

04:39 That's pretty good. Actually, I've been all my adult life. I've been trying to get defined simply not only find the comic book itself and find evidence that it ever actually existed and I hate this isn't some weird Mandela effect kind of thing legit Pursuit about the first comic book. I bought that I kept was superboy's starring Legion of super-heroes issue number 197 in high Cochran.

05:22 It was a witch as I as I Grew Older and became more sophisticated about comic books and comic book archive. I'm less a fan of Cochran and then most people because to me his his Legion his legionnaires always look middle-aged instead of like teenagers. I was kind of took that to be

05:47 A purposeful decision. They said they felt more mature to me and I'd run and the changing costumes. I think was also the marker of it. It's like yeah, I taste change. We don't dress that way anymore. And and for me that's like Dave Cockrum a big contribution. I really feel like there's a sea change in superhero costume when he changes to Legion cuz then he goes and does the same thing for the X-Men so I was never in Marvel kids, so I wouldn't have noticed that shame on you. Okay?

06:24 Yeah. Yeah those.

06:28 Concord was the first artist for me or it was just like after Neil Adams. I think the way it was just like oh my God, where did this person come from? I think for me that. Artist was George Perez sure I get bad cuz I

06:47 They were the original new Teen Titans original new Teen Reynolds and Perez were very influential.

07:01 Among the prized possessions of my Comics collection as I was a kid in the 80s.

07:09 Yeah, you know I went through a phase. I think I was at Tulane.

07:16 In about 80 when I came back to Comics call myself quit right and then Frank Miller started doing Daredevil and they drag me back.

07:29 I don't think I was escapes properly since then.

07:36 In 2019. I look back on my past fondness for Frank Miller's riding with a certain embarrassment of locksley horror maps as far as to say or are you I would certainly say horror. Yeah. So let's talk of cheerier things. Let's Breakfast Club The Breakfast Club breakfast Salon Salon. Thank you. So because he important part wasn't the breakfast it was at the salon and yeah.

08:11 How did you save the world? Cuz that was the whole goal. Right? That was the call. It was breakfast and safely have prostates. I had breakfast save the world's problems right of every month.

08:25 And

08:26 We didn't quite succeed. Yeah, not quite.

08:33 But we had some good conversations along the way would say so that the idea was always to replicate the Algonquin Roundtable. We should have gotten land or tables that and thought we were never none of us were ever financially.

08:50 Let's say

08:54 Stable enough where we could have where we can have lunch every single day sure a sprawling hours-long booze-soaked lunch like the actual off the round table. So how did we survive without that? I don't I don't get it.

09:12 So I thought everyone can do breakfast once a month, but I wanted only the best people so I set the set the time is early in the morning. So you have to make a point of getting up early to go for it. Then I'm thinking that if you did if you were willing to do that, then you would take it. Seriously. What time was what was our start time but horrible.

09:39 It was pretty early than reasonable and we still had a lot of people blowing it off. Exactly. And and the other thing was the other thing was if we waited too late then we'd be we'd be competing for tables and there's that cuz I know we I remember that we met with some regularity at the original West Egg Cafe. That's right. We spent some time at the what's the one across from the fox Terrace Georgian Terrace Georgian Terrace with the end. That was every anniversary. Let's ride cuz it seemed important at least on our anniversary to get as close as we could to the actual experience the Algonquin round table and I was a hotel in Georgia Georgian Terrace dates from that. And there is a similarly fancy hotel Sol.

10:32 Which unfortunately went from breakfast buffet to table service for which I don't know if you remember that meal. I remember it unfortunately vividly the service was abominable and I said as much I don't remember that. I don't remember their breakfasts themselves as much as what we talked about. I wouldn't remember it's like I do remember what was the place near Georgia Tech American Deli or something like that. I ended up reviewing it years later. That wasn't that was the name of that. It was yeah, but it was a very near Rocky Mountain Pizza. I think. Yeah, and now we're Sublime same road work Sublime doughnuts. Is that place? Okay. I'm not sure that part of town are horrible horrible.

11:27 At what at what I wrote about that place as I recollect was consistently blowtorch bacon for rubber eggs, and there was some someone struck maybe that they had only margarine and butter. So yeah, I don't know what it is about this town. But but if any if any good breakfast place

11:48 Gets to be good seems like it's taking over by a chain of a particular ethnicity or Not The Stereotype but seems like a lot of the worst diners in Atlanta are run by the Greeks.

12:03 I'm not laughing at your characterization of Greek people. I'm laughing in our that you were indeed at the Allure of my apologies. Yes. Thank are you I don't know if they're mobbed-up or something, but I'm stuck bad.

