FallCon report!
This year, I was determined to get on Adam Hughes' commission list, so I got up at 6:00 a.m. to get to the Fairgrounds at 7:00 a.m.. When I got there, I was surprised, somewhat, to see I wasn't the first one there o-O! I was, in fact, 7th in line behind 6 others who had also arrived early to stakeout a place in Adam's commission list. 2 people had started their stakeout at 2:30 a.m.! I later found out that 1 of those 2 only got there early because he left his hotel keys and other valuables locked inside the Grandstand convention area while helping his local comic shop setup their table, so basically, he had nowhere else to go. Of the 6 guys who were there before me, at least one of them was from CANADA while another was from Alabama! They had all flown or driven all the way to MN just to get a sketch from Adam! I guess luck would NOT be on my side, again --;, but I stayed anyway just to see if I could still make it. I'm not sure I could ever compete with these guys on stakeouts if I had to be there at 2:30 a.m. by my self at night all alone.
They talked amongst themselves mainly about Adam's work, what they wanted to commission, other comic book stuff, etc.. They did ask me what I wanted to commission Adam for, and I said Jem. They did say that obscurity might give me somewhat of an advantage of being picked by Adam for a sketch if his partner, Allison Sohn, showed up too. I tried contacting Allison dozens of times last year via e-mail over a 3-4 month period to get copies of Adam's 2007 color sketchbook for my friends. She only e-mailed me back ONCE, and I never heard from her again. I ended up going to Stuart Ng Books and eBay to get the copies I needed. I sadly found out later, when the convention was open, that Adam still had copies of his 2007 color sketchbook for sale, D'OH X(! I thought they were pretty much sold out, so I resorted going elsewhere to finding them.
I brought With the Light vol. 3 to read, but I did linger in-and-out of their conversation a few times. I only managed to read about 1/3 of the book before I packed it away when convention time got near. We were joined by other people maybe within a half hour after I arrived at 7:30 a.m. o~O! I later figured the main reason for all the early arrivals were because of MNCBA's 20th anniversary celebration. To dedicate the historic event, MNCBA gave out 5 blank art cards to all the artists attending the convention as well as some other well known comic artists such as Jim Lee, John Romita, Alex Ross, Fred Perry, Art Baltazar, etc.. I think there were somewhere around 1000 cards TOTAL from 140+ different artists. You can see a COMPLETE gallery of all the cards posted here sorted by each artist's name. About 950+ cards would be GIVEN AWAY over the 2 days of the convention via random draw. You had to be among the first 400 or so attendees each day in order to get a chance to draw a card from the massive pile. One card from each artist was saved though for the big charity auction on Sunday which I talk about later. By the time the convention was ready to open, the line stretched for at least 1/4 of a mile long O-O! FallCon has NEVER had a line that long ever! As part of the first 7 people there, I was indeed guaranteed a card draw though.
As soon as I paid for my admission, I made a dash for Adam's table where the other 6 were already lined up. I spent another half hour waiting there for Adam to show up. He was waiting for a shuttle from his hotel to the Fairgrounds. Another 10+ people lined up behind me o~O! While waiting in line, again, I was worried I wouldn't be able to get on Gene Ha's stunt list this year for McKenzie/nidarichards, so I called Gene up on my cellphone. I luckily had Gene's number stored in my cellphone from when I did the Mary Marvel stunt 2 years back. I'm not sure if Gene is scared or not that I still had his cellphone number or not though ^^;. He didn't pick up the first time I called, but he did the second. I reserved a 3rd place spot on his list after I explained to him where I was. I think he and a couple other of the regular artists at FallCon (i.e. the Moy brothers) knew I had been trying to get a spot on Adam's commission list for several years now ;b. When Adam finally arrived, he quickly took down our names and listed them. I mentioned to Adam this was my 10th try to get on his list even though it's actually the 11th or 12th year, and he made a special note of that! Even though I was 7th in line, he said I might make it this year because it had been my 10th try, but nothing was for certain still because I was #7. It was better than my previous years when I got there too late to even get on the list. Allison wasn't there even though she was supposed to come. When I went back to Adam's table later to buy copies of his 2008 sketchbook for Chris/rashomonchb and myself, I told Adam about my frustration on trying to contact Allison in buying his 2007 color sketchbook directly from him. He said he would talk to Allison about it later. He did say Allison wasn't feeling well lately, but I had tried to contact Allison last summer ;P.
