Calgary

I had a great time in Calgary, I've got some non-work time while I wait for the Hoosier state to finish counting votes, so it's time to do some high intensity bloggin'!

It was a good medium sized convention. It draws in some excellent comics talent, like Bruce Timm, Stuart Immonen, writers Mark Waid and Greg Rucka, or the artists on either side of my con table, Whilce Portacio and Marko Djurdjevic.

Marko, in the foreground
Lisa in the midground
big crowd around Whilce in the back!

Eisner award winner, Russ Manning nominee Steve Rolston, in from Vancouver.

I should be bringing you some fine quality scans of my Calgary con sketches. I did bring my cheapo scanner there, but I forgot my USB cable. Ah well. I used my camera. You'll see some odd shadows and such.

Paid sketches of Gambit and Arsenal for two of the clerks from the Redd Skull Comics shop booth. Every time I needed reference for a sketch, they were the go to guys. Thanks, Teague and Andrew!











A Joker sketch, of course. When I asked for a theme, the buyer said "crazy".

















I made this for a guy who collected female faerie sketches. The Brian Froud faeries were pretty well covered in his collection, so I went for a Tolkien/fantasy adventure elf. I suspect this image will show up on some DnD character sheets soon!











Here's the one I'm most proud of. I did a previous sketch for Steven Gettis's literary portrait website, but I never sent him the original art. He's been asking for another for years. After showing up in his home town I finally did it: The Little Prince, a book that really struck me when I was six years old. By chance, this happened to be one of his wife's favorite books!

As usual, I got script and drawn sketches for Mike and Lowell. I'll hold off posting those until Mike can see his sketchbook in person.

I didn't get to wander the hall much. Bill Willingham did. He got in line and got a signed photo from Tricia Helfer, the tall blonde cylon from Battlestar Galactica. He asked her to write "Any time you're in LA feel free to crash on my couch," but she didn't go for it. Cylons. No sense of humor.

Again, never believe anything Bill says about me and penguins.

After the con was over, con organizer Kandrix Foong took a crew of creators and volunteers to dinner and then to Banff.

Dinner with Bruce Timm, Jim Zubkavich, and a lot of Asians!

The guys from Jim's Udon Studios were pretty damn talented. I honestly had never heard of them before, which shows you how badly I need to get out. Wonderful stuff.

I'd also never heard of Banff. I'm a provincial little American. It's really lovely out there. Real Gene quote: "I was just about to say, those mountains look bigger than the Rockies!"

The Portacios

I've met Whilce before, but never had a good long conversation with him till this trip. There's a heckuva lot of stuff I didn't know about him. I didn't know that he'd moved back to the Philipines for a while and taught comics illustration. Among his graduates is Leinil Yu. He Whilce also pioneered Photoshop comics coloring with Alex Sinclair at Wildstorm.

Here are some pictures of Ed the Sock (Steven Kerzner) and Red (Liana Kerzner) showing what makes Canada great! Patriotism and public shagging with puppet fetishism. And here is a Wikipedia photo of Liana dressed as Power Girl! For those who aren't Canadian or don't get the US cable Ripe channel, they're dangerous Canadian TV personalities.

















I adore Canadian television. It can't compete with the US stations for big glossy production values, so they bring the wacky hard core. Like Ed the Sock and Red. Or another great show, Trailer Park Boys.

Just gonna finish up with some random photos from Banff. The votes are counted and I need to ink in the morning!