…I drew a portrait of Han, Luke and Leia. Comicon San Diego gave exhibitors the option to draw or paint one of a handful of assignments, to be included in their massive Comicon International program book. This is the one I did.
I’ve always been fascinated with time travel. Did you ever have one of those days or weeks or moments that you wish you could travel back to? Comicon 2007 was it for me. Or, truthfully, any of the eight Comicons I have exhibited in is one I would love to travel back to.
As an artist, you’re always thrilled to meet other artists, especially all in one place. All of us (at least on our professional non-superstar level, unlike Alex Ross, Neal Adams, or Jorge Jiminez) spent a lot of money on travel, hotel and car, con table, printing, promoting, and tons of time penciling, inking, painting, maybe writing, editing and doing our cover- or original art for exhibit. If we made some money, we were still excited that we were there. If we broke even, great. And if we made a profit, it’s time to go to a real restaurant for dinner instead of eating pricey Con food, or the now-soggy sandwiches we got that morning at Ralph’s.
My Christian Comic Arts Society friends and I always went to Horton Plaza, where three stories up we’d eat mall food and talk about the day’s events, plans for the next of the four days. Inevitably, we would gather the day’s new friends whom we had met at the table, all of us snowballing up the hill to the Plaza, then spreading out to take up most of the open-air place and watch the stars come out over Southern California.
We’ve had witches, self-proclaimed vampires, atheists, pagans, fellow Christians, and even a guy I still remember who gave out shots of Vodka with every purchase of his comic, ‘My Monkey’s Name Is Jennifer’. I warned him that probably wasn’t the best idea in the convention hall.
All of us talked into the night until some of us realized we needed sleep in order to wake up at 6 the next day to get our Ralph’s food, a parking space not near Mexico, and to get our tables set up before the crowds came.
On one of those mornings, I met Chewbacca. Seriously. It was the real Chewbacca, dressed in a tee and jeans and sucking down a coffee, like the rest of us. I was passing out cards for my comic, ‘Diary of Hope’, and there he was, Peter Mayhew, standing alone behind his table, smiling at me. I waved, but I don’t think I went over. I’m shy that way. Near him, there was a life-size X-wing fighter made of Legos.
Comicon was a place where you never know who you would meet, the kind of art work you would get, or what events were going on. For an artist, it was excitingly overwhelming, and I loved it.
It’s been years since I went to that last Comicon, due to moving and projects, and though I was planning on going last year, because of obvious reasons I didn’t.
The show will be all online like it was last year. I have heard that it will be live next year. Where the Small Press area used to welcome publishers of anything from tiny books to comics to novels to art prints, newer, stringent content rules limiting diversity of format allow artists to submit only a ‘linear-storyline comic book created in the previous or present year’.
I hope that changes.
Artists are not fond of having our hands tied. We like wielding our light sabers like true Jedi Masters, not just being forced to slice bread with them.
But I hold out hope…hope that many artists will create from their hearts, myself included. There’s too much adventure in life to put into books, comics and art, and there are lots of venues and platforms out there, digital and physical.
So this May 4th, make art. Don’t think about guidelines or billable hours or people-pleasing. Our Creator put purpose in us, and we’re responsible for it. ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ –Luke 12:48
May the 4th be with you.
