(NOTE: There are two pages in this gallery!)
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By the time Peri got to my booth, however, she was sitting in her stroller looking very apprehensive. Her first words to me were a plaintive, "I want to go home!" Clearly, she was overwhelmed. A few hours later, however, after walking the floor with Mom and Dad, she seemed better. (On Friday, Sadina and Peri went to Legoland with some friends, whose Dad was also working at the convention!) |
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Peri working the booth with Dad! I joked
with longtime fans that I brought the family down to "prove" the reason
why I haven't released new work until recently... |
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Peri poses
with Xena: Warrior Princess and her sidekick Gabrielle. (Just to prove
I'm not a total geek, I have never watched the show and had to look up
the name of Xena's sideckick!) |
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This actually is a toy manufacturer's booth, not the booth of the company which publishes Batman and Superman (note the life-size statue of Batman at left). Talk about synergy! |
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Sadina at a Disney-related booth--in a picture taken by our own PERI! This was one of the few photos by Peri we could use in this gallery. The rest were shots of people's feet and legs -- which obviously is HER primary view of the floor! |
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Here starts the celebrity/pro portion of our gallery! Just a couple of tables from me were Anson and Benton Jew's "Babes in Space" booth, a terrific anthology of short-story comics featuring what else but "babes in space"! Both Anson
and Benton (here with Benton's girlfriend Deana) are flat out among the
most talented artists/cartoonists I know! Both are accomplished and
established storyboard artists and illustrators. Before both went
freelance, Benton worked at Industrial Light & Magic, where some of
his credits include the the Phantom Menace and the Mummy;
and Anson worked at LucasArts Entertainment. Like me, Anson is a past
Xeric Grant award winner. |
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This was taken at the booth of Jack Hsu and Julie Yeh. Both also are Xeric Grant winners for their fun all-ages title, Poppie's Adventures. For the convention, Jack debuted his own pet project, 893, a stylish, hard-boiled Yakuza comic-book mini-series inspired byJack's experience of living in Japan as a teenager, and his love for manga and Asian cinema (which I love too!).
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This is cartoonist/commercial illustrator extraordinaire Kyle Baker. Kyle is one of the few "pure" cartoonists who has a strong following within a comic-book industry that is otherwise dominated by the super-hero crowd. Though he entered the industry working in comic-books, he gained prominence with quirky and sophisticated, mature work like Why I Hate Saturn and the Cowboy Wally Show that was published as mainstream books, and appealed to a wider hip mainstream audience. |
| In addition to his own latest project, Kyle Baker, Cartoonist, Kyle also was promoting the upcoming release of a graphic novel calledBirth of a Nation, that he illustrated, which was written by Aaron Mcgruder (who writes and draws the syndicated comic-strip Boondocks) and filmmaker Reginald Hudlin. |
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IThis is Steve "the Dude" Rude, an icon of the current generation of comic-book artists. Steve is an "artist's artist"-- an individual who is wholly devoted to his craft, and admired and studied by other artists. Steve's primary focus at this show was selling DVD copies of a few-minute promotional animated "preview" that he produced and animated himself featuring the character he is most-associated with, Nexus. The character was created in collaboration with writer Mike Baron. The short was developed primary to entice a company to pick up the character as an animated series or feature. Though the series is unabashed of its comic-book and science fiction roots, Nexus nevertheless has always been