12:24 Heck it's just digging it deeper. Now, you can pull the shovelful on top of your head changing the subject changing the subject. I'm sorry. It's all right. But anyway, they are these cool bespoke working little places. And then and then all the food is reheated from from from breakfast I ever had in Atlanta unquestionably was a soul food restaurant some of the best ones I ever had out of a brown paper bag from a soul food restaurant that was

13:10 Right worst one I ever had was Aunt at Annie kids soul food restaurant over by where the Carter newer The Carter Center is now so I think she ran out of her house and someone should have run her out of that house with servants breakfast like that.

13:26 My friend Maria who used to remember actually, it's still there, but there used to be an AMC Cinema in Tower Place. Yes, Maria manage that place and we were running buddies. Like I saw all the movies I was a movie critic too, but we saw it.

13:45 I saw all the movies. I wanted to for free at our place during those years. She and I met for breakfast once and he had suggested a breakfast. So we went in and both order the omelette with cheese outlet plate, which I have written to laws in three words cuz it was cheese food. That was no omelet. It did come on a plate.

14:14 So

14:16 But enough of this song for the floor show back to you.

14:23 So I remember a distinct birthday party that you threw at twins once

14:33 And stop me if you don't remember what birthday party am. I remember it perfectly. Do you want to talk about that birthday party and what you told me that time that night? I don't remember what I told you.

14:45 But a

14:48 I mean that was that was before my transition, but I I did come to that party on Farm exactly that may have been the night that I told you. I was a transgender at was the night. You told me you were transgender Izakaya. Well then.

15:03 Then there we are so and

15:09 And see if they've been quite a trip so far so far. Yeah. I think it's working out now.

15:18 Seems to be pretty much going my way.

15:23 Well, I'm glad of that so.

15:28 But yeah, it was came to that came to that evening with some trepidation because the internet has changed everything and it among the things that has changed is being is being transgender headed for the most part made it better because I'm back in the day. They were message boards. And today there's there's Facebook groups and basically

16:01 Before the internet a trans by transverse and would feel

16:06 Isolated and lonely and might think that there was something wrong with them or that they were bad or wrong or

16:18 You know, most of the most of the information that a trans person would have access to before the internet would be let's just say the opposite of affirming and that is no longer the case and that was already no longer the case when I began my transition, but I do remember

16:44 My connecting virtually with other people at various other points in their transitions that

16:55 People are always going to lose their lose friends and some cases all of their friends when they transitioned and that night that birthday party was very early on for me, but it was, you know, it was decided to test the waters and

17:19 Add to my to my

17:25 Relief, let's say every single one of my friends was very a very accepting a very understanding. Of course, I didn't fully come out to everybody that night some people I just said, yeah, but you know, I'd sort of laughed it off like oh, yeah. I just I just wanted to feel pretty for my birthday. You know, it was not otherwise specified specific about exactly what was going on. But I think most people most people began to get it at least that night no matter what they were told and and they're all they're all very very accepting and they've continued to be such in the years since

18:16 Yeah, I like I forget I think that speaks well of your taste in friends. So yeah, well for you expression show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are. Not sure who I don't know who said that let's just say I said it.

18:40 That's first time we've ever ever jinxed in the storycorps booth as far as I know find me a coke. So

18:52 When do you know?

18:57 How long before that party did you know, do you remember?

19:03 I may not remember the actual first feelings are stirrings along those lines that I haven't I had but I do remember one thing very specifically.

19:18 You know Mad Magazine for decades compiled features from past issues of the magazine into little mass-market paperbacks, which you could order through through math magazine and I bought and read many of those as a child and I remember one of them was one of those that was fake advertising features that they often ran in the magazine. And this one was for a a miracle fabric super stretchy and that you can wear throughout your life and it was

20:06 In the features as fabric admin made into a leotard and they show a little toddler girl wearing. This thing is like a pull-up onesie type of of garment and

20:26 And then subsequent girls of Greater ages and the final image was of a teenage girl are late teenage girl and very shapely still wearing the same garment only now is it is so stretched out that it's like it's like fence net stockings not even fishnet but like V. Yeah. Yeah.

20:55 And in the caption is it you see now it really shows stretching and you know, it was a typical lascivious Mad Magazine gag from Ryan from the 60s or where there's a shapely shapely girl at work. Brian Tooley rat and look for you and I and I you know as a as an adolescent boy, I took it in the spirit intended. I I didn't I did beautiful drawing of the attractive girl that I realized.

