Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Neal Adams, Toronto and Star Wars

My visit to Toronto, you ask?

It went modestly well. I was there as a guest, so I had a table for my art and stuff. What I do usually, is to put on the table my portfolio usually used to show potential editors, and I add next to it a sampling of my various self-published books or mostly solo jobs. These day, I have Veena 1 to 4, some CandyAppleBlack and Johnny Dollar.
My dream of course would be to sell tons of those and make some money at the same time as I reach new readers. Unfortunately, it seems that our reason to be there is actually a little more confuse: we're there to chat with the con goers and mostly to do drawings for them. If you're well known enough I guess they ask for drawings of your characters. But mostly, they ask for heroes from Marvel or Dc. Or some sexual fetish (long story here...). Or some drawing tips (but no storytelling tips...) So after my initial reluctance of last year, I began to draw what they asked. I did Death (the one from Vertigo with the small tits, not to be confused with Lady Death the one with the big tits), a panel for a comic jam, a lady with her feet stuck in glue (that's the sexual fetish ! ), a Batman, etc, etc...
The comic jam panel was for 4 Koma to be used on the Anime London web site. What I was asked was a variation on the usual cadavre exquis technique. The subject was taboo and the other artists were Ryan Miller, Janet Heatherington and Benjamin Rivers.
Another jam was done with Michel Lacombe who sat next to me. In fact, part of our studio was there, since we went with Yanick Paquette and his girlfriend, Marie-Pier Elie.
We also went to the lunch paid by Diamond on the Saturday night. Mostly people from Marvel and Dc, so I was not in a territory too familiar. The only fun thing is that Neal Adams sat close to me on a table at an angle from me. I was told who I was looking at, and he saw me looking at him, so he saluted me. Of course, he had absolutely no idea who I was, but he probably did not want to be impolite. The next morning, I also had a nice breakfast with Dale Eaglesham and his lovely wife. I met them a few months earlier at a con in Montreal. Dale was recently drawing Villains United.

And that's about it.


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By the way, Star Wars : Empire # 34 should be out soon. Michel Lacombe did all the pencils and I helped on a good deal of the backgrounds and high tech ships and vehicles. All the art is pencil only, meaning that it's colored without being inked.
You can see samples here.