My next stop was Gene's table which I couldn't find in the new venue, so I had to ask one of the FallCon volunteers for help. Supposedly, from what I overheard in the conversation with the other Adam Hughes fans, the layout for the Grandstand was similar to the old Education Building's arrangement for the artists except bigger. I guess that only applied to Adam and Chad Spilker whose art resembles Adam's quite a bit in terms of curvy cheesecake ^^;. I commissioned Chad one year for mooncatx! Back to Gene, when I talked on the phone with Gene earlier, he actually said he would just do a sketch for me without a stunt. I said McKenzie INSISTED I be a guinea pig for her this year, so I had to do a stunt. Unfortunately, Gene was clueless at the time when I actually found him about a stunt, so he told me to come back again later when he would hopefully have an idea.
After Gene, I took care of some business I had been trying to do since earlier this summer before finally being able to look around the convention! The convention area was now nearly double or more in size and filled to the capacity with people, artists, and dealers! It's still nowhere near as big as any of the big famous conventions, but it was pretty sizable compared to FallCons of the past. I noticed there were now ANIME and MANGA dealers AND artists in the room 8D! It looked as if FallCon had merged with Detour or Kakkoi Con a bit! EEEEEEEEEEE! I got several manga-type comics from the artists that came and 2 sketches:
Dawn and Piplup from Pokémon by Sam Boyd
00 from Build Your Own Boyfriend by Maciek Smuga
I actually 'won' the second sketch from a raffle at Studio Anti Thesis' table! One booth was purely filled with anime plushies 8}! There were tons of Nintendo and Totoro plushies as well as chibi/super-deformed character plushies! I bought myself a Totoro pillow head and a Totoro soft plush purse! Another booth near the front of the con had cellphone charms and keychains galore. They were also at Kakkoi Con recently, so I had everything I had wanted from their booth already. There was also a mini parachute fabric stargate in the back for people to pose in front of to take pictures! I wanted to pose in front of it to take a photo too, but I really didn't have time to do so.
After looking at just a few booths on Adam's side of the con/the west side from the entrance and in actual direction, I realized it was almost about 12:30 p.m. and time for me to line up for the Saturday's random card draw! I spent another half hour waiting in already large line for the random card draw. I think I spent most of Saturday basically waiting in one line or another --;, and I was stuck on the west side for over half the day! After they started the card drawing with everyone picking a card at random while they were face down on the table, I already heard a few cheers and clapping as cards from the big name artists were picked. I was able to glance at the cards earlier a little bit and, besides the big name artists, there was one card of a happy roll of toilet paper and poo that caught my eye from an artist who I didn't recognize. If at the very least, I wanted to pick that card if I could =}. When it was my turn, I closed my eyes, ruffled a few cards, and picked this!
Spider-Man by John Romita, Sr.!
I think Nick, from Source, who was also on with the FallCon staff as part of the Minnesota/Midwest Comic Book Association/MNCBA, could not believe my luck, again XD! One of the FallCon staff took a picture of me with the card, but I have no idea where that photo is. I did suspect that if I did this well on Saturday, I wouldn't do so well on Sunday.
I also sadly found out that because of all my line waiting, I missed Dr. Kakalios' lecture of the physics of The Watchmen which he had premiered in San Diego this summer ;(! I keep missing his comic physics talks at FallCon, ARGH X(! Sigh, maybe he'll give the talk again next year. I heard it was AWESOME though from one of the guys from Source. It was full of physics 'fun' and previews from the upcoming Watchmen movie too!
After I picked my card, I looked around the west side a bit more. I wanted to see Don Rosa again and have him sign copies of my trade paperbacks of The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck and the companion book, but his table always seemed very busy and full of people. I think I circled back to his table maybe 3-4 times before finally plunking down and waiting in line for my turn. I was thrilled he could return to FallCon again! His stories are so rich, detailed, and very faithful to Carl Barks' continuity and history! The last time he came to FallCon, I brought all my Life and Times of $crooge McDuck single issues in for signing, and I bought several of his Duck poster parodies of famous comic book covers! I really wish he would print those in some sort of limited book or something, but he's afraid Disney, Marvel, and DC would go after him for doing so. I don't think any of them would mind a limited printing for his own sake and his fans though. The comic book cover parodies are hilarious! Where else can you see Donald Duck lifting a car ala Superman or Daisy Duck dressed as Wonder Woman? They're all so amazing! I wish I could afford to buy them all, but there are just too many. When it was finally my turn, I asked for a quick head sketch of a happy Donald to match the $crooge sketch I had gotten from him 4 years ago:
$crooge and Donald by Don Rosa!
I wanted to attend his talk on Sunday, but that meant I couldn't pick up my Dad from the airport and asking my Uncle to do so instead ;b. I made a very last minute decision Saturday night to not go to the airport because FallCon was just too big this year to handle in one day, especially if all I did was wait in line.
