MicroCon 2005

MicroCon was so much fun. I shared a table with Grant Gould and Jessica Hickman again like we did at FallCon last October. I was much better prepared this time though and we had a good looking table, I think. Here's some pictures of it before the con got started. Click on it or any of the other images to see a full-sized picture.

Since FallCon, Grant was selected to be an official sketch artist for the Revenge of the Sith cards. That's a collage of some of his sketch cards behind him. I kept forgetting to ask, but I think Jess is working on a page from Three Days the Devil Danced.

Behind the Grafika and Cownt stuff on the table you can see a cool drawing that Grant was nice enough to contribute to my Black Canary sketchbook. One of these days I'll get the rest of the sketchbook scanned in and posted on my LiveJournal, but for now, here's Grant sketching and a better shot of the final piece.

Grant had a great idea for attracting people to his side of the table. He'd made up trading-sized cards on which to do personal sketchs for people of whatever Star Wars character they wanted. Or any other character some joker like me wanted to see holding a lightsaber. One guy requested a Scrooge McDuck. I wanted the Cownt.

One of the coolest things about the con was all the kids there with their parents. Grant attracted those guys like Pooh bears to honey.

After a while, fellow Grafika member Darla Ecklund showed up to pretty up my side of the table.

Seeing people is the best part of these things. There's some folks I only get to see a couple of times a year like Sam Hiti.

This year there were several people whom I'd talked to online, but never met in person. The scurvy rogue known on Steve Niles's message board as Black Bart stopped by and picked up a copy of Tales from the Inner Sanctum #2. I also finally got to meet inker Barb Schulz after missing her for coffee a week or so ago. There was also indie creator Jennifer Young who's done some very cool mini-comics and a graphic novel called Cold Summer. I love her work and it was great finally getting to meet her. I don't know why I'm so serious in the picture. Blech. The camera caught her in mid-gum-smack, but I think it works for her.

What else? Oh, yeah. I got to meet some cool new people too. There was a father and son there with a table who are starting their own publishing business and are looking for creators. We exchanged information and promised to stay in touch. And I talked to lots of comics fans. One fella bought Tales from the Inner Sanctum #1 thanks to the fact that Jess's original pages were on the table (I bought those from her, which was my coolest purchase of the day). There was also a nice couple named Amanda and Mike with whom I had a very nice, long conversation. And then there was this guy. We never did figure out who he was supposed to be dressed as. That's green construction paper on his head though.

My brother-in-law and co-Cownt-creator Dave showed up for a while. It's weird to me how much he and Cownt artist Gav Spence look alike.

And that's pretty much it. After the show, Grant, Jess, Dave, and I went and got some burgers and called it a day.

The End.

Okay, NOW I'm ready!

I just made preview books for a couple of upcoming projects, Three Days the Devil Danced and Quartet of Crime. The previews are all nice and big and laminated and bound and pretty. I'm going to have them at MicroCon on Sunday.

Speaking of MicroCon, I had coffee with PopThought's Alex Ness last Saturday. Well, he had coffee. I had a sissy, coffee-free Strawberry Frappacino. It was tasty though and Alex is a great guy and fun to talk to. A friend of Alex's named Barb Schulz was going to join us, but circumstances prevented her being there. That relates to MicroCon because Barb's an artist and comics inker and will be at the convention, so my list of people to see just got longer by one.

SBCB Interviews Grafika EiC

You probably already know this, but I'm a member of the Grafika studio. Well, there's a two-part interview with Grafika's Editor-in-Chief Mark Matlock on Silver Bullet Comic Books. He does a nice job of explaining what Grafika's goals are, I think.

Part One.

Part Two.

Red Eye

There was a nice, big box full of these when I got home today:



Which means that I am now Officially Ready for MicroCon.