Tristan & I are leaving for MA tomorrow. I'll be teaching this coming weekend at The Rubber Chicken Stamp Art Store in Maryland. The following weekend I will be back at The Stamp Act store in Marshfield, MA for my second time. I'm looking forward to teaching at both locations!!!


Photos from Comic Con 2006 Tristan & his "best buddy
, Andy Runton, Creator of Owly Comics
PHOTOS TO COME...nothing seems to want to cooperate and download today :)


These are my "best of the best" -my favorite "finds", "friends", "websites" and more...what I considered "the BEST" of Con 2006!


FSC
http://www.fscwasteland.com/ I had seen Foo Swee Chin's "Sketchbook" at Meltdown Comics several months ago. Being broke at the time, I didn't pick it up. I went back for it a week later and it was gone!! I had hoped to find it at Con...walking around, someone had it at their booth so I snatched it up. (I'm not regretting that I didn't buy her comics, but I'm hoping that Gaston at Meltdown orders them!) When we go to Con, we try to get through every aisle. This was the first year we didn't. There were SO many people in the "TV/Film" area that it was insane!! So we skipped mass portions of it. We were in search of: indie comic book dealers, underground comics, unusual & self published books/comics, books-new & old, etc...I couldn't deal with the crowd Wednesday night!! TOO many people. My major find Wednesday night, was FSC's sketchook that she made just for Con! I spoke with her for a few minutes...She was so sweet. She kept trying to feed me "want some candy? Want a cookie?" I went back to her booth at least 3 or 4 x Wed & Thursday. (LOL, and it wasn't for food! I LOVE her artwork. Check out her website).


Andy Runton
http://andyrunton.com/ This guy has to be one of the nicest guys (not to mention talented!!) on the planet. We stopped by Top Shelf several times as well. It's always one of our favorite booths. Not only does it have Eddie Campbell there every year, but this was the second year for Andy Runton! My son shyly gave him an "Owly" comic that he had made for him. Andy made a point to tell Tristan several times "thank you" and to speak directly to him (Tristan has a tendency to speak through me some times). It was one of the best experiences for him, very very cool. I Love Owly. Some may label them kids comics, but they're not. Owly reaches across borders & boundaries and because it is "wordless" anyone can understand it. I just admire and adore what Owly is and stands for!! We also were able to attend Andy's talk on Thursday. It was really fun-it was a great mix of both kids and adults asking a variety of questions. Tristan had a blast actually getting up the courage to raise his hand and ask Andy to draw Owly's home. Andy actually complied with everyone's request to draw and answer questions. He was so cool! Tristan actually got to take home the drawing of Owly's home, too. I need to find a frame for it for him...He's also been sleeping with his Owly stuffed toy the last few nights. Any ways, I can't say enough about "Owly".


http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog.php?type=14 Eddie Campbell...'nuff said! Anything that man has done gets an automatic 5 stars!
Actually, anything Top Shelf publishes....As I said above, Top Shelf is always one of our favorites. I'm kicking myself for missing Renee French signing "The Ticking".


Kyle Baker was across from Top Shelf plugging his wares-that was a bonus. I LOVE his artwork...His family comics are well written, true to life, and very very funny.


http://www.murphydesign.com/ Mark Murphy (no relation that I'm aware of) is one of the hardest working publishers in the business. I own almost everything that they've ever released. They are some of my most treasured "don't leave home without them" possessions. It was a thrill actually getting to meet Mark in person. I wish I had some more cash on hand 'cause I probably would have bought everything that i am missing from their collection. I can't stress how much I LOVE their books. In L.A. Soap Plant/Wacko sells their books-yum. I bought Martha Rich's Freedom Wigs, which I had been looking several months for it! I still need to get the second Joe Sorren book once I can scrape up $50. They'd probably be one of my top "dream" publishers if I ever did a book-that's in my la la land mind!!