After I was done with Don's table, I finally headed over to the east side of the Grandstand. I checked in with Gene to see if he had an idea for my stunt, and he did indeed after seeing our local Thor walk around a few times. Gene wanted me to sing the Thor theme song from the 60s cartoon show, which I have no idea about, while he and another chump guy would carry me over their shoulders wearing Thor's helmet while carrying Mjöllnir, Thor's hammer. Unfortunately or fortunately, Gene couldn't find the lyrics for that obscure cartoon series from anyone, but I made up for that by screaming like a little girl when they hoisted me up! I'm putting these photos outside the LJ cut just for attention sake XD!
WOOOOOHOOOOOOO! EEEEEEEEEK!
Help me! I'm falling!
I couldn't stop screaming actually because I felt as if I was going to fall all the time ^^;. The plan WAS to carry me ALL across the convention floor, but we only managed to do one aisle --;. I kept slipping from balance, and Gene and the other guy had to put me down a few times before re-hoisting me up. Gene said he had no problems carrying my weight, but the other guy did. I thought it might have been because Gene was taller than the other guy myself. Later, as you can see in the last 2 photos, Gene carried all ~180 lbs of ME on his back by himself because I kept slipping o-O! I'm always amazed at just how strong Gene is! I wonder how much he can bench press? Anyway, as you can see in the last photo, I fell backward, so the other guy supported me there. Eventually, I crashed to the floor and fell on my right knee which turned bright red the next day. After seeing us gallivant down the one aisle and later crashing, Thor had second thoughts about lending us his gear for the stunt and asked they be returned to him. That was basically the end of it. It was fun being held up so high. I never rode piggy back before, so it was a first for me. Anyway, I earned my stunt for McKenzie/nidarichards, and I think she will be pleased with the photos and Gene's drawing.
I showed off my photos to people I knew around the con. I think only Darla/mugmoni, Jessica/arletta, and maybe Grant/gdg heard me scream and knew Gene was up to something, but they said they didn't know it was me until I showed them the photos later XD! I sent links and copies of the photos to Gene and Source, so they might pop up elsewhere later.
Besides Darla, Jessica, and Grant, I also saw Meredith/uminomamori and Rana/chibitoaster sharing a table! I also saw Josh Howard and Otis Frampton/otisframpton, and I got my copies of Dead@17 signed by Josh and T-Bird and Throttle #0 signed by Josh, Otis, and Jessica 8D! I have a triple signed comic X)! I also picked up some art!
Poison Ivy by Darla Ecklund
Oddly from Oddly Normal dressed as Wonder Woman by Jessica Hickman
R2-D2 by Otis Frampton
Eve from The Books of Eve by Josh Howard
I also finally found Chandra's/rous' table right next to Jessica's table! I had bumped into Chandra on the west side of the Grandstand twice before I finally reached her around 3:30 p.m. o~O! Like I said, most of my day was spent on the east side standing in line --;. She had several awesome new ink paintings including this one which was too cute to resist not buying!
Splinter and the young turtles from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Chandra Reyer
We talked about a lot of geeky things including Doctor Who, Totoro, Manimal, Automan, etc.. Yeah, I love those old '80 shows that didn't last a single season X}! Cursor, from Automan, loved boobies XD! I was bummed that the night before, I missed out on getting the Totoro Forest Project Art Book from Stuart Ng Books ;(! I didn't even know when the books came out, and they were gone already! Stuart Ng Books was charging $95.00 for the $40.00 book X(! I really hope they reprint it in a larger release, so I can get a copy!
On Sunday, I got there around 8:00 a.m. because I feared there would be a large line-up like Saturday. To my surprise, there wasn't much of a line-up this time, but I still wasn't first in line. 3 boys beat me to that spot. The weather was much grimmer too. It started raining hard after a half hour, so everyone started huddling near the building edges to keep dry. The FallCon staff eventually took pity on us and let us all in 10 minutes early. I got another card for the free sketch card drawing too!
I stopped by the Moy brothers' table to say, "Hi," on Sunday because I didn't have time on Saturday before the convention closed for the wedding of 2 FallCon volunteers named Mike and Lisa on the second floor of the Grandstand. When I first read about the wedding on the FallCon flier, I almost thought they were referring to Lisa/taeha and Mike/hawkstone, but they were in Canada and already married months ago ;b! I showed the Moys my bruised knee from Saturday's stunt, and Jeff said he was going to give Gene some grief for dropping a fan XD! I think I spent most of Sunday re-visiting everyone's booth and showing off my knee ;P. I showed Gene it as well. I think it looked worse than it actually was. It's still tender to the touch today, but I can't feel it all when I walk.
