Baltimore Recap and a Lotta Links
Marc Nathan puts on a darn fine show.
The Baltimore Comic-Con is a pretty special thing. Is creator friendly, family friendly, and comics friendly in a way so many shows aren't anymore. I set up there, selling a little thing you may have heard of called Love and Capes. I did pretty well, and in a pretty cool way. It's hard to tell exactly, because so much of conventioning and selling are fluid concepts, but it seems like more people who attended the Baltimore show actually read the book, and wanted more.
With most shows I do, it feels like I'm always at ground zero, trying to sell the book to a new audience. "Have you heard of Love and Capes? No? Well, let me tell you about it." In Baltimore, people came up saying "I got issue one and need the rest!" Now, that could be because the book has been around for a year-and-a-half and I did the Free Comic Book Day issue, both of which make the series a little more noticable. Whatever the reason, I'm just glad it happened. I think I sell better at Baltimore than I do at any other show, on a daily average.
Plus, it's just so pleasant. There are a lot of creators I only see at Baltimore, and I actually get to talk to them. I was set up across from Kyle Baker, and chatted with him quite a bit. I got to hang out with Steve Conley, writer and artist of one of my favorite books, Astounding Space Thrills, and is one of the current artists on IDW's Star Trek book. I spent some time with John Gallagher and Rich Faber of Buzzboy, which is always nice. I got to have dinner with Mike Manley, Echo, Scott Cohn and Jamar Nicholas, among others. And I got to meet some new people, like Jann Jones and Art Baltazar.
I even got to do a panel, which outside of Mid-Ohio-Con, I don't do too much. I helped out at the Kids Love Comics panel, where I taught some kids about lettering. Yeah, I was surprised they picked my station, too.
Baltimore itself is a great location for the show. There aren't many shows that have that great mix of a good show and a lot to do in convenient walking distance. San Diego is just so frellin' huge, that getting to the Gaslamp District, which is just across the street, takes an act of God and a reservation for dinner made yesterday. Chicago plants its show out in the relative middle of nowhere, with two restaurants and a McDonalds to choose from. But Baltimore, like my much-beloved Mid-Ohio-Con, manages to find a location where there's a lot to do in proximity to the convention.
Paul Storrie and I had a nice drive to and from Charm City. No accidents or traffic tie-ups or anything like that, and lots of conversation. Paul did pretty well at the show, too.
The only down beat at all was the absence of Mike Wieringo. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the tribute panel. Among other things, it was two hours at the end of Saturday. Ringo and his career deserve those two hours, heck, deserve more, but it was a long time to be away from the table for a lot of people. And I didn't manage to find the pros' wake that night either. Baltimore's only a two day show, with a lot of things set up before the show started and before Ringo's untimely passing, so finding a way to give him his due and still do right by the show is a balancing act. But there was a lot of money raised for the ASPCA in his name, and he was definitely missed.
The show's a couple weeks later next year, so I have to wait a little bit before I can make my hotel reservations again. But I'll be doing so as soon as I can.
Next show for me is WizardWorld Texas, and then Mid-Ohio-Con will close out my 2007 Conventions.
Trip Sixes
I'm just about to pick up stakes and head out to the Big Baltimore Comicon. Well, it's not actually called "the Big" but it is bigger than last year, so I guess it's accurate. I'll get to see some friends, 
Anyway, before Paul Storrie and I get in the Supercar-D for six hours of driving, chatting, podcasts and the Flash Gordon soundtrack, I finished up page six of Love and Capes. For those of you mathies in the audience, that means I'm 25% done. And, since it's book six and page size, I decided show off panel six. Yup, 666.
Make of that what you will.
Gentlemen (and Ladies), Start Your Order Books!
Hey, look what's in Previews this month on page 326, right below the also-excellent Pantheon collection! Why, it's Love and Capes #6.
Speaking of issue six, here's a panel from the fifth page of LNC. Here we see Abby getting interviewed by the local news, promoting Amazonia's book launch at her store. For this page (but not in this featured panel) I finally designed "the crowd." I've written a few scenes in past issues with lines of people. So I've finally designed a set of stock characters that can be used to form a line. At least fall and winter lines, since everyone's wearing a jacket. One of these day's I'll have to do a summer collection, too, I suppose.
It's also the first TV panel to appear in the series. It's not the only new panel type that will be appearing in this issue, either. I've had to design a flashback panel border that should be showing up on page seven.
Branching Out
As I write this, it's Saturday morning (but this won't appear until Sunday, lest I innundate you with posts), and while I've got stuff to work on, I don't have anything I want to work on. So I thought I'd try something.
