Travelogue: 14-10-09
WHOA. Long time no update.
First of all, I'm sorry I've let these updates slide - we've just been having such a good time that I let it get away from me, somewhat.
FIRST OF ALL, comic-con. In the leadup to the Baltimore Comic Con, which Crow, Blindknight (Tom, for convenience) and myself attended, I was nose deep in finishing my entry to the 50-girls-50 competition and getting some folios together for distribution. Kinko's managed to eat a significant amount of money - bloody print errors - but we made it to the con without a hitch, and the experience itself? Mindblowing.
Imagine several thousand nerds of all races, creeds, genders and levels of cleanliness, leafing feverishly through vast bins of comics, browsing racks of trade paperbacks and tossing through buckets of action figures. There were people in costume, people in superhero tshirts, people in booths and people in awe. I was particularly lucky, in that I was accompanied by Crow, who was dressed as the Black Canary. I'll explain for the sake of any non-geek readers (hi, mum); the Black Canary is a crimefighter trained in martial arts, who possesses a 'sonic scream' that can injure people and destroy large objects - and who wears a leotard, fishnet stockings, a short jacket and a blonde wig. Needless to say, everyone was VERY helpful in directing us to things. Crow even managed to find a Green Arrow (a sort of modern-day robin hood, who's in love with the Black Canary). We got a ton of amazing pictures.
The first day I mostly spend stumbling around in awe, staring at the rank upon rank of booths. It made our own conventions look REALLY tiny, but I missed the familiar faces. We went to see Matt Wagner, creator of Grendel and a fantastic artist/writer, speak on a panel about his upcoming Zorro series, but the main event I was hanging out for was the announcement of the finalists for the 50-girls-50 contest. This illustration contest, which I had spend a painstaking 8 days prepping my entry for, offered a contract for a 4 issue series to the winner, published with Image and paying a whopping 3 grand an issue. I missed the first part of the panel, having accidentally wandered into the George Perez guest panel and being unable to extricate myself (George apparently drew half the marvel/DC universe, is something of an institution and is a delightfully campy guy. I feel compelled to read more of his stuff). When we finally found the Image panel, we were just in time to catch Frank Cho announcing the list of finalists... and I wasn't among them. Yes, it was a bit of a blow, but when I saw the calibre of the other entries it reminded me just how far i have to come as a comic artist. That isn't defeatist, by the way - seeing all those proffessionals just inspired me to try harder.
We consoled ourselves with a little retail therapy. Paying less than $10 US for a comic trade paperback, and sometimes as little as $5, certainly encouraged me to blow holes in my budget. But I think it was worth it. The massive stack of comics sitting at my feet certainly agrees with me. I had a pile of books I wanted signing, but none of my favourite artists were hanging around - the lines to Rob Liefeld and J Scott Campbell obscured most of the tables, and the last thing I wanted was to see Rob, the man who anatomy forgot. So I dragged poor Crow after me, and we went review hunting.
Obtaining a folio review was harder than I thought. None of the big companies (Image, Dark Horse, Dynamite) were offering reviews, so it was with a heavy heart that I stumbled across Top Cow's booth. Top Cow publishes a comic called Witchblade, about a young lady with some kind of organic-metallic fungus for a weapon/costume - the art is fairly decent, though, so I was hopeful. Luckily, they WERE accepting reviews - just not now.
I came back at the allotted 3pm, and hung around hopefully until the harrassed editor took my folio and gave it a leafthrough. He liked my figure-work, at least - he enjoyed the facial expressions, and the composition was mostly solid. He didn't have much to say about my colouring, so I guess that passed muster enough - his biggest critique was my inking. I very definitely need to work on that, and he directed me at some good books to try. I have to admit, I'm pretty wobbly with Inking. However, he was mostly happy with my pencilling, and told me to look for work in a pencilling capacity first and foremost. He was kind enough to give me his card, and told me to email him every six months with a new folio. I call that a bonus.
Our hotel that evening was lacking in a few important functions, like a kettle, but the room was big and cosy and the bed was soft. I'm still bewildered by how terrible much american TV is - and how amazingly good the Discovery Channel is. I'd honestly get cable just for that alone. 24-hour documentaries? Yes PLEASE. I'd brought food along with me to cut costs somewhat, but I hadn't counted on having a Boy with us (hi, tom) and being quite as hungry as we were. We spent the evening eating junk food and pouring through my pile of comics. Not bad, not bad.
The next day? Sheer MADNESS. I'd decided to try and track down a figurine for Rowan, because being mauled by a 13-year-old for not bringing home a present is not high on my list of priorities. I ended up with another armful of comics (the customs guys are going to hate me), a signature from Matt Wagner and his assurance that inking with markers is not in fact cheating, and we eventually blundered our way into the Stan Sakai panel.
for the uninitiated, Stan is a tiny little japanese man who writes and draws Usagi Yojimbo, a comic about a samurai rabbit. Not only was he astonishingly sweet and helpful, and oldschools the SHIT out of the inking process, but he did a demonstration of the thumbnailing process and used MY con experience to illustrate it. That's right. I have a personalised stan sakai scribble, of me running around a convention. I walked on air for HOURS.
After that? well, in the post-sakai glow, I managed to ditch a folio at another small publisher (top shelf, i think it was), get a signature from Robert Kirkman (creator of Walking Dead) and spot a whole pile of amazing costumes. There was one chap who'd made an Iron-man suit from SCRATCH, which was startlingly impressive, but the Skeletor behind him was pretty darned spiffy as well. A guy wandering around in a skintight purple suit with a skull mask has that affect on people. However, Western Australia should feel pretty proud of itself - our cosplay is on average miles better than the Baltimore standard. Rock on.