I went early on Sunday because I wanted to get on Dan Brereton's commission list! I had NO idea Dan would be there until someone told me on Saturday o~O! I didn't bring any of my Nocturnals books with me, so I purchased a variant cover of his latest book, Nocturnals: Carnival of Beasts, for signing. I bought a copy of it, but I got the regular cover. Dan's commission list was filled up on Saturday, so he told me to try again early on Sunday. I got in just in time, and I eventually picked up this beauty of Halloween Girl at the very end of the con:
Halloween Girl from Nocturnals by Dan Brereton
Dan was experimenting with a book of colored paper for drawing! He also told me his mom was a quilter hence Halloween Girl's love of patches!
I stood in line for my second draw from MCBA's sketch card lot, and, as I predicted, I didn't pick a big name card this time around. I did get this card though.
Harrison Ford/Rick Deckard from Blade Runner by Terry Pavlet
I had absolutely NO idea who this card was of until I asked someone I knew at the Source to identify him for me. I never saw Blade Runner, so I had no clue. Harrison Ford's hairstyle in this movie also threw me off on identifying him. One of the 3 boys that were ahead of me in line on Sunday pulled one of Adam's Catwoman cards o-O! I found out today they foolishly sold it to this dealer who is now hawking it on eBay for $480.00 X(! I wonder how much he actually gave the boy for it? I surmise it's not as much as he's asking for it now though >8(! It also looks as if he bought a lot of other cards too including the Alex Ross Joker card which he's looking to sell for $2000.00! %*#_!*%* scalper! I'm SO glad he didn't win the charity auction complete artist card set! The winner for that was my friend Nick from Source who bid $5000.00 for them. I know he will keep the cards and not scalp them on eBay!
Anyway, I was able to attend Don Rosa's talk on Duck comics in the international market after the card drawing.
Don Rosa!
Apparently, Duck comics are THE #1 best selling comic in the world EXCEPT for the U.S. o~O! MILLIONS of copies of Duck comics are sold every month worldwide, and Don is a big name all around the world except for the U.S.. Even the best selling comic books here in the U.S. sell only tens of thousands of copies which is a piddly drop in the bucket compared to the international market for Duck comics. Comics were a cheap form of entertainment for Europeans after World War II, and they just kept reading. I started reading comics because of Disney and Duck comics myself, and the stories and art are still wonderful. I don't understand why they don't do better here, in the country of their origin, too. Don said the only other place in the world where Duck comics don't do well is the UK, and he said they haven't figured out why either. Gemstone, the current publisher for Disney comics, is actually LOSING money publishing them, but the head of the company, a long time Duck comic fan, is doing it just to make sure the U.S. has their Duck comics. THANK YOU, GEMSTONE! I've been so jealous of the foreign market's comics for years, so I'm grateful someone has brought some of those back to the U.S.! Now if I can just get someone to publish Disney's shojo comics like W.I.T.C.H. and Disney Fairies here, I would be in heaven X)!
Don also mentioned that he has NO formal art training o-O! His drawing skills come from being a civil engineer! He suspects he isn't too popular here in the U.S. because comic book publishers here thinks he draws like a civil engineer and not an artist XD!
Right after Don's talk was the big charity auction! Unfortunately, since the 2nd floor of the Grandstand was used for the wedding, the auction was held in the same small curtained-off area used for all the talks. Since I was there by myself, I was able to find a single chair open for me to sit. Otherwise, it was pretty much standing-room-only for everyone else not on the 20 chairs that they had available. Like I said before, the big ticket item was the complete set of artist sketch cards which went to Nick for $5000.00. I won a few small cheap pieces myself:
Superman by Kevin Steward and inked by Mark Stegbauer
Zuko from Avatar by Brandon Wind
Get a Horse! with Herbie, the Batmobile, and K.I.T.T. by Kevin Wind
Yeah, I couldn't resist the cars X)! There was a running joke that the auction should have been called the Mark Stegbauer Hour because almost every inked piece in the auction was inked by Mark XD! There were at least 30-40 different pieces inked by Mark o-O! I guess he is THE inker to go to for FallCon work. I commissioned him do a piece for a me years ago when FallCon was still at the CrappyThunderbird that I need to scan in someday. I do regret NOT bidding on one of Dan Brereton's small color paintings. It went for pretty cheap I thought, so I really regret not trying for it --;. The auction went VERY fast this year because there was a ton of art and comics donated for it, so Nick deferred from being the auctioneer. I like hearing Nick as the auctioneer, but the auction tends to go a LOT slower because of his detailed explanations of the items and people behind them.
Considering what was sold, a lot of things went for pretty cheap this year. Dan Jurgens' large splash page for Booster Gold with dozens of characters flying the air went for only $200.00 o-O. Gene's cover page for Top 10 Season 2 cover went for only $200.00 too o-o. A framed autographed print for Greg Horn's cover to Emma Frost went for only $35.00. An autographed Alex Ross poster book, DC Origins, went for only $25.00. In other years, I've seen similar work go for at least double the amount they went for this year. I guess the economic crisis put a damper on the bidding. If I had more money, I would have tried for more things too ;b.