I'm a big fan for Sean "Cheeks" Galloway's stuff. He's got such a fun, animated style. It reminds me a little bit of Claire Wendling, whose stuff I also love to pieces. So, I got inspired to try the style.
I didn't know what to draw first, but I had AMC's Mad Men on while I was mulling things over. As an aside, Mad Men is an interesting show, but it's also one of those shows that I can't figure out if I like. It's a fascinating time period, the New York advertising world in the 1960's. A time when they were advertising cigarettes and Nixon and everyone smoked. It's also got some bang-up actors, including Christina Hendricks and John Slattery. I first saw Christina Hendricks on Firefly and have had the pleasure to meet her in person a couple of times. I've never met John Slattery, but he did a great job on Ed taking a character that I shouldn't like and giving him depth, and then he did the same thing on Jack and Bobby. The show also features Vincent Kartheiser, who I think was much better than people give him credit for on Angel. The character was written whiny and mopey, but look how cool he was in the last couple of episodes.
Anyway, since I had Mad Men on, I decided to do a take on Christina and John's characters. I think the initial foray into this style worked well. I jumped out of my comfort zone and worked in one line weight, rather than the brushy style that I use on Love and Capes. I also played with proportions
Seven Days
In fact, I just got new product art of the lovely Alicia wearing her Love and Capes shirt. This photo, as are all my model photos, courtesy of DK Photography.
Bucks other than Rogers
About a year ago, I was hired by a Cleveland company to do some work for National City Bank.
From there, we went through many revisions. Quickly the deer, or "Uncle Buck" became the favorite. He went from being an older uncle to being an older coach to being a younger coach.
The final design implemented a number of changes and revisions.
Coach Buck has appeared mostly in the Chicago area. He's made some personal appearances and been available as a coloring page, too.
Four or More!
After a week-long hiccup to do some business in Burbank, I'm back pumping out the Love and Capes pages. Here's page four, which means I've only got twenty left to go!
Sigh. At least I'm consistent.
This page was tough to break from a writing standpoint. I had a joke which I really liked, but as written, it would break the flow of the story. I wound up swapping Mark for Charlotte, and the whole scene works better now. Not only does the funny still work, but it creates a better transition for the story and, of course, the next page.
Two of a Kind
Next week is the excellent Baltimore Comicon in, of all places, Baltimore. I'll be there at booth #1409, wherever that is. I know the con has expanded in size this year, so I don't
Last year I worked on the Mary Jane Watson Toon Tumbler exclusive. This year I got to work on the companion glass, the Gwen Stacy glass. I like that we were able to keep some of the same design elements as the last glass which helps make them look like a set. I also got to write Gwen's dialogue. She didn't have a famous quote like MJ, so I had to come up with something so they both had dialogue.
Click on the picture and be taken to a larger pic. And be sure to come to the show!
Creature Feature
It's come to happen so much that it's become a truism: The best way to generate work is to leave town.
It's an illustration of Ghoulardi, the Cleveland horror host played by Ernie Anderson, before he became the voice of ABC. "Next, on the Love Boat…" That was him.
He was a little before my time. I was more a Superhost guy. Supe used to show kids' drawings off on his Saturday double-feature show, and frequently showed off mine. That kind of early validation probably got me into an art career as much as anything else.
The House of the Writing Son
I’m sitting in the airport, just waiting to get on my flight back to Clevesburg. And as I reflect back on my time in Los Angeles (cue flashback music) I realize that I can’t wrap up the trip without commenting on my friend, now good friend, Eugene Son. Check out his site. You've probably already seen his cartoons.
Eugene graciously put me up at his house, saving me from a week of staying in an alleyway refrigerator box, which are nowhere near as comfortable as you might think. Eugene wasn’t alone in taking the brunt of my freeloading though, as Mrs. Eugene and their lovely children, Thing #1 and Thing #2 got to experience my presence as well.
They could not have been nicer. Seriously. For example, they’re not coffee drinkers, but the lovely Mrs. Eugene still made sure that there was a fresh cup of coffee for me every morning. I can’t even get my automatic coffee maker to do that. They fed me (well, I might add… man, that was good pasta casserole), housed me, and even let me crash Thing #1’s birthday party, despite the fact that I didn’t bring a present.
In fact, the only negative part of the whole trip was having Thing #2 beat me, fair and square, in a game of Connect Four. I should not be getting beat by someone whose age is less than the name of the game. Seriously, he must be some kind of evil genius kid or something, like that chicken who used to follow Foghorn Leghorn around. Yeah, that’s it.