A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the lobby of the new Burbank offices of DC Comics with my fellow Offender Elaine, waiting to be called in to meet with DC co-publisher/comic book artist legend Jim Lee, when the following thought hit me: I can’t believe how awesome my job is.

The lobby of DC Comics' Burbank office.

Truthfully, I wasn’t a huge comics geek growing up, certainly not in the way my fellow Offenders Anderson and David were/are, but superheroes like Superman and Batman (both DC characters) meant a lot to me. Those characters stimulated my imagination and encouraged me to explore my creative side–I have no doubt they partially influenced me to choose the career path that I did (and my first professional Hollywood writing gig was for Superman). But as a child, I don’t think I could’ve ever imagined that I’d one day get to step inside the “home” of both superheroes, let alone spend time talking to one of the main creative forces behind those and other iconic comic characters. Yet, here I was and what an incredible feeling indeed.

And that’s a feeling I’ve had on numerous occasions since the announcement of our upcoming YOMYOMF Network premiering early next year as part of YouTube’s new channels program (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read all about it here). As the person overseeing the creative content, it’s my job to make sure we’re finding and/or developing the programs that will ultimately grace our channel. As I wrote last week, this can be a scary and daunting task, but there’s one part of this job that’s been an absolute thrill: the opportunity to meet and interact with creative people I admire.

Take the example above. I had never met Jim Lee before, but I’ve long admired his work—not only is he one of the best in his field, but he’s arguably revolutionized the modern comic book industry in a way that no other artist has.

Now, the philosophy for our YouTube channel is that we want to find talented and interesting people to work with. And you can’t do better than Jim Lee in that regard. As I brainstormed and thought about who I wanted to bring into the YOMYOMF Network family, he was at the top of the list. So I emailed him cold, explained what we were trying to do and asked if he might be interested in talking further. A few hours later, he replied saying he’d love to meet and that our channel sounded exciting. A week later, I was sitting in his office; beginning the process of exploring ideas to see if we can find the right thing to collaborate on.

And as I’ve alluded to, I’ve had many such experiences as we move forward with our channel—finding myself in the company of these amazing artists I’ve long admired and wondering how the hell I got there. To say I feel incredibly lucky is an understatement.

Of course, not every idea will pan out and become a reality, but it’s pretty exciting nonetheless. Even if only a fraction of what we’re exploring now eventually makes it onto our channel, I think it’ll still be incredibly awesome. Unfortunately, we can’t give away any specifics at this time about what we’re working on, but hopefully all of you who will be checking out our channel when it eventually launches will agree too. We’ll certainly be doing our best and working hard to make sure you feel that way.

Oh, and in case I didn’t make it clear–I’m definitely having the time of my life!

And the journey continues…

The different lanterns--green and otherwise--in the DC Comics lobby.