Con Report: C2E2 2012
A delightful photo of the two of us in our everyday ridiculous poses. Taken in the land if C2E2 by our amazing flatter Travis Perkins
Well, we’ve had enough time to recover and decompress from the madhouse of the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo, lovingly referred to by all as C2E2. It’s one of our biggest cons of the year, and did not disappoint this time around. But, man… that thing is almost verging on the difficult-to-pinpoint place where a con is too big to be fun. Almost. Or maybe we were just pooped out from Emerald City. Enough! Sketches and discourse to follow!
Our favorite sketch of the weekend. An incredible Jon Snow and Ghost from Game of Thrones by Adam
Our second favorite sketch - a Cloak and Dagger by Comfort
Chicago is a great town. One of our most frequent stops, there was a time where we were doing upward of four conventions there every year. We’ve got a lot of fans in the area, and there are a lot of people we look forward to seeing every time we’re in town. But the beauty of driving to Chicago is we can take a slight detour through our old stompin’ grounds of Grand Rapids, Michigan and see some of our favorite friends and family. So we started our trip two days before the show and got to spend time with Chris and Jennifer (two of our favorite people in the entire history of the planet - take that Millard Fillmore!) and do breakfast with Comfort’s mom, dad, and sister Joy. Then we popped in a new set of Adam’s mix CD’s and trekked onward to Comf’s aunt Rebecca who lives just outside Chicago. She’s kind enough to let us keep our car there and drive us downtown so we don’t have to pay for parking. Isn’t that sweet? We love Aunt Rebecca :D
Liandra From Fallen Angel by Comfort
Lady Blackhawk by Adam
Kyle Rayner Green Lantern by Comfort
So after two days of delightful people, we arrived at our hotel and set up at the con, then did dinner with yet another set of delightful people - our roomies for the weekend. This time around, we were staying with frequent mentions and friends of the show Bryan J.L. Glass and the inimitable Jeremy and Kelly Dale. Jeremy of one of the most fun art styles in comics and Kelly of one of THE most impressive Firestar sketchbook of all time. Needles to say, but we will anyway, it was a great time.
Samus from Metroid by Adam
Eleventh Doctor and the Astronaut by Comfort
An adorable young lady as Laura Croft by Adam
One of the best parts of C2E2 is that the Hyatt the con is attached to has a great lobby. Seriously, there are these big circles of couches and chairs and you can easily get a whole group in this nice, relaxed setting and enjoy each others’ company. It’s wonderful. Later in the evening, we were joined by Drew Gaska and the balletic, beautiful and perfectly unique Chandra Free. Even later, we were joined by fellow Michiganite (Michigander? Michiganian? Michimachimoomoo?) and dapper man-about-town, David Peterson. What followed, despite our desire to get to sleep at a decent hour, was a long conversation that began what would be a transformative weekend for us. There was little sleep to be had, but we regret nothing!!!
Arya Stark of Game of Thrones season 2 by Comfort
Ronin Warriors' Cye and Sekhmet by Adam
The convention began on Friday and was a madhouse. The thing was even bigger than last year, and last year it was humongous. We picked up a lot of sketches immediately, but were concerned on the comic front. See, it appeared as though our order of new books got split up in the mail, so only half our order arrived as intended. The missing half included all the new copies of Rainbow in the Dark vol. 2. We had sold out of our handful of remaining copies within an hour of the show opening that morning, and we were very worried about what would happen if the rest of the books didn’t arrive Saturday. Other than that concern, it was a wonderful day.
That night, we got to be part of the celebration of our dear friend Lora Innes’ birthday. We went out with her and a large group of fun people to an awesome sushi place and had a great night. Mutual friend and half of the inspiration for our character Kenji, comics journalist extraordinaire Steve Sunu had given her a tiny, adorable Captain America figure, and we spent the night saying patriotic things as him. Also: coming up with atrocious historical horror movie pitches to make her groan (Bunker Hell!!! Abraham Lincoln: Ghost Hunter!). Lora loves history and hates to see it messed with disrespectfully. Lora, therefore, found us to be jerkfaces. We loved it!
One of our favotie things of the whole weekend - Mustache Monicals bought for us by the amazing Steve Sunu!
A ballpoint pen sketch done on a massive of Kenji by the both of us, commissioned out by one of the inspirations for Kenji - you guessed it - Steve Sunu
A jam sketch in which Adam did the Superboy
Batman by Comfort
Saturday morning, our books arrived (thank heavens) and none too soon; the demand for Rainbow in the Dark books was almost overwhelming. Like we said, we’ve got a solid fanbase in Chicago, and they’re awesome. Some of these fans have been following our work since before we even had comics to sell, just enjoying the art we made. We’ll tell you - it does NOT get old, feeling like people like the things you create. It’s why we do what we do.
