Pictures from the 2015 Comic-Con International, part 2: Wednesday (Art of Comic-Con exhibit, the Walking Dead and more!)

We're back with more pictures from Comic-Con!  It's September!  Whatever.  Here we go!

Wednesday night in San Diego is Preview Night.  Lots of people arrive in the city on this day, but in doing so I think they miss getting a chance - a few hours, anyway - to see some of the other things going on in conjunction with the convention.  There's never enough time to see everything at Comic-Con, but arriving a little bit early gives you some time during the buildup to the big storm.  Before getting in to the convention center, I stopped by the new San Diego public library, located on the other side of Petco Park.

The library is barely a year old, but they're already coordinating events with Comic-Con, and I can see the location becoming more ingrained in years to come.  There were a few panels and exhibits there this year, but I'd imagine that will increase greatly in the near future.

One exhibit that coincided with the convention was "The Art of Comic-Con", the library's rooftop display of original art and items related to the last 45 years of Comic-Con in San Diego.  The gallery is small, but it still held a number of great, rare and what I imagine to be very expensive pieces, such as this giant original drawing from Sergio Aragones.

Original cover art from the different programs took up the better part of one wall.  This was one of my favorites.

Here's a shot of one side of the gallery.  On the far left are some light pole banners from years past.

I saw this weeks after the UHF screening in Pittsburgh.  Nice.

The new library is such a beautiful place.  I can't wait until there are more events held there.

After leaving the library, it was time to head back to the convention center.  I was able to get into the hall a few minutes early, thanks to some friends with exhibitor badges.  As you walked in to the lobby, you could see one of these photo opportunities right along the wall by the Hall D entrance.  It was a popular spot and I'm sure there are about 100 other pictures similar to this one.  I'll accept it.

The convention center surprisingly - and without much warning - opened a half hour early this year.  This caught me off guard and I was scrambling to get to where I needed to be as attendees flooded the area.  My wife and brother-in-law, incredibly enough, made it into the elusive Hasbro line on Preview Night for the first time in four years, despite having early entrance to the hall in three of those.  I made my way to the Mattel booth, where I was able to pick up the coin you see above, a "Skeletoken", which served as an entrance fee to the He-Man-themed "Skeletor's Lair" offsite store.  It's one of the coolest things I brought back with me from the show.

It wasn't long before the convention hall was packed.

The Walking Dead once again had a big presence at the show, including this recreation of a particularly gruesome scene from the fifth season.

And like last year, zombies roamed the display area, and followed those brave enough to wait a while in line into the trailer in the background.

Here's a diverse group of sci-fi fans!

Nintendo took up a bunch of space near the end of the hall, with a big display and playable versions of the new Mario Maker game, which looks like a lot of fun and probably means that I'll be getting a WiiU at some point before the year is over.

Adult Swim had a bean bag toss game for prizes on the floor to go along with their outside space.

And, of course, the Tick booth had set up again in its usual spot.

The booth was busy for most of the convention, which was nice to see.  The newest Tick issue debuted at the show and it did well.

The day was over at 9:00, and then it was time to explore the city just a bit before heading back to get ready for Thursday.  The line for Skeletor's Lair was incredibly long (people waited upwards of five hours to get in), so we decided to put that off until later.

This is my brother-in-law.  It kind of looks like he's eating bugs off the grill of this Jurassic Park vehicle.

This was an interesting piece of street art we saw while walking back to our car at night.  As I'll show later, there were these different variations on Bart Simpson painted on a number of different objects on this street corner, with the phrase "Bart Club" on most of them.  I've tried to look up something about them since then, but I haven't had any luck.  It's weird, but neat.  I wonder what it's all about?

That's it for Wednesday.  Thursday is coming up.

Upcoming convention appearances - Wizard World Pittsburgh, Baltimore Comic-Con and NYCC

My convention schedule has been fairly light in recent years.  I know some creators who travel all across North America throughout the year peddling books and other comic-related items - and I honestly can't understand how they have the money and mental fortitude to do it.  In any case, earlier this year I decided that I would try to get to a few more shows in the upcoming months.  My school schedule doesn't really allow for long trips outside of the summer, and the summer is swallowed up pretty quickly by Comic-Con in San Diego, but I've managed to get a few items on the schedule for September and October.

The first show is happening in...just a few weeks, it seems!  It's the inaugural Wizard World Pittsburgh show.  I'm not really sure what to expect.  Wizard World takes over for the former Pittsburgh Comicon, and it makes its move from Monroeville to downtown Pittsburgh, which is exciting.  Wizard World has a bit of a reputation for focusing on celebrities over creators, but so far I've had no complains about my interaction with the staff of the show.

They even put a link to my bio right on the front page, along with everyone else.  I, of course, forgot to include a reference to Imaginary Drugs, one of my two higher profile publications to date.  Oh well.

