Saturday, February 28, 2009

Let's talk about... Wondercon

So how was Wondercon 09, my first ever convention of all time, ever? Well, it was pretty damn wonderful. I mean, the day started off great and everything went according to the plan, which is rare. But Adam and I planned to leave my house at 6:45 to get to my uncle's house at 7:45 to get to the con at 9:00 where we would meet up with our hosts from Tao Toys which we conveniently saw as soon as we stepped foot out of the parking lot and things seemed to be going a little TOO smoothly.

That's when it seemed like our spirits pretty much fell to shit.

Instead of having like... a table and perhaps a chair to sit on and the poster we paid 9 whole bucks to have printed out hanging up behind us, we had nothing. The booth that Tony and the gang set up was pretty well set up to suit their needs at the convention and I was pretty damn impressed by their effeciency in comparison to some other booths at the show yet for our goal of setting up our fresh off the printers run of 100 comics and maybe like a place for me to do free sketches, it was pretty dismal. Not that I blame them at all, mind you.

This isn't a bitch fest and I am extraordinarily grateful for Tony, Nick, Hollis, and ESPECIALLY Logan for helping us out as much as they could and getting us into the show for free. It's just, when you spend a coulple hours crammed in a corner with a thin table that had legs that couldn't properly fold out into a stable 90 degree angle hoping it doesn't tilt over and all your comics will be crushed by something while conventioneers pass by you knocking into your feet as you try to do free sketches for all the people that have no idea why you are sitting partially in the isle shilling comic books in the vendor's area when the artist alley is probably a more appropriate location... well let's just say you get to feeling a little glum. A lot glum at times.

Luckily, there were litterally DOZENS of awesome people who did come up to the table to purchase a copy of Psychotronik Comics Presents #1 from Adam and myself. That made me happy and reaching into the pouch of my sweater and feeling the wad of one dollar bills from sales pretty much alleviated what could have otherwise been a pretty shitty state of mind. That was the problem, you see? There were simply too many people, who cared far too much about the comic I was presenting for me to feel too horribly upset about the convention. No matter how much I would have liked to be a pissy little asshole in San Francisco today, it was pretty much impossible.

Also, while there some really awesome stuff happened. The team of Adam and Logan were all over the Moscone center shoving PCP into the hands of a few highly respected comic book artists and writers undubitably trashed the book once we weren't looking. Who are these creators? Oh, do the names Erik Larsen, Brian Azzarello, and MIKE FUCKING MIGNOLA ring a bell? They should. Because they rock. Mignola was even gracious enough to sign my copy of Gotham by Gaslight and a badass Legends of The Dark Knight issue he did. Azzarello signed the inside of my Doctor 13 trade (which ranked among the top 5 trades in my collection even before it was signed). Unfortunately, Jim Lee wasn't there Saturday so I couldn't get my hardcover of All Star Batman and Robin signed and I had totally forgot Ryan Sook was going to be there, I really wanted to get something signed from him too and my friend Mike showed me an awesome sketchbook he was selling, I would have probably splurged and bought one for myself had I known... Bastard me.

Anyways, that's the jist of it. This is so late because I'm a lazy bastard.

Here's a sketch that didn't get given away at the con.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Frank and Elenore

So as some of you know, and given that probably no one but like a few people who work on the comic with me, I do a comic book called "Frank and Elenore In..." for Pyschotronik Comics with one of my best friends and the super talented Adam Messinger. It's pretty awesome if I do say so myself and its a lot of fun...

Anyways, the point of this blog is that, that comic is part of an anthology ingeniously called Psychotronik Comics Presents and in that we have rotating covers where every issue one of the artists does the cover for his story. Well number two is mine so I thought I'd share that cover.

After being far too classy and original the first time around, Brandon, the editor in chief type indivdual asked me to do another one. Of course I bitched about it and tried to avoid more work but he insisted I didn't capture the tone of my own comic and asked me to reconsider.

I did.

So this is the result of my humongous cave in. An overworked mess.

Which became a colored overworked mess.


Brandon is gonna dress it for me but is holding out for new art from the other contributors. I await seeing that because it will mean we are inches closer to publishing number two of this thing. I'm hoping i can have it distressed a little so it looks like an older looking comic the way they have been doing on the varients for Death Defying Devil... other things too, I'm sure but I just can't think of any others, those just are at the top of my head. The point is make it look like an old comic.

Soo... yeah.