In all, despite the early morning rises I had to do for both Saturday and Sunday, I had a blast! I still don't know why I can't convince anyone here to join me for a Gene Ha stunt though =/. He makes each and every FallCon I go to memorable X)!
They talked amongst themselves mainly about Adam's work, what they wanted to commission, other comic book stuff, etc.. They did ask me what I wanted to commission Adam for, and I said Jem. They did say that obscurity might give me somewhat of an advantage of being picked by Adam for a sketch if his partner, Allison Sohn, showed up too. I tried contacting Allison dozens of times last year via e-mail over a 3-4 month period to get copies of Adam's 2007 color sketchbook for my friends. She only e-mailed me back ONCE, and I never heard from her again. I ended up going to Stuart Ng Books and eBay to get the copies I needed. I sadly found out later, when the convention was open, that Adam still had copies of his 2007 color sketchbook for sale, D'OH X(! I thought they were pretty much sold out, so I resorted going elsewhere to finding them.
I brought With the Light vol. 3 to read, but I did linger in-and-out of their conversation a few times. I only managed to read about 1/3 of the book before I packed it away when convention time got near. We were joined by other people maybe within a half hour after I arrived at 7:30 a.m. o~O! I later figured the main reason for all the early arrivals were because of MNCBA's 20th anniversary celebration. To dedicate the historic event, MNCBA gave out 5 blank art cards to all the artists attending the convention as well as some other well known comic artists such as Jim Lee, John Romita, Alex Ross, Fred Perry, Art Baltazar, etc.. I think there were somewhere around 1000 cards TOTAL from 140+ different artists. You can see a COMPLETE gallery of all the cards posted here sorted by each artist's name. About 950+ cards would be GIVEN AWAY over the 2 days of the convention via random draw. You had to be among the first 400 or so attendees each day in order to get a chance to draw a card from the massive pile. One card from each artist was saved though for the big charity auction on Sunday which I talk about later. By the time the convention was ready to open, the line stretched for at least 1/4 of a mile long O-O! FallCon has NEVER had a line that long ever! As part of the first 7 people there, I was indeed guaranteed a card draw though.
As soon as I paid for my admission, I made a dash for Adam's table where the other 6 were already lined up. I spent another half hour waiting there for Adam to show up. He was waiting for a shuttle from his hotel to the Fairgrounds. Another 10+ people lined up behind me o~O! While waiting in line, again, I was worried I wouldn't be able to get on Gene Ha's stunt list this year for McKenzie/nidarichards, so I called Gene up on my cellphone. I luckily had Gene's number stored in my cellphone from when I did the Mary Marvel stunt 2 years back. I'm not sure if Gene is scared or not that I still had his cellphone number or not though ^^;. He didn't pick up the first time I called, but he did the second. I reserved a 3rd place spot on his list after I explained to him where I was. I think he and a couple other of the regular artists at FallCon (i.e. the Moy brothers) knew I had been trying to get a spot on Adam's commission list for several years now ;b. When Adam finally arrived, he quickly took down our names and listed them. I mentioned to Adam this was my 10th try to get on his list even though it's actually the 11th or 12th year, and he made a special note of that! Even though I was 7th in line, he said I might make it this year because it had been my 10th try, but nothing was for certain still because I was #7. It was better than my previous years when I got there too late to even get on the list. Allison wasn't there even though she was supposed to come. When I went back to Adam's table later to buy copies of his 2008 sketchbook for Chris/rashomonchb and myself, I told Adam about my frustration on trying to contact Allison in buying his 2007 color sketchbook directly from him. He said he would talk to Allison about it later. He did say Allison wasn't feeling well lately, but I had tried to contact Allison last summer ;P.
My next stop was Gene's table which I couldn't find in the new venue, so I had to ask one of the FallCon volunteers for help. Supposedly, from what I overheard in the conversation with the other Adam Hughes fans, the layout for the Grandstand was similar to the old Education Building's arrangement for the artists except bigger. I guess that only applied to Adam and Chad Spilker whose art resembles Adam's quite a bit in terms of curvy cheesecake ^^;. I commissioned Chad one year for mooncatx! Back to Gene, when I talked on the phone with Gene earlier, he actually said he would just do a sketch for me without a stunt. I said McKenzie INSISTED I be a guinea pig for her this year, so I had to do a stunt. Unfortunately, Gene was clueless at the time when I actually found him about a stunt, so he told me to come back again later when he would hopefully have an idea.
