Our Eclectic Christmas Tree Ornaments

Most years I try to photograph the Christmas tree after I get all the ornaments and lights put up and the ornaments never show up well. This year I shot them as they were laid out on a table before sticking them into the obscuring tree.

We have a very eclectic collection of ornaments from both our childhoods and comic book and Star Trek items I’ve been collecting for decades.

I started with these ceramic DC super heroes I found while working at Caveat Emptor in Bloomington, IN during the late 70s.

These are some small plastic gnomes and elves I’ve had since I was a child in the late 50s.

Long after the 70s super hero ornaments became much easier to find.

Since Hallmark started issuing the Star Trek ships we’ve been adding those, if we like the ship, we don’t have them all. Unfortunately I bought new light strings last year and the sockets no longer match the ships so they don’t light up this year.

My wife is a Marvin Martian fan and we got this tree topper when the WB stores were still open in Circle Center Mall.

Kokomo Comic Con 2011

Saturday, October 8th,  I spent a great day at the Kokomo Comic Convention.

The Kokomo folks provide great space for the artist alley, lots of room behind the tables for banners and other displays. They also treat us very well during the course of the day with volunteers coming by regularly asking if we need anything.

This is Shawn D. Hilton, front man for the Kokomo Con. I got some photos of him off his Facebook page and used them to do this, my first zombie con sketch (actually my first zombie drawing anywhere!). (I don’t “get” zombies and their huge fan base, but other artists at cons have told me I’m missing out not drawing them.) Shawn wasn’t aware I was doing this piece but I asked him before I started how he felt about zombies. His reply was something like, “I’m fine with zombies, I love zombies.” I put the sketch into the charity auction benefiting the Kokomo Humane Society where I heard that Shawn bought it to keep it from other hands.

The guest of honor was “World Famous Cartoonist Art Baltazar.” Artie is an exclusive DC Comics artist responsible, along with Franco, “The Tiny Titans” which is a kid’s comic and wonderfully serves a market section of the comic world that I think is grossly ignored. The comics profession is jumping through all sorts of hoops with events and relaunches trying to get new readers into comics. You get new readers by starting them in comics as soon as they can ask for things! They need comics that parents can read to them. Comics that have entertaining, fun, clear drawings that the kids can enjoy even without a grownup to read to them.

This is a drawing I did as a gift to Artie in appreciation for his highly entertaining AW YEAH podcast he does with Franco and John Siuntres. Within that podcast Artie expounds on his obsession with TV talk show hostess Wendy Williams.

It took awhile for the attendees to decide they wanted my caricatures so I only had time to do these, but that allowed me time to do the drawings shown above so that’s okay.

This young man wanted to be an original X-Man with water powers.

This young lady initially wanted to be drawn as Amy Pond from Dr. Who but I told her to convey that I’d have to straighten her lovely curly hair and put her in a mini-skirt. She liked the mini-skirt idea but not the hair change so she opted for River Song, in a mini-skirt. Which I was happy to do.

This was another first, doing zombie drawings of another artist’s characters. I was positioned across the side aisle from Rodney Fyke, who has a comic book he writes and draws, “Peanut, Puddin’ n’ Jelly” which are the name of these three characters. For reasons that escape me (see zombie comment above) he wanted to see his guys as zombies and after seeing my Shawn drawing he asked me to do it. It was fun! Thanks Rodney!

The last subject was a young girl who wanted to be drawn as a cheerleader in her school colors.

Great convention Shawn & Co. I look forward to next year!

Saturday in Nashville, TN

Last weekend I was at the Nashville Comic and Horror Convention.

It turned out to be more oriented toward horror, which isn’t my preferred genré so I only did a few paid drawings.

 

I did a couple of character sketches while I watched zombies shuffle past my table.