Next up, I'll be returning to the Baltimore Comic-Con for the first time in a few years.  This show takes place at the end of September, just two weeks after the Pittsburgh show.  Since expanding from their previous two-day format to a more traditional Friday-Saturday-Sunday schedule, it's been more difficult for me to come to this show.  This year, however, I'm sharing a table with the very talented Jennie Wood, which allows me to be there just on Saturday and Sunday.  Jennie will be debuting the second volume of the popular Flutter series at the show.  I was lucky enough to get a chance to letter this new volume, so I'll be signing copies along with Jennie those two days.  Series artist Jeff McComsey will also be at the show, so it'll be a whole dang event.  Here's a visual representation of my lettering spree over the weekend:

We'll be at booth A223 for the show.  That's located in artist alley.

And just a few weeks after that, I'll be at the New York Comic-Con in New York City.  The plan right now is for me to be there on Friday and Saturday of the four-day convention.  I'll be wandering around aimlessly plenty of the time, but I'll also be making stops to sign books and generally gawk at the crowds at both the FUBAR and Flutter booths.

Oh, and Rafer Roberts will be giving out copies of the newest volume of Thanos and Darkseid: Carpool Buddies of Doom at the show.  I love these dang things.  I am going to snatch one up like nobody's business.

It'll be a busy few weeks.  Afterwards, I think I'll stay at home until February.  But we'll see.

Pictures from the 2015 Comic-Con International, part 1: Tuesday (TMNT art show and more!)

Comic-Con 2015 is in the books and the show is as big as ever.  2015 was my fourth year in a row at the San Diego event, and I feel like I'm just starting to get a handle on things.  I had a great time and took a lot of pictures...those two things bring us to this new addition to the long-running blog tradition of inundating the Internet with pictures from the show.  So let's get started and see where it takes us.  All of the pictures, including the picture of someone's grandpa riding a Conan O'Brien escalator at the San Diego International Airport, are from the Tuesday before the show.

Conan had a big presence at the convention, and he filmed several episodes of his late night talk show  near the convention.  Tickets to these tapings went fast (of course) and I wasn't able to get any.  Apparently, Funko gave away an exclusive Conan bobblehead at each taping, many of which naturally were then sold for lots and lots of cash online.

After checking into out house for the week, I took a drive downtown and saw some of the Comic-Con setup.  I highly recommend arriving in San Diego at least a day before the convention to battle jet lag, and also to get some bearings for the days to come.  One of the signs of Comic-Con's imminent arrival are, well, the literal signs that hang from lampposts all about town, but especially in the Gaslamp district.  Many of this year's banners featured Ant-Man.

I wonder what happens to all of these banners after the show?  They remain hanging for a few days after the convention ends, and I'm always tempted to get a ladder and try to grab one.

As in years past, many of the exhibits were still being constructed on Tuesday, with some not reaching completion until just before the doors opened on Wednesday (and sometimes even later).  I guess the show "Heroes", for whatever reason, is being revived by NBC this fall, and there were a lot of promotional items for this across the convention hall and outside.  Zach Levi, he of NerdHQ fame, has a role in the show, and he even got a giant standee of himself.  If I was on one of these, I'd probably try to take it home with me.  But where would you put it?

Here's the outside of the convention center.  This was taken after the hall was closed to exhibitors for the evening, and a lot of people wearing pink badges were streaming out at this time.  Even though I had a badge of my own waiting for me (an orange professional badge), it's hard to not get anxious seeing other people with access to the inside.

THE EYE!

Walking up the steps to the top of the convention center, you could see inside the Sails Pavilion as it was being put together.

Across the street, the Hilton had a giant tongue banner draped over its side.  Okay.

The Adult Swim attraction, always one of the must-see outside exhibits, was located behind the convention center this year, right along the water.  There was a carnival theme to it this year.  In the background you can see the Meatwad's Dome exhibit, the only holdover from 2014.

Rick and Morty (one of my favorite new shows) had a big presence at Comic-Con this year.  This display wasn't interactive at all...but it was still pretty cool.  Again, what happens to this after Comic-Con?

Here's the back.  You can see Rick carrying a bag.  I took a peek in it once or twice, thinking that there might be some kind of prize inside, but as far as I could tell, the staff just used it for trash.  That might have been a cover...who knows?

This was the last picture I got before some of the security workers yelled at me to stop taking pictures.  I suppose Adult Swim didn't want their setup leaked before the show started.  Being outside, though, I'm sure that was impossible to prevent.

And here are some bridge shots, a requirement at Comic-Con.

Here's the convention center from the bridge.

I never actually made it to the offsite area across from the convention center.  This was partially because the Adult Swim event moved away, partially because the events that took its place didn't really inspire me to make the trek across the bridge during convention hours, and partially because there was so much to do in other places.  The above picture is the framework for another carnival-style ride, which was apparently a pretty popular theme this year.