After Gene, I took care of some business I had been trying to do since earlier this summer before finally being able to look around the convention! The convention area was now nearly double or more in size and filled to the capacity with people, artists, and dealers! It's still nowhere near as big as any of the big famous conventions, but it was pretty sizable compared to FallCons of the past. I noticed there were now ANIME and MANGA dealers AND artists in the room 8D! It looked as if FallCon had merged with Detour or Kakkoi Con a bit! EEEEEEEEEEE! I got several manga-type comics from the artists that came and 2 sketches:
Dawn and Piplup from Pokémon by Sam Boyd
00 from Build Your Own Boyfriend by Maciek Smuga
I actually 'won' the second sketch from a raffle at Studio Anti Thesis' table! One booth was purely filled with anime plushies 8}! There were tons of Nintendo and Totoro plushies as well as chibi/super-deformed character plushies! I bought myself a Totoro pillow head and a Totoro soft plush purse! Another booth near the front of the con had cellphone charms and keychains galore. They were also at Kakkoi Con recently, so I had everything I had wanted from their booth already. There was also a mini parachute fabric stargate in the back for people to pose in front of to take pictures! I wanted to pose in front of it to take a photo too, but I really didn't have time to do so.
After looking at just a few booths on Adam's side of the con/the west side from the entrance and in actual direction, I realized it was almost about 12:30 p.m. and time for me to line up for the Saturday's random card draw! I spent another half hour waiting in already large line for the random card draw. I think I spent most of Saturday basically waiting in one line or another --;, and I was stuck on the west side for over half the day! After they started the card drawing with everyone picking a card at random while they were face down on the table, I already heard a few cheers and clapping as cards from the big name artists were picked. I was able to glance at the cards earlier a little bit and, besides the big name artists, there was one card of a happy roll of toilet paper and poo that caught my eye from an artist who I didn't recognize. If at the very least, I wanted to pick that card if I could =}. When it was my turn, I closed my eyes, ruffled a few cards, and picked this!
Spider-Man by John Romita, Sr.!
I think Nick, from Source, who was also on with the FallCon staff as part of the Minnesota/Midwest Comic Book Association/MNCBA, could not believe my luck, again XD! One of the FallCon staff took a picture of me with the card, but I have no idea where that photo is. I did suspect that if I did this well on Saturday, I wouldn't do so well on Sunday.
I also sadly found out that because of all my line waiting, I missed Dr. Kakalios' lecture of the physics of The Watchmen which he had premiered in San Diego this summer ;(! I keep missing his comic physics talks at FallCon, ARGH X(! Sigh, maybe he'll give the talk again next year. I heard it was AWESOME though from one of the guys from Source. It was full of physics 'fun' and previews from the upcoming Watchmen movie too!
After I picked my card, I looked around the west side a bit more. I wanted to see Don Rosa again and have him sign copies of my trade paperbacks of The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck and the companion book, but his table always seemed very busy and full of people. I think I circled back to his table maybe 3-4 times before finally plunking down and waiting in line for my turn. I was thrilled he could return to FallCon again! His stories are so rich, detailed, and very faithful to Carl Barks' continuity and history! The last time he came to FallCon, I brought all my Life and Times of $crooge McDuck single issues in for signing, and I bought several of his Duck poster parodies of famous comic book covers! I really wish he would print those in some sort of limited book or something, but he's afraid Disney, Marvel, and DC would go after him for doing so. I don't think any of them would mind a limited printing for his own sake and his fans though. The comic book cover parodies are hilarious! Where else can you see Donald Duck lifting a car ala Superman or Daisy Duck dressed as Wonder Woman? They're all so amazing! I wish I could afford to buy them all, but there are just too many. When it was finally my turn, I asked for a quick head sketch of a happy Donald to match the $crooge sketch I had gotten from him 4 years ago:
$crooge and Donald by Don Rosa!
I wanted to attend his talk on Sunday, but that meant I couldn't pick up my Dad from the airport and asking my Uncle to do so instead ;b. I made a very last minute decision Saturday night to not go to the airport because FallCon was just too big this year to handle in one day, especially if all I did was wait in line.
After I was done with Don's table, I finally headed over to the east side of the Grandstand. I checked in with Gene to see if he had an idea for my stunt, and he did indeed after seeing our local Thor walk around a few times. Gene wanted me to sing the Thor theme song from the 60s cartoon show, which I have no idea about, while he and another chump guy would carry me over their shoulders wearing Thor's helmet while carrying Mjöllnir, Thor's hammer. Unfortunately or fortunately, Gene couldn't find the lyrics for that obscure cartoon series from anyone, but I made up for that by screaming like a little girl when they hoisted me up! I'm putting these photos outside the LJ cut just for attention sake XD!
