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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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”