www.buenaventurapress.com/
Publishers of Julie Doucet, Comic Art magazine, Kramers Ergot and many more...It's always fun stopping by to see what they have on hand!

www.gingkopress.com/
Publishers of the latest Shepard Fairey's book OBEY which is high on my "wish or is it want" list...I bought their Musa Book which is just the funkiest graphic design book. I fell in love with it and couldn't leave it there!!

http://cjmetzger.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=7145&Akey=7S4K7V3H I found CJ's booth last year and just totally drooled over her artwork. LOVE LOVE her AND her sister, Mindy's artwork LOVE LOVE LOVE their use of colors, texture and imagery. Oh man, if I could've bought some original art, I'd have scooped these up! http://www.missmindypie.blogspot.com/

www.lastgasp.com/
We have so many of their books, I just stood and made a mental wish list of several titles including a Japanese title called "HEll" that reminds me faintly of Edward Gorey ish style work.

www.davidmack.net/
Another one of the hardest working people in comics. I have all of his work and had to bug him about when the Art of David Mack would be published. He said that he's put it aside for now to finish working on the latest series...*sigh* I have been waiting for that for over a year now!

Jerry Robinson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Robinson
This was a huge highlight for David (and me). Jerry Robinson has been around for what seems FOREVER. His artwork has graced many a book and magazine cover. His political cartoons would be relevant today in 2006. It was a great slideshow, interview, talk and definetly a HIGH light of the whole show. Not only did I learn about Jerry Robinson but it was just fascinating listening to him speak.

Dan Clowes http://www.fantagraphics.com/artist/clowes/clowes.html
I have to admit, I was looking forward to hearing Dan speak. We arrived just as it started and the only place to sit was on the floor, so we parked ourselves in the corner. Tristan and I were exhausted. I managed to catch little snippets of things but I was so exhausted I fell asleep. ACK. Luckily, David managed to catch me up on what I missed...but I was so embarrassed!!! With all of this heat (and that we didn't have A/C, I really didn't have much sleep over the last few weeks. We woke up at 5 am on the day of Con so we could shower and manage to find a decent parking space.

Another highlight: Parking! YAY! Big thanks to the Parking God!!!

Cafe 222 in San Diego OH TOTAL YUM...and two pizza joints-I will write about asap

BIG highlight: the line to register-yay! FAST and furious, baby! LOVED IT!!! Thank you!!

Most disappointing moments of Comic Con 2006

Lego messing up BIG TIME and disappointing my son-If you pass out "raffle tickets" you'd better make damn well sure that what you are going to "get" is either going to be a "REAL prize" or some stupid ticket to buy some stupid video game. You made my 9 year old very VERY disappointed as we thought he had won a "real" prize and not some stupid ticket to buy something! GRR!! Also we were told that (as always) Lego would have the new bionicles at Con. We've always bought them at Con. No one there seemed to really know what we were talking about...Tristan had been saving his pennies for months and walked away empty handed. Oh, and do you think that the Bionicle people-Greg & Toby could manage to smile & maybe take a short second to talk to the kids in the future?? Lego was a big disappointment. It seemed that they didn't care much for the kids, but cared alot about the kids' wallets. We've spent thousands of dollars on Legos over the years and this experience was ridiculous. Hmm...it all seemed to start when Lego closed their US plant in Connecticut...hmm...

ME Messing up the time and not getting to see Ray Bradbury, Forrest J. Ackermann, and Ray Harryhausen GRR AGAIN!!!!

The crazy line to get the new Super Heroes postage stamps from the Post Office @ Con

The freakin' crazy Star Wars fans...they should totally rename the damn thing "STAR WARS/INSERT BIG MEGA MOVIE BLITZ NAME HERE" CON ! GRR!

The amount of people there Wednesday night...umm, can we say "deodorant and mouth wash", please?

HOW MANY DAYS TIL NEXT YEAR??

Comments

Popular Posts