WOOOOOHOOOOOOO! EEEEEEEEEK!
Help me! I'm falling!
I couldn't stop screaming actually because I felt as if I was going to fall all the time ^^;. The plan WAS to carry me ALL across the convention floor, but we only managed to do one aisle --;. I kept slipping from balance, and Gene and the other guy had to put me down a few times before re-hoisting me up. Gene said he had no problems carrying my weight, but the other guy did. I thought it might have been because Gene was taller than the other guy myself. Later, as you can see in the last 2 photos, Gene carried all ~180 lbs of ME on his back by himself because I kept slipping o-O! I'm always amazed at just how strong Gene is! I wonder how much he can bench press? Anyway, as you can see in the last photo, I fell backward, so the other guy supported me there. Eventually, I crashed to the floor and fell on my right knee which turned bright red the next day. After seeing us gallivant down the one aisle and later crashing, Thor had second thoughts about lending us his gear for the stunt and asked they be returned to him. That was basically the end of it. It was fun being held up so high. I never rode piggy back before, so it was a first for me. Anyway, I earned my stunt for McKenzie/nidarichards, and I think she will be pleased with the photos and Gene's drawing.
I showed off my photos to people I knew around the con. I think only Darla/mugmoni, Jessica/arletta, and maybe Grant/gdg heard me scream and knew Gene was up to something, but they said they didn't know it was me until I showed them the photos later XD! I sent links and copies of the photos to Gene and Source, so they might pop up elsewhere later.
Besides Darla, Jessica, and Grant, I also saw Meredith/uminomamori and Rana/chibitoaster sharing a table! I also saw Josh Howard and Otis Frampton/otisframpton, and I got my copies of Dead@17 signed by Josh and T-Bird and Throttle #0 signed by Josh, Otis, and Jessica 8D! I have a triple signed comic X)! I also picked up some art!
Poison Ivy by Darla Ecklund
Oddly from Oddly Normal dressed as Wonder Woman by Jessica Hickman
R2-D2 by Otis Frampton
Eve from The Books of Eve by Josh Howard
I also finally found Chandra's/rous' table right next to Jessica's table! I had bumped into Chandra on the west side of the Grandstand twice before I finally reached her around 3:30 p.m. o~O! Like I said, most of my day was spent on the east side standing in line --;. She had several awesome new ink paintings including this one which was too cute to resist not buying!
Splinter and the young turtles from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Chandra Reyer
We talked about a lot of geeky things including Doctor Who, Totoro, Manimal, Automan, etc.. Yeah, I love those old '80 shows that didn't last a single season X}! Cursor, from Automan, loved boobies XD! I was bummed that the night before, I missed out on getting the Totoro Forest Project Art Book from Stuart Ng Books ;(! I didn't even know when the books came out, and they were gone already! Stuart Ng Books was charging $95.00 for the $40.00 book X(! I really hope they reprint it in a larger release, so I can get a copy!
On Sunday, I got there around 8:00 a.m. because I feared there would be a large line-up like Saturday. To my surprise, there wasn't much of a line-up this time, but I still wasn't first in line. 3 boys beat me to that spot. The weather was much grimmer too. It started raining hard after a half hour, so everyone started huddling near the building edges to keep dry. The FallCon staff eventually took pity on us and let us all in 10 minutes early. I got another card for the free sketch card drawing too!
I stopped by the Moy brothers' table to say, "Hi," on Sunday because I didn't have time on Saturday before the convention closed for the wedding of 2 FallCon volunteers named Mike and Lisa on the second floor of the Grandstand. When I first read about the wedding on the FallCon flier, I almost thought they were referring to Lisa/taeha and Mike/hawkstone, but they were in Canada and already married months ago ;b! I showed the Moys my bruised knee from Saturday's stunt, and Jeff said he was going to give Gene some grief for dropping a fan XD! I think I spent most of Sunday re-visiting everyone's booth and showing off my knee ;P. I showed Gene it as well. I think it looked worse than it actually was. It's still tender to the touch today, but I can't feel it all when I walk.
I went early on Sunday because I wanted to get on Dan Brereton's commission list! I had NO idea Dan would be there until someone told me on Saturday o~O! I didn't bring any of my Nocturnals books with me, so I purchased a variant cover of his latest book, Nocturnals: Carnival of Beasts, for signing. I bought a copy of it, but I got the regular cover. Dan's commission list was filled up on Saturday, so he told me to try again early on Sunday. I got in just in time, and I eventually picked up this beauty of Halloween Girl at the very end of the con:
Halloween Girl from Nocturnals by Dan Brereton
Dan was experimenting with a book of colored paper for drawing! He also told me his mom was a quilter hence Halloween Girl's love of patches!