Must run, more scribbling to do! Love you all,
Pixie
First of all, I'm sorry I've let these updates slide - we've just been having such a good time that I let it get away from me, somewhat.
FIRST OF ALL, comic-con. In the leadup to the Baltimore Comic Con, which Crow, Blindknight (Tom, for convenience) and myself attended, I was nose deep in finishing my entry to the 50-girls-50 competition and getting some folios together for distribution. Kinko's managed to eat a significant amount of money - bloody print errors - but we made it to the con without a hitch, and the experience itself? Mindblowing.
Imagine several thousand nerds of all races, creeds, genders and levels of cleanliness, leafing feverishly through vast bins of comics, browsing racks of trade paperbacks and tossing through buckets of action figures. There were people in costume, people in superhero tshirts, people in booths and people in awe. I was particularly lucky, in that I was accompanied by Crow, who was dressed as the Black Canary. I'll explain for the sake of any non-geek readers (hi, mum); the Black Canary is a crimefighter trained in martial arts, who possesses a 'sonic scream' that can injure people and destroy large objects - and who wears a leotard, fishnet stockings, a short jacket and a blonde wig. Needless to say, everyone was VERY helpful in directing us to things. Crow even managed to find a Green Arrow (a sort of modern-day robin hood, who's in love with the Black Canary). We got a ton of amazing pictures.
The first day I mostly spend stumbling around in awe, staring at the rank upon rank of booths. It made our own conventions look REALLY tiny, but I missed the familiar faces. We went to see Matt Wagner, creator of Grendel and a fantastic artist/writer, speak on a panel about his upcoming Zorro series, but the main event I was hanging out for was the announcement of the finalists for the 50-girls-50 contest. This illustration contest, which I had spend a painstaking 8 days prepping my entry for, offered a contract for a 4 issue series to the winner, published with Image and paying a whopping 3 grand an issue. I missed the first part of the panel, having accidentally wandered into the George Perez guest panel and being unable to extricate myself (George apparently drew half the marvel/DC universe, is something of an institution and is a delightfully campy guy. I feel compelled to read more of his stuff). When we finally found the Image panel, we were just in time to catch Frank Cho announcing the list of finalists... and I wasn't among them. Yes, it was a bit of a blow, but when I saw the calibre of the other entries it reminded me just how far i have to come as a comic artist. That isn't defeatist, by the way - seeing all those proffessionals just inspired me to try harder.
We consoled ourselves with a little retail therapy. Paying less than $10 US for a comic trade paperback, and sometimes as little as $5, certainly encouraged me to blow holes in my budget. But I think it was worth it. The massive stack of comics sitting at my feet certainly agrees with me. I had a pile of books I wanted signing, but none of my favourite artists were hanging around - the lines to Rob Liefeld and J Scott Campbell obscured most of the tables, and the last thing I wanted was to see Rob, the man who anatomy forgot. So I dragged poor Crow after me, and we went review hunting.
Obtaining a folio review was harder than I thought. None of the big companies (Image, Dark Horse, Dynamite) were offering reviews, so it was with a heavy heart that I stumbled across Top Cow's booth. Top Cow publishes a comic called Witchblade, about a young lady with some kind of organic-metallic fungus for a weapon/costume - the art is fairly decent, though, so I was hopeful. Luckily, they WERE accepting reviews - just not now.
I came back at the allotted 3pm, and hung around hopefully until the harrassed editor took my folio and gave it a leafthrough. He liked my figure-work, at least - he enjoyed the facial expressions, and the composition was mostly solid. He didn't have much to say about my colouring, so I guess that passed muster enough - his biggest critique was my inking. I very definitely need to work on that, and he directed me at some good books to try. I have to admit, I'm pretty wobbly with Inking. However, he was mostly happy with my pencilling, and told me to look for work in a pencilling capacity first and foremost. He was kind enough to give me his card, and told me to email him every six months with a new folio. I call that a bonus.
Our hotel that evening was lacking in a few important functions, like a kettle, but the room was big and cosy and the bed was soft. I'm still bewildered by how terrible much american TV is - and how amazingly good the Discovery Channel is. I'd honestly get cable just for that alone. 24-hour documentaries? Yes PLEASE. I'd brought food along with me to cut costs somewhat, but I hadn't counted on having a Boy with us (hi, tom) and being quite as hungry as we were. We spent the evening eating junk food and pouring through my pile of comics. Not bad, not bad.
The next day? Sheer MADNESS. I'd decided to try and track down a figurine for Rowan, because being mauled by a 13-year-old for not bringing home a present is not high on my list of priorities. I ended up with another armful of comics (the customs guys are going to hate me), a signature from Matt Wagner and his assurance that inking with markers is not in fact cheating, and we eventually blundered our way into the Stan Sakai panel.
for the uninitiated, Stan is a tiny little japanese man who writes and draws Usagi Yojimbo, a comic about a samurai rabbit. Not only was he astonishingly sweet and helpful, and oldschools the SHIT out of the inking process, but he did a demonstration of the thumbnailing process and used MY con experience to illustrate it. That's right. I have a personalised stan sakai scribble, of me running around a convention. I walked on air for HOURS.
After that? well, in the post-sakai glow, I managed to ditch a folio at another small publisher (top shelf, i think it was), get a signature from Robert Kirkman (creator of Walking Dead) and spot a whole pile of amazing costumes. There was one chap who'd made an Iron-man suit from SCRATCH, which was startlingly impressive, but the Skeletor behind him was pretty darned spiffy as well. A guy wandering around in a skintight purple suit with a skull mask has that affect on people. However, Western Australia should feel pretty proud of itself - our cosplay is on average miles better than the Baltimore standard. Rock on.
Must run, more scribbling to do! Love you all,
Pixie