Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Home From Comic Con 08

Julia and I flew into San Diego last Tuesday. With the con staring Wednesday evening, We stayed at the Marriott, which is right next to the convention center, and this year, our room overlooked the bay.

I'll cut to the chase about the highlight of the convention: The Eisner ceremony. I had the pleasure of sitting with Julia, Jeremy Bastian, Emily Jenkins, Mark Smylie, and MATZ (the writer of the Killer which was also nominated for an Eisner). In addition to Frank Miller's speech, and seeing Samuel L. Jackson on stage, I had the pleasure of receiving 2 of the awards myself. The first for Best Kids Publication was handed to me by Tom Kenny (voice of Spongebob) and the 2nd for Best Graphic Album Reprint was handed to me by Gabriel Macht (star of the upcoming Spirit movie. A wonderful and magical night that I will never forget.

Bill Presing did a book a while back called Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher that brought together all the fun pulp ideas that fueled George Lucas to create Indiana Jones and Dave Stevens to create the Rocketeer. Bill is very good at drawing very curvy women and I asked for a sketch commission of the Nazi temptress Gretta from his book in my sketchbook. Thanks Bill!!






Of course when returning from San Diego, it's always a good idea to leave room in your bag(s) because you come home with so many cool items. I took a photo when I got home of most all of my goodies:
a: An Adam Hughes sketchbook from this year.
(Adam's hand is injured and he was only able to sign this year at SDCC)
b: A children's book by my pal Christian Slade (creator of Korgi) about a decoy that comes to life
c: Another Adam Hughes sketchbook
d: The French edition (oversized and in color) of Rex Steele
e: A nesting doll Darth Vader given to me by Katie Cook from her Lucasfilm party swag
f: James Gurney mailed a copy of his latest Dinotopia book to the house while I was gone
g: The latest Korgi book by Christian Slade
h: A handmade Mouse Guard PEZ dispenser by Sparky and Lars from the hellboy.com forum
i: an art book by 4 Lucasarts/Lucasfilm artists showing their concept art.
j: The latest Usagi Yojimbo trade
k: The latest Usagi sketchbook (Satn Sakai is the nicest man you'll ever meet)
l: all 3 issues of the ASP series Primordia
m: volume 1 of Fish 'N Chips by Flint, MI native and Bone colorist Steve Hamaker
n: a cool fantasy anthology called Fablewood (fave=Fish by Sarah Mensinga)
o: The latest issue of Usagi Yojimbo (see what I mean about how generous Stan is!!)
p: Starwars.com artist Tom Hodges latest sketchbook
q: Riley Rossimo's Proof sketchbook
r: Mike Mignola's awesome sketchbook (last year's was titled 'some drawings')
s: Cursed Pirate Girl bookmark from Jeremy Bastian
t: Mignola's Hellboy print
u: Eisner nominated Delila Dirk comic


James Gurney was amazingly kind to sign and note the Dinotopia book to me:











Walking around the con was a former Muppet builder and his pals with a Gonzo puppet, a Kermit puppet, and a Muppet-style Jack Sparrow. Julia snapped this photo of a geeked-out me to be surrounded by Muppets. The builder (his name escapes me) and I talked about the Master Replica's line of Muppet 'recreations' and the discrepancies. He worked on the line to try and make sure they were as close to actual Muppets as possible, but MR made compromises to either make things easier or more cost effective. I did get some clues about how to care for my MR Gonzo so that he can have as long of a life as possible.

And lastly, I want to mention all the other cool people and stuff that I don't happen to have photos of: Sketchbook sessions (with Rick, Maija, Tad, Brenna, Sparky, Lars, Jeremy, Katie, Ryan, Emily and Rick), going to Katie Cook's 'How to draw Star Wars for kids' panel (and getting to do a Wookiee howl for the audience), All the ASP creators, and our 'quiet dinner' with Jeremy, Emily, Katie and Ryan.



Fan Art:
It's a two-fer on this ginormous post. First up a fan by the name of Matthew Franklin dropped off this ink and marker piece at the ASP booth. It was a pleasure to meet you Matthew, and thanks for the art!