I stood in line for my second draw from MCBA's sketch card lot, and, as I predicted, I didn't pick a big name card this time around. I did get this card though.
Harrison Ford/Rick Deckard from Blade Runner by Terry Pavlet
I had absolutely NO idea who this card was of until I asked someone I knew at the Source to identify him for me. I never saw Blade Runner, so I had no clue. Harrison Ford's hairstyle in this movie also threw me off on identifying him. One of the 3 boys that were ahead of me in line on Sunday pulled one of Adam's Catwoman cards o-O! I found out today they foolishly sold it to this dealer who is now hawking it on eBay for $480.00 X(! I wonder how much he actually gave the boy for it? I surmise it's not as much as he's asking for it now though >8(! It also looks as if he bought a lot of other cards too including the Alex Ross Joker card which he's looking to sell for $2000.00! %*#_!*%* scalper! I'm SO glad he didn't win the charity auction complete artist card set! The winner for that was my friend Nick from Source who bid $5000.00 for them. I know he will keep the cards and not scalp them on eBay!
Anyway, I was able to attend Don Rosa's talk on Duck comics in the international market after the card drawing.
Don Rosa!
Apparently, Duck comics are THE #1 best selling comic in the world EXCEPT for the U.S. o~O! MILLIONS of copies of Duck comics are sold every month worldwide, and Don is a big name all around the world except for the U.S.. Even the best selling comic books here in the U.S. sell only tens of thousands of copies which is a piddly drop in the bucket compared to the international market for Duck comics. Comics were a cheap form of entertainment for Europeans after World War II, and they just kept reading. I started reading comics because of Disney and Duck comics myself, and the stories and art are still wonderful. I don't understand why they don't do better here, in the country of their origin, too. Don said the only other place in the world where Duck comics don't do well is the UK, and he said they haven't figured out why either. Gemstone, the current publisher for Disney comics, is actually LOSING money publishing them, but the head of the company, a long time Duck comic fan, is doing it just to make sure the U.S. has their Duck comics. THANK YOU, GEMSTONE! I've been so jealous of the foreign market's comics for years, so I'm grateful someone has brought some of those back to the U.S.! Now if I can just get someone to publish Disney's shojo comics like W.I.T.C.H. and Disney Fairies here, I would be in heaven X)!
Don also mentioned that he has NO formal art training o-O! His drawing skills come from being a civil engineer! He suspects he isn't too popular here in the U.S. because comic book publishers here thinks he draws like a civil engineer and not an artist XD!
Right after Don's talk was the big charity auction! Unfortunately, since the 2nd floor of the Grandstand was used for the wedding, the auction was held in the same small curtained-off area used for all the talks. Since I was there by myself, I was able to find a single chair open for me to sit. Otherwise, it was pretty much standing-room-only for everyone else not on the 20 chairs that they had available. Like I said before, the big ticket item was the complete set of artist sketch cards which went to Nick for $5000.00. I won a few small cheap pieces myself:
Superman by Kevin Steward and inked by Mark Stegbauer
Zuko from Avatar by Brandon Wind
Get a Horse! with Herbie, the Batmobile, and K.I.T.T. by Kevin Wind
Yeah, I couldn't resist the cars X)! There was a running joke that the auction should have been called the Mark Stegbauer Hour because almost every inked piece in the auction was inked by Mark XD! There were at least 30-40 different pieces inked by Mark o-O! I guess he is THE inker to go to for FallCon work. I commissioned him do a piece for a me years ago when FallCon was still at the CrappyThunderbird that I need to scan in someday. I do regret NOT bidding on one of Dan Brereton's small color paintings. It went for pretty cheap I thought, so I really regret not trying for it --;. The auction went VERY fast this year because there was a ton of art and comics donated for it, so Nick deferred from being the auctioneer. I like hearing Nick as the auctioneer, but the auction tends to go a LOT slower because of his detailed explanations of the items and people behind them.
Considering what was sold, a lot of things went for pretty cheap this year. Dan Jurgens' large splash page for Booster Gold with dozens of characters flying the air went for only $200.00 o-O. Gene's cover page for Top 10 Season 2 cover went for only $200.00 too o-o. A framed autographed print for Greg Horn's cover to Emma Frost went for only $35.00. An autographed Alex Ross poster book, DC Origins, went for only $25.00. In other years, I've seen similar work go for at least double the amount they went for this year. I guess the economic crisis put a damper on the bidding. If I had more money, I would have tried for more things too ;b.
In all, despite the early morning rises I had to do for both Saturday and Sunday, I had a blast! I still don't know why I can't convince anyone here to join me for a Gene Ha stunt though =/. He makes each and every FallCon I go to memorable X)!