Emerald City Comicon Fancy Sketches Part 1

The only geek greeting you’ll ever need! The Sci-Five!
Get up on that Sci-Five shirt business!

I must have said this 100 times over the course of the last weekend but Emerald City Comicon is THE BEST show of the year. In terms of what? Sales, fan interaction, after hours activities, location/host city, general shenanigans? Yes. The answer is yes. I have never had a weekend so packed with wonderful friends, amazing experiences, and so much excitement in my entire life. Here are some of the highlights in mostly chronological order:

Thursday:

Southwest lost one of my bags, which delayed me just long enough to run into Wheaton on the way out the airport. We had sushi for lunch. Sushi With Wheaton is my Reel Big Fish cover band [thanks twitter].
That night Wheaton and I met Stepto, Jason Finn [of PUSA], Marian Call and John Roderick for drinks and Wheaton bought me a beer. Even if you don’t drink a lot of beer, when Wil Wheaton buys you one you drink it.
Jason Finn took Stepto, Wheaton and I to his AMAZETITS italian restaurant, Via Tribunali, for [no exageration] the best pizza I have ever had in my life.
Stepto and I went to the Marian Call show at Fremont Abbey. She was dope. Dope and a half in fact.
Southwest called to say they found my bag. It had been lost in Albuquerque. The lady told me the condition they found the bag in, and I asked her to repeat herself. “Yes… shredded.” Good. I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t suddenly gone deaf with rage.

Friday:

Day 1 of the show. Angela and I set up an epic booth-situation. She has the same “merchandising” gene that I do, which makes us great booth mates. If you got a pic of our booth, please email it to me.
Angela and I had a lovely sit-down family-times Tai food dinner with Bill Barnes at his home. We chatted, played ukuleles and had a wonderful time. Bill’s dog loves me the most.
Me, Angela and a dozen other cartoonists did some bar hopping. Someone who shall remain nameless used the pick-up line, “So what is your favorite kind of time travel?” and it worked. This is how you know you are surrounded by nerds. I was beyond impressed.

And that isn’t even the end! Read the 2nd half of my ECCC recap in the next Fancy Sketch comic post.

Dragon’s Lair Webcomic Rampage 2010 Fancy Sketches

Get your HijiNKS ENSUE Book 2 Preoder on! GO HERE NOW! 1/3 of the Ultimate Fancy Editions are already gone!

Thanks to all who came out to Dragon’s Lair Webcomic Rampage in Austin this weekend. Especially the wonderful staff at Dragon’s Lair and my co-guests and friends David, Danielle, Randy, and Jeph. If you are in the Austin, TX area and find yourself in need of comics, trades, table top gaming supplies, or a place to do said table top gaming, you really need to give Dragon’s Lair a visit.

I recorded the audio from the 2 panels we did over the weekend in hopes of turning them into a podcast. Assuming the files are intelligible I will do my best to edit them together into something you will enjoy that it not 4 hours long.

Here are some photos from the show courtesy of @Merbrat, and here are some custom baby onesies that we all drew on for Athene.

I also want to draw special attention to the fact that The United States Postal Service stole one of David’s boxes of books and replaced it with half a blender. To make up such a thing would be ludicrous. To actually have it happen in real life is almost sublime. Just look at his sad puppy face.

If you need something from the HE store before Dec 24th (like maybe some HE Holiday cards), you need to order RIGHT NOW! Check out the [recently moved up] shipping deadlines at the top of THIS PAGE.

Heroes Con 2010 Fancy Sketch Comic

Thanks to all the North Carolinian Fancy Bastards that came out to say hi at Heroes Con this year! I had a great time. Special thanks to Evan and Paul for being quality room mates for the weekend and to FB’s John, Amber and Mike (plus Mrs. Mike and daughter Mike) for the FB Karaokee Tweetup. That was a blast. All thanks be to vengeful Odin that everyonecould sing well (in our group at least). At one point the bouncer called out Mike for his Edward shirt and went off on a 5 minute rant about how EJO was thte REAL Edward. Good times.

If you enjoy HE and and would like to show your support for the comic or The Experiment, please consider getting a book or shirt in the store or making a donation.

This particular comic is a true story, except that everything I said to Scot after the first panel happened in my head and later in conversation with Evan. Last night I was at an after party and the comic shop that puts on Heroes Con (Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find in Charlotte, NC) that Scott Adsit was also attending. I really wanted to show him this comic (and make sure it didn’t piss him off) but the opportunity never arose. At one point he was seeking out the Joss Whedon Astonishing X-Men trade but couldn’t find it. Considering the person and the subject matter, my geek-stinct (different from geek-stink) told me to assist, but again I didn’t want to impose. It seems like the comic is imposition enough. Also I was scared that I would refer to he and his female companion as “NERDS!” refer to the lack of air conditioning in the store as “…A DEALBREAKER LADIES!” or blurt out something like “YA JUST GOT HORNBERGER’d!” for absolutely no reason.

Comicpalooza Houston Fancy Painting Comic: “Robodolphincop”

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HijiNKS ENSUE is a comic about geek pop culture. You can get started with comics on TV, Movies, Sci-Fi and Technology. Or you can just browse the Archive. You can see my BOOK and T-SHIRTS in the HE STORE. Thanks!

At the end of the second day of Comicpalooza there was a live art event and silent auction with the proceeds benefitting the Comicbook Legal Defense Fund. I asked the Fancy Tweetstards for something to draw and mashed up a few ideas (namely “draw Robocop” and “draw a dolphin”) to get the above bastardpiece. After drawing the whole thing with pen and marker, Wondermalki! (who also made a painting) encouraged me to try my shaky hand at watercolors. I essentially painted over the entire finished piece with surprisingly positive results. Someday when future historians are restoring this painting they will realize there is an earlier version underneath Watson’s “Mamalia Aquatus Robocopus” and squeem with art-historianish glee.

I found out afterward that the guy who won the auction for my painting was buying it for a Fancy Bastard that couldn’t make it to the show, so I was really pleased than some reader out there now owns the first painting I ever did. I would like to do more. It was oddly soothing and organic. It was like gardening… on paper… with paint… and no plants.

A highlight of the show for me was meeting Dichen Lachman and getting a chance to give her a Sci-Five shirt. I have no idea if she really liked it or if she was just being gracious, but she was extremely friendly and quite beautiful (as if you didn’t know). Continue reading→

Whatever Dad… I’m Outta Here

Baltimore Comic-Con was an amazing success! Thanks to everyone that came out to say hi and show their support for the comic. I knew a handful of Fancy Bastards were going to be at the show, but I had NO IDEA so many of you less vocal/non-commenting types would be there. I sold almost all of the books I brought and a ton of T-shirts (Groverfield was a smash hit).

Special thanks to @mechamenchi for being my right hand man all weekend, and to @mutant_enemy127 for helping out on Sunday. I really couldn’t have done so well without the help I received from these guys.

In addition to talking with a good number of long term FB’s, I think I managed to win over quite a few new recruits for the cause. The unbelievably positive response I got from complete strangers that had never heard of HE until the con was unexpected to say the least.

Additional thank you’s go to Danielle Corsetto for being my “big webcomic sister,” Jessi for helping to wrangle Danielle all weekend, Brent Corsetto for being genuinely kind and uncommonly awesome, every FB that came to the reader meet-up and made me feel so appreciated, everyone that bought a book, and especially to FB Adam and his wife for their overwhelming generosity and kindness.

Now GORGE YOURSELVES on con pics, books sketches, cosplayers and PETE FROM 30 ROCK!

[this comic is taken from a sketch commissioned at the con by @mutant_enemy127.]