Later on the convention, they brought a terrifying, giant mutant dog to lay on top of the house.

The Pirates were playing the San Diego Padres this night and a few nights during the convention.  They were of course playing in Pittsburgh, but I thought it was funny that we switched places for a week.  I was also lucky because I was able to catch some of the games on local tv and radio while we were in town.

The big event for the night was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Shell Shocked" art exhibit at the Basic: Urban Kitchen and Bar in downtown San Diego, just a few blocks from the convention center.  There were also some official Comic-Con events going at the year-old library this night, so Comic-Con has formally started to take over Tuesday night as well.  I went there and, what do you know, the Pirate game was playing, so it was a double treat.

There were a number of displays, as well as some live art going on.

This was probably my favorite of the art displays - a senior turtle and mouser.

I don't know who these people are - I just thought it'd be fun to take a picture with them.  And it was!!

Someone involved with the exhibit also had some of his collection on display.  I ended up buying some cheap art and spending about an hour at the bar before heading back to get ready for Comic-Con's first day.  Won't it be fun to see some of those pictures as well?  YES IT WILL BE.  And oh, we'll see them.  Soon.

Magic Bullet #11 - "One Wish"

I've been lucky enough to be pretty busy with comic work over the last few months - this year, even, I guess.  One of the (admittedly few) downsides to that is that I don't have very much time for this blog or other types of recreational writing...but I'm still out here, doing...stuff.

Somewhere on that list of stuff sits a new issue of DC Conspiracy's Magic Bullet!  This recently released issue is currently being circulated primarily around the Washington, DC area.  I've had a few comics published in previous issues, and this time around I teamed up with a few friends to create a one page comic titled "One Wish".

"One Wish" came about after a conversation with your good friend (and mine) Larry a few years ago.  I'm not even sure what the context of the conversation was, but he let it spill and I decided that it might make a good Magic Bullet-style comic, so I plotted it out and put the letters into the final product.  Providing the art is the incomparable Joe Badon.  It all came together pretty well, I think, and I'm happy that I was able to put this together with those two guys.

I got a bundle of comics in the mail and have been working on distributing them around the Pittsburgh area.  I spent the summer volunteering once again at the Toonseum, so it was a good bet that I'd leave a stack at the entrance to the comic/cartoon art museum.  I'll also be bringing some with me to the inaugural Wizard World Pittsburgh show, which is coming up in just a few short weeks (more on that later)!

Before I go, here's one more peek at something else that I'm working on, this time with Ian Chase Nichols.  I worked with Ian on a few Tick projects and I'm happy to be collaborating with him again. I'm putting this clip up here because this comic is also for a newspaper-style publication, but it's not the MB.  I'll give out some more information on that project when it gets a little further along.

Original Art from Startling Stories: The Thing!

I got a new page of artwork in the mail recently, and wanted to show it off.  This page features, of course, The Thing, with line art by Don Kramer and Scott Hanna.

There's a lot to like about this page, and one of the big things that drew me to it was the fact that the Thing isn't punching stuff or having a building dropped on his head or anything like that.  Don't get me wrong, I love seeing the Thing punch stuff, but it's nice to see something different every now and then, right?  This is what I like to think that the Thing does when he's not out on some adventure.  He's riding in a car or looking for his keys or something, just like you or me.

(Sure, the last panel has his getting ready to square off against the Wrecker, but you'll have that.)

This particular story was written by Ron Zimmerman, who had a run on a few Marvel titles about ten years back and is supposedly friends with EIC Joe Quesada.  Rumor has it that he took comic book criticisms too personally and backed out from many of his writing duties.  He also has ties to Howard Stern and his show, and we can see on this page that the program gets a mention in the background.

The book that this page comes from is a "Startling Stories" one shot, at least unofficially subtitled "Last Line of Defense".  Back in the earlier part of the century, Marvel gave the Thing a number of miniseries that eventually led to his brief second ongoing series in 2006.  This issue was part of the Startling Stories line, which featured stories that weren't necessarily in continuity (and were at least solicited as being for a more mature audience).  There's nothing about this issue that should keep it from being a part of the Thing's history, though, and honestly, it comes off as kind of an average Thing story, but I enjoyed it if nothing else than for the Thing/Hulk standoff that ended the oversized issue.

Pencilled lightly at the top of the page is "Startling Stories".

On the back, we find inker Scott Hanna's autograph.  This is actually the second page I own with Scott's original inks, the other being a page where he inks over the blue line printout of another artist's pencils. This page contains Kramer's original pencils as well.

I'm happy to add this to the collection!  I found a few other pages from this issue online as well.  Who knows, maybe one day I'll add one or two more.