Austin Comic Con Coverage – Day Three
On the third day of the convention my mission was simply to buy the things that were on my shopping list. I had a chunk of Jimmy Palmiotti’s Jonah Hex series I needed to fill in, as well as some Hellboy trades and I wanted to get a damned copy of the first issue of Conan the Barbarian at a reasonable price. I was able to pick one up for around $70.00, the going price for one in that condition being close to $120.00 so I was content. I managed to snag one of the Hellboy trades and most of the Hexes. With the money I had left over I decided to support our friends over at RED 5 COMICS and buy one of each of their trades. I’m planning on tearing through Atomic Robo sometime within the next few days.
After scouring the convention for the items on my shopping list I picked up the few remaining commissions I had not collected on and said goodbye to the professionals I’d annoyed throughout the weekend. Stopped to get my requisite picture with the Suicide Girls who I try to say hello to at every convention because as a photographer I keep hoping one of them will request my services. They directed me this time to their application site, so I might give that a go.
Now I’m back in Houston and looking to recharge by going back to work. At the comic shop. I think I might need a hobby away from my hobby.
A Yearly Tradition
Austin Comic Con Coverage – Day Two
Me (Right) with my friend at Day Two of the Con
Day two of the convention was a little more madcap than the first. That’s to be expected. The people who can’t get off work for Friday show up on Saturday and then all hell breaks loose when more people than is healthy try to cram themselves into an enclosed area of limited space. Everyone was in high spirits and things went as they usually do at conventions. I was unable once again to hit any of the panels as I opted to go have lunch with a friend from high school who happened to be in town and the panel I had planned on attending was full by the time I returned.
I chose to use my day then to pester the living hell out of Matt Sturges, who held the distinction of writing one of my favorite issues of a comic ever when he wrote the JSA All-Stars issue where Power Girl beat the living piss out of Magog. It was like he heard my prayers and then wrote a script pandering to my whims. We spent some time talking about how amazing Blue Beetle is as a character, with no distinction made as to which iteration of the Beetle we were really talking about. We just agree that any time there is a Beetle who is Blue, the guy is full of win. We then chatted a little bit about his good friend Chris Roberson, who you’ll recall just got tapped to write Superman in place of J. Michael Stracynski. Unfortunately Chris didn’t make a timely appearance at the con, but Matt passed on the info that Chris was already two scripts into the series, which bodes well for the title running without delays for the next few months.
The rest of the day was spent buying commissions from folks in artists alley to keep Rob Guillory’s company in the gallery when I get home. I snagged a Green Arrow head sketch from the always awesome Mike Grell as well as Sgt. Rock from Billy Tucci, who has more energy than anyone at a convention has any right to have. I tried not to spend any money on actual comics at this point in the hopes that I could clean up with some extra discounts on Sunday. I’d spent a good chunk of my walkin’ around money on the aforementioned commissions anyhow and would have to hit an ATM before I started scrounging through the longboxes.
Here’s a picture of that completed Sgt. Rock commission, as displayed by Billy Tucci.
Austin Comic Con Coverage – Day One
Greetings from Austin, Texas where I’m having just a huge blast at the Wizard World Austin Comic Convention. Our first day here has been productive, as I’ve procured commissions from Mike Grell as well as Chew artist Rob Guillory. We ran into our good friends over at Angel Comics pretty early and if you’re in town for the convention be sure to drop by their booth and mention that you read about them on this blog. I try to give the guys as much publicity as I can muster because they do some great work and hopefully they’ll all be big names sometime in the future.
Met up with and got signatures from Mike McKone, Michael Golden and Greg Horn. All of whom are great guys who do great work. If you’re not enjoying McKone’s work on Avengers Academy you’re just plain wrong. Or not reading the book, either way you make me sad. Golden signed the first issue of Micronauts for me, which will be hung with care beside the original art page from a later issue of that series drawn by Gil Kane. I was happy that Greg Horn made it to the convention today as he was twittering quite ferociously yesterday about travel issues at the airport he was flying out of that included a plane on fire. Not his, mind you, but still a flaming plane.
Managed to snag a decent copy of Conan The Barbarian # 1 for about 1/2 of guide price for myself and then decided to retire for the day because there weren’t any panels I was particularly interested in, although I will probably get into one or two tomorrow if I can possibly manage it. I know I’m meeting up with a friend for lunch so it’ll be a task to juggle the scheduling.
Tony Chu "enjoys" Queso by Chew Artist Rob Guillory