2ndly is a husband and wife team of Gordon Smuder and Jennifer Menken. Gordon is a model maker (he made all the tiny hats for the Ziploc finger guy several years back) as well as a puppeteer (he is launching a new series called Transylvania Television) Jennifer is a crafter who made a wooden box for me with the Clarke's Cartography logo woodburned onto the lid. The piece is a Mouse Puppet show of Punch and Judy (with the cat puppet as the devil hanging off to the side) Thanks Gordon and Jennifer!

16 comments:

Sociedad de Comics y artistas de comics de Tijuana said...

wow!! you have a lot of things there i also met Stan Sakai he is very kind and nice he give me his new scketch book and hes new comics and i bought from him his new TPB and the first Usagi Book from Fantagraphics...ooo and thank you david for the scketch and all those things ( im omar the guy of the usagi scketch and the Hardcover...)

Seeya!!

Jackson Sze said...

Hi David,

Thanks for dropping by my blog....
What an honor!

I'm a huge fan of Mouse Guard!

Hope you like our book as well.

Unknown said...

Thanks for signing the book for my new great-nephew-in-law! Since his name is Liam, we thought it would be the perfect gift.

Jake said...

Congratulations David!

Mayhem said...

Thanks again for the commission David (mine is the top left one with our friend The Black Axe folks) and maybe I will be fortunate enough to see you next year and ask for another one :)

George said...

David, Thanks for the major update!
Still bummed I wasn't able to see your booth(did you hear about the huge delay from traffic due to the exploding meat truck??), but this was definitely a great read.

Hope you had a great time meeting your fans!

dicecipher said...

I loved Rex Steele since I saw him in one of the Monkey Suit antholgies.

Unknown said...

It was nice seeing you again. Congratulations on the Eisners!

Emily Jenkins said...

Is this the catalogue you were talking about? www.sciplus.com

Brinaj78 said...

Hello! I'm Sabrina, I was a fellow Comic Con attendee this year...or have been for 14 straight years! Gah! I came across your "Mouse Guard" book by accident in the Bud Plant Comic Art booth on Sunday, the last day of the con, and thought it was so adorable! I'm currently in love with mice having rediscovered "The Great Mouse Detective" so finding this series made me even more interested in reading it!

Quick question, you said that Tom Kenny presented you with one of the awards (major congratulations, by the way), when was that exactly? Tom was supposed to be one of the guests on the Cartoon Voices I panel on Saturday at 12:30, but he canceled due to the flu! So did poor Jason Marsden! I was just curious when he had to leave the convention.

Thank you for your time and good luck with everything! :)

Shelley said...

Congratulations, sounds like a great con, and can we actually purchase the RPG now? I have a feeling that my graphic-novel-enthralled niece is going to PLOTZ when she learns about your work...

Unknown said...

Congratulations!

dark turtle said...

Hi David!

Congrats on the Eisners! Well deserved. I've been a fan of Mouse Guard since first discovering it last year, and I've had the pleasure of getting to meet you at the '07 SDCC and this year's con as well. It's always a great honor to be able to chat with you. This year, I dropped by your both and picked up your sketch book, a Winter issue I was missing, and an incredible sketch card of Michelangelo (TMNT) from you. I posted a picture of the sketch I got from you on my blog, which I hope is okay with you.

Thank you very much for everything! I look forward to seeing you again at next year's con. Best of luck with all of your projects!

Rachel said...

Ugh, I can't believe I forgot to look you up at the con. Another time, I suppose. I did finally manage to get my hands on Fall 1152, and I enjoyed it thoroughly - the story was even more engaging than I expected from the pages you had up on your site.

Thanks for the great read and keep up the fantastic work! I'll have to lurk around here a little more often. :)

Anonymous said...

My husband was able to go to comic con and to my delight returned with many Mouse Guard goodies for me!
You have no idea how much it made my day to get the card sketch of the bat and the sketch book!
Keep up the great work!

piwackit said...

Hi David~

Mike Moore & his wife Shawna are the two people pictured w/you & the Muppets.
More info here:
http://www.hms-studios.com/index1.htm

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