Back From Bmore!

Well, Rod and I made it back from the Baltimore Comic-Con safe and sound. And we both had a really great time!

We were set up at table 3 in the convention center, which was kind of up against one of the back walls next to the concession stand. So we had a decent amount of traffic throughout the con. Half of our table was dedicated to the magazine cereal:geek, which I've done artwork for in the past, and Rod has written articles for. Rod has been helping James Eatock (the creator of the magazine) with promotion, and was using this convention as an opportunity to talk to fans and different comic shop owners.



As with Heroes Con in June, we had some great booth buddies alongside of us. Paige Pumphrey was on our left, and to our right were Melo and Juan Spearman, all excellent artists. Next to Melo and Juan at table 1 was Josh Johnson, a brilliant illustrator who has a children's book out called The Spindletons. It wasn't until the last day of the convention that I realized Rod, myself, Juan, Melo and Josh were all lefties-- we had left-handed power going on in Baltimore!

On Saturday after we settled in, "Heywood" Mike from the Perhapablog stopped by and showed me that my Karl headshot I'd drawn and sent Todd Dezago after Heroes Con, had made it into the newly released Perhapanauts #4. And it wasn't long after that that Rod and I made our way to the 'Haps table, where we said hello to Todd, Craig Rousseau and Matt Wieringo. Now, I have to admit that I was nervous. I always get nervous at these things (Rod said he couldn't tell, but I swear my hands were shaking slightly), and in addition to that I'd brought a new 'Haps pin-up along with me to show the guys. They were all very sweet and made me feel welcome, and it wasn't long before my nervousness went away.



Towards the middle of the day on Saturday, my parents, my sister Rachael and her friend Whitney "Shark" Paulk came to the show. Mind you, my parents have never been interested in comic books. Any attempts I made to get them to actually read a comic (including graphic novels like Watchmen and V for Vendetta) all fell by the wayside. But they wanted to come and see what a comic convention was all about since I was there. And they also wanted to meet Todd and Craig. So while Rod manned our table, I (somewhat reluctantly) walked them over to the 'Haps table and they said hello.

Afterwards, my sister said, "Wait, that was Todd who?" And when I told her she'd just shaken hands with Todd Dezago, her mouth dropped open and I laughed at her starstruck face. "It's just that I've grown up hearing about these guys!" she said. That was pretty cool. See, even if no one else in my family read and appreciated comics like I did, at least I talked about them enough that everyone remembered them. Whether they liked it or not!

Later on Saturday, I asked Craig if he could draw me a sketch of Karl, my favorite 'Hap. Craig agreed, but wanted one from me too, so we agreed to trade Karl sketches. I decided to again draw Karl from his dream sequence in issue #2.



I'd also wanted to find Matt to ask for a sketch from him too, since I really love his work, but was never able to track him down again until Rod and I were walking out of the convention center and ran into him and his wife Suzanne after the show. Maybe next time I'll have better luck.

Rod and I stopped to talk to Nick Cardy for a while too, and I bought a nice print from him. I first met him at Heroes this year (and got a picture of his hand) and he was a super nice guy. This year he was being honored with a lifetime achievement award, and it is well deserved. Rod had wanted to commission Nick for a sketch, but he was completely filled up by the time we got to him. Not really surprising, though. He gave us a preview of the new hardback book about his work coming out soon, and it was beautiful. I'm totally picking one of those up.

When I had some time on Sunday, I walked around and talked to a few artists and Rod and I bought a bunch of stuff. Rich Faber was incredibly nice and we swapped portfolios and had a look at each other's work. He gave me some really great pointers and I appreciated him taking the time to look over my work. His work, btw, is absolutely gorgeous, and needs no pointers. We also talked to Scott Sava for a while and bought some of his Dreamland Chronicles trades he had for sale-- I'm partway through the first one and it's been awesome so far. I stopped by Brian Glass' table too, because I wanted to thank him for the great Ship of Fools comics he gave me at Heroes-- I absolutely loved the series and its nod to Blake's 7, one of my favorite classic British sci-fi series. It was also cool to run into the always inspiring Comfort Love and Adam Withers, creators of The Uniques. I bought issues #1-3 from them at the Heroes show and loved what they'd done. It's something Rod and I have been wanting to do for a while with our own superhero tales. Maybe someday...

On Sunday I ended up selling a lot of prints and doing a few more sketches, and that was a lot of fun. I had great time talking to people and meeting up with some fellow deviantART and He-Man.org guys. I didn't really take many pictures at this con, but I'll end this post with a really cool Robin costume I saw at the show (I'm a huge Robin fan, and this guy had Tim's new suit nailed-- and gave it Tim's original Robin insignia!):



So, all in all I had a lot of fun in Baltimore. I'll definitely be back next year! Aaaand that's all from me. Next post will probably be my photos from SDCC this year. We'll see... ;)