21:39 Even in that moment that I wasn't just feeling that attraction.

21:46 For this image, and I was feeling something else. It wasn't just that I wanted to be.

21:53 With that girl that desire was was was more more profound. I wanted to I wanted to be I wanted to have a figure like that girls verging on puberty. I have to think like 11 or 12.

22:15 Which

22:20 You know sexual orientation and gender identity or separate from each other who I've always been mainly oriented toward toward other women.

22:32 I don't know if that made it easier or more difficult for me to figure things out and then it would have been for a trans woman whose interest was more important men, but

22:50 In any case I I did figure it out and I decided quite purposefully not to do anything about it because again, there were no positive role models or life models for for what one could do as a trans person and I I thought that that ever the transitioning living the life that I really wanted to live would probably only live 2 lead to misery and loneliness and I didn't want to be lonely. I want to you know, I wanted to find a a life partner I wanted to

23:30 I don't want to get married. I want to have children.

23:34 And I didn't see a way to do that while also transitioning so

23:40 So I just

23:42 Held it down.

23:47 I wouldn't say I was repressing it because I didn't deny to myself what was going on, but I would say I I suffer.

24:02 How did you end up in the armed forces?

24:06 Well

24:10 I finished my journalism degree at the University of Georgia.

24:17 Nevermind

24:23 And

24:27 I technically had a degree in screenwriting but I also did a lot of radio. I was a jock at that w u o g the campus radio station and I loved it. I loved talking on the radio and playing music and

24:50 And all that I wanted to I wanted to get a job in radio.

24:55 My finish my degree and

25:01 Made a demo tape wrote up a resume and

25:08 Then and only did 10 did that I start to to learn what an entry-level job in radio paid.

25:17 And I saw very very soon that I was going to find.

25:22 Where I was going to likely be for the next several years was

25:28 At maybe a little low wattage am religious or country music station somewhere in the south in a flyspeck little town with very little money and that they didn't hold much appeal for me. But since I had a college degree, I realize that I could I could join the armed forces. I join the Navy probably go in as an officer and get pretty well. Get get experience in Renown management and leading people and also travel the world and have some Adventures so

26:14 That's why I did. Did you live in Hawaii for a time or were you stationed? There was Hawaii.

26:30 I went to officer candidate School in Newport and then I went to a follow-on school surface Warfare School in San Diego, and I wanted to I wanted to go overseas. I wanted to to experience the life of an of an expat. So I'm I requested I ask for orders to a ship imported in Japan and I got a cruiser a guided missile Cruiser base in Yokosuka.

27:06 And finished up all my training and and reporter board and then learned that the ship was due for regular overhaul.

27:18 Which could not be done at your Costa and we were changing home for it back to the States.

27:25 But to Pearl Harbor nuts to the mainland best laid plans of mice and Glenn exactly. There was a popular joke military and Merchants be rather cynical but there's a common joke back then was a naval officer would crash into the end of the office of his detail earn.

27:53 End

27:55 And say something along the lines of you sent me to Norfolk. I hate Norfolk. The people are stupid. The food is terrible. The weather is lousy. Is there is this Litany of reasons why Norfolk is a terrible place to be erased and and a detailer would say. All right. Well, hang on, let me let me look up your card.

28:19 All it says it says here that says here that Norfolk was your first choice.

28:26 The officer response you never get your first choice.

28:33 It's pretty good. Yeah, but anyways, so do we have only 10 minutes left? Cuz I don't feel like we talked about all that much but we keep that for a long time. Yeah, we can do this again. Oh, okay good.

28:53 Yeah, so anyway, Hawaii still very different from every other state I've ever been too. So I think I still got the the exhaust system that I was looking for and and furthermore I discovered while I was there that that Hawaii is very very open and welcoming state to trans people and we have we have our own bars there and

29:25 And astonishingly enough it was during my time in the Navy that I actually began for the first time transitioning.

29:37 And

29:41 I began, you know, I'm buying women's clothes and experimental e going out of a night to Waikiki and I met some other people to join the support group and I was beginning to think seriously about about seeking some form of hormone replacement therapy, which I would have been taking a legally about which many trans people did back in the day and still do today if they lack the resources to get get get them any other way.

30:24 But then I had a bit of a scare on base. Someone's someone noticed or came close to noticing that I had painted my toenails.

30:42 And which Bears pointing out cuz now they're men cluding me who paint their toenails. Yes. I know it is a very different world. But anyway a couple of a couple of other things like that happened in basically scared me back into the closet where I remained for another decade. I'm sorry. It happened just now as I said, it's a it's a better world and in many ways today than it was in the past.