We weren’t doing our panel at this show, so we could just sit back and focus on running our table and drawing our sketches. And boy… there were a lot of sketches to do. But one thing we’ve been enjoying this year is how unusual the requests have been. By that we mean it’s been more than just “Batman!” “Wolverine!” “(insert obscure 70’s character with an atrocious and ultra-detailed costume here)!” We’ve been getting to do Game of Thrones art (AWESOME!) and lots of different Anime and Manga characters, cover recreation jam-pieces, Doctor Who stuff, video game stuff-just lots of variety. And variety keeps us happy, which makes us more creative and energized, which produces higher quality work.
You listening, people out there considering commissioning a sketch from us? ;)
Veronica Mars by Adam
Black Star by Comfort
Tenth Doctor by Adam
Saturday night we stayed in, squatting in the lobby couches and ordering food from a neat restaurant that had pretty solid veggie-burgers and nice, hearty salads. We sat with a group of friends and fans (a big shout out to Kevin Watkins, Chris Anon, Daron Kappauff, Jeff Ritter, Jeff Castaneda, and Serena Guerra) while we busted humps on sketches, we all played the ever-entertaining Top 5 game. You just pick a topic and people talk about their Top 5’s - Top 5 tv shows, Top 5 movies, whatever. It’s not a game you win or lose, it’s a way of getting to know each other and sparking conversations. Lots of people slipped in and out of the conversation, and were particularly delighted to be joined by Sean E. Williams and Talent Caldwell with whom we had a great time sharing ideas and conversing as the night finally wound down for us and we called it an evening.
Also, we found out that Moulin Rouge is as divisive a movie as we thought it would be, and that it’s hard for us to come up with separate lists of loves because the two of us are so damned similar. Cursed symbiosis! Why must we be such a perfect match?!
Black Beard by Adam
Polaris by Comfort
An adorable young lady as Electra by Comfort
Sunday was a wind-down day. There wasn’t a lot of business to do, but that was really only in comparison to the two days that preceded it. We finished all our sketches with a bit of time to spare and ended the show with an even higher gross than Emerald City, which was a pretty big show for us. We out-earned last year’s C2E2 by a respectable amount, though selling to an audience where many people have already bought everything you have does have some drawbacks. In all, though, there are no complaints. It was a big show, a busy show, and the people were great.
There was something missing, however, that Emerald City had over C2E2. We can’t put our fingers on it, though - it’s kind of a nebulous “feeling” kind of thing. It might be that ECCC is a more personal kind of show and C2E2 is more “businesslike,” which makes one feel more homey and the other more professional. But that doesn’t quite explain it, either. We don’t want to give a bad impression, because we had a great time at C2E2, but there’s just something about what’s going on out in Seattle that gave it an edge for us. We wish we could be more specific; if we figure it out, we’ll be sure and share.
Hawkgirl by Adam and Songbird by Comfort
A tough young lady as Wonder Woman by Comfort
Tony Stark by Adam
Sunday night was dinner out in Chicago with Bryan, Drew, and Chan. We mildly harassed but mostly entertained our waitress (we hope) with that energy we get after a good weekend, where it just feels nice to be done and to have done well. You don’t have anywhere to run off to, no work waiting for you to finish, no major stuff waiting tomorrow but the trip home - it’s just nice, relaxing, and you feel good. We hope she didn’t mind us, but we suspect we were more fun than most of her patrons.
Back at the hotel, we happened to run into Bill Willingham, with whom we’d had many brief meetings and interactions in the last year or two. He was happy to see our faces and not just the tops of our heads as we bent over our art boards, and in just a small talk with him we completed the final of many conversations over the weekend that culminated in us feeling like something had changed for us.
A jam piece that Comfort did the Gypsy image for and Adam did the Mira behind Aquaman
Close-up on the Mira by Adam
Close-up on the Gypsy by Comfort
We are at a point of transition. Rainbow is wrapping up in a few issues, as will be our fourth year as self-publishers before long. We can now call ourselves “Award Nominated” creators and not feel like it’s bologna. We’re making better money than we ever did when we were teaching or Adam moving furniture while Comf worked as a computer tech. We’re in a different place, and on our way to an even more differenter place than this. It’s time we stopped simply accepting that cautiously and embraced it openly. Over the next year, we’re going to be moving toward a new paradigm for ourselves that will change the way we do and think about a lot of things.
What that means for you, dear readers, faithful fans, beloved supporters of our humble doodlings, won’t be immediately clear. As the changes in us turn into changes for you, we’ll let you know. Nothing yet, but stuff is coming. GOOD stuff. EXCITING stuff. HAPPY stuff. This is a change we were anticipating far down the road, but being able to start heading that direction this soon is energizing us - galvanizing us - and it will only end in awesome.
Yoda by Adam
Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond by Comfort
Tenth Doctor and Rose by Adam
You’ll know more as we know more, but it’s all ethereal and conceptual right now. And with that thought in mind, we’re moving on down the road BACK to Chicago for Anime Central this weekend. More fun awaits, and more pictures for you when we return.
Until then-
Comfort & Adam