Captain America Movie Review

I saw Captain America the second morning of it’s release, the 10:45 AM show, first showing on that Saturday. The theater was very nearly full. I’ve not seen an early morning show this well attended since the Star Trek movie of 2009. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and as the “ultimate Captain America fan who has previously expressed low expectations from comic to film adaptions,” so said a friend of mine, I am very satisfied with all aspects of the movie. Even though I’m not buying much in the way of DVDs these days, film or TV, I will buy this one when it becomes available on DVD. I had read in interviews with Chris Evans that his pre-Cap physique was achieved by digitally shrinking him in post production but also read in newspaper articles the version of digitally sticking his head or face on a smaller body actor. Either way it was effective. The USO performer angle on his origin was plausible and made for an entertaining montage and served to highlight his acceptance later in the film when he proved his worth as a fighting asset. There were changes from the comic version of the origin story but they all made sense in movie terms and in no way diminished the power and patriotism of the character. I don’t think there is any overbearing Americanism in the film to offend the international audiences but I’m not the best judge of that. The tie-ins to the other MARVEL movies are extremely well crafted. The origin of the Cosmic Cube has been changed to be a element from the Thor mythos making it a Norse gods thing rather than something created by A.I.M. but it works. If you see it, pay attention to the scenes early in the film in the World’s Fair type setting and you can see the original Human Torch in his plastic tube. The online people that were touting Easter eggs to look for missed that one.

More Summit City Toy Nonsense

There was an artists table at Summit City Comic Con last weekend (see previous post), and I’m sorry that I can’t recall who they were, that had one of these on their table. Their rationale was that they wanted a “roaming gnome” to take with them to cons and place on their table but when they found this toy Cap they decided he would be even better than the average roaming gnome. I agreed and decided I had to have one being a fairly avid collector of Captain America stuff. No toy dealer in the hall had one that I could see so as soon as I returned to the studio I found it on Amazon.com and ordered it. I won’t be carting it around to the local cons I’ll be at this summer (next one is Derby City in Louisville, KY in July) so I won’t be stealing their star-spangled thunder but once I free him from his box I’ll find a place for him near my work station.

I find it interesting that the box graphics show a “Super-Hero Squad” version of the movie Cap rather than the classic Kirby Cap. So far I’ve resisted getting any of the movie design tie-in figures or toys.

Thinking about Galactus

Last weekend I was at Summit City Comic Con

My table was situated across the aisle from the comic and toy vendors and the toy dealer directly in front of me started to discount things in the last hours (as they will) and I had no resistance to the MARVEL Universe talking Galactus (with, to scale, Silver Surfer) which was originally priced at $80 but I got one for $20. Here it is on  the shelf above my studio cutting table.

Unpacking him and putting him up to start collecting dust got me thinking about reviewing the first appearance of the big G because I was sure I recalled some oddness.

This is one of those photos montages Kirby liked to experiment with back in the sixties, cutting edge stuff at the time, ne can only imagine what they would look like on some decent paper! Mainly I show this because the front of the space ship looking thing next to the word balloon is a photo of a hassock style floor fan! I know because I used to have one in my room at the time I was reading that issue!

Anyway, this is what Galactus looked like when he first stepped out of his ship.

Red and green motif top, sort of Christmasy, then red and brown pants.

Then, next issue, he looked like this!

An overall purple and brown color theme. And he’s switched to a short pants look. I have yet to go back and research it but I’m wondering when they settled on his blue and purple color scheme?

Also in this 3 issue arc I noticed in the letters page some missives from then-fans-soon-to-be-pros.
In issue #48 a letter from Don MacGregor, destined to become one of the wordiest comic scribes I can recall.
Then in #49 a letter from Dave Cockrum, then in the Navy.

And finally, in #50, one from future comic writer/editor/MARVEL EIC Gerry Conway who wnet Hollywood at some point.

Dr. Who (Matt Smith) Caricature

Copic markers, multiliner lines, sketch color and some opaque white accents.

Kirkman Caricature

Just fooling  around with a sketch of writer Robert Kirkman. Copic markers.

Is Sketch a Day Back? Maybe Soon.

Last weekend at Super Show

Last weekend I was in Pennsylvania attending the Comic Geek Speak Super Show. Here are some sketches I did at my table.

These are caricatures of my table neighbors.

“Pants,” one of the Comic Geek Speak podcasters collects sketches of the Batwoman of the 1950s.

This gentleman has a sketchbook full of various artists versions of MAD’s Alfred E. Neumann

This one takes too much explanation, suffice it to say that these guys are the members of the comic podcast “Legion of Substitute Podcasters”