31:22 What's your what's your greatest wish for the future?

31:30 For me personally or for society. Take your pick. Well for me, I want to keep making movies. I made my first one this year. I'd like to make more. I'd like to reach a place where people are paying me to make movies.

31:50 And for society, you know I want.

31:55 I want trans people to be able to serve openly in the armed forces. I want trans people not to get murdered at such an alarming rate.

32:05 And

32:09 I want to see I want to see humans colonize Mars.

32:14 Does not related to the LGBT thing not directly anyway, but it is something that I think would be a good thing for humans to do.

32:27 How many eggs to baskets?

32:30 So when asteroids not going to take out both those planets exactly.

32:39 What?

32:45 Okay, thank.

32:47 Of my fondest memory of you in all these years and pretty sure it's something you were reading that the old writers Exchange salon, which is a salon that I I did not Pioneer buttons are running for many years and no breakfast and no breakfast although lots of wine and taking off and candy

33:11 Yeah, they were some of those humorous SF stories that you read in those years that were just some of the Far and Away some of the best things that we're ever read and writers exchange. Wow, I find that difficult to believe but none the less they were they were

33:34 I'm thinking especially if the there was the time machine that I think have a sliding board.

33:41 How do I have this image of a sliding board time machine? There was a sliding board in the backyard with that machine could there we go, right. This is what time does this why you need a sliding board time machine to go back in time and say no more on it was a sliding door and The Time Machine World. I would walk through that door and say before you say it your going to get it wrong right to see so but yes.

34:11 They were

34:13 All those things that you write for Jim's thank you. It's no shock to me that you've been gone on to you know, I think

34:23 Make serious art

34:26 That's what I've always wanted to do. And I feel like I've spent most of my life finding reasons not to do it.

34:34 Which doesn't make any sense to me, even though I'm the person who's been doing it, but

34:40 But I think it's something I'm finally getting over good.

34:44 And I'm sorry to interrupt there. But what I was about to say it when I say serious art, I should not in any way contravene the sparkling humor of it all because you are hilarious. You are one of the funniest people I know so it's not a shock to me that we sat here and swapping it back and forth for the third of the interview.

35:08 So I'll thank you.

35:11 Thank you. Hit it.

35:17 You amuse me to I'm so glad

35:21 Why abused you yeah, it's

35:28 Yeah, I'm I'm so glad to have you among my friends after all this time and likewise and

35:42 I'm glad you're happy, too.

35:46 Thank you. It's been a long road to that happiness and

35:54 And I I also think that we have not mentioned is that we are both regular competitors at the Atlanta or is at the ortho graphic meet which is to say the adult spelling bee it now again happens at Manuel's annually Frank and

36:14 Here's hoping it's your year this year as long as it's not my ear.

36:19 And we've always been very gracious about that. I told I told Cassie when I came home after when I came home this past February after my my latest humiliating second-place finish. That's not humiliating.

36:38 I don't remember telling me telling my fiance that dead from your from your demeanor. I got the impression that if I had one you would have been even happier than if you had one for your second time.

36:53 Which made me feel?

36:57 Hey, give me a very warm warm feeling in my heart and also a little bit of shame because that feeling has never been reciprocated.

37:06 What is your tear up and make me do it? You make me laugh.

37:14 Humvee you'll get there. We'll get there. We'll both be back there one day will be both be on the board will be will be making people spell words like pencil depth.

37:27 Not the thing you write with the thing that flaps on the end of a knight's Lance. It is funny how we both have good years, but we never seem to have the same go to your house. Right? I'm always fascinated by how hard sheets look at the end of the evening cuz it's a written Spelling Bee for people who don't know I had it so it's almost it's almost like our experiences have been different since I set for better at spelling different types of things exactly, right?

37:55 It was a word I got totally because I had worked at White Wolf and it was a term from the game Mage which I did not know outside of Mage. So yeah. Yeah, I think that might have been the year. I won actually

38:12 You tend to have perfect first. Round's I don't I've always thought you honestly you were the better speller and the year that I won still mystifies me because I was not in the crown proceeding with the outcome that went into sudden death and suddenly there was two people work so to speak dead.

38:33 I remember one year. They said they served up the phone.

38:37 Which I was my attempt to spell it was embarrassingly wrong. But which you were able to get so I can't even

38:51 We'll see this year. We'll see this February V. Thank you for making time to talk with me today. Thank you for inviting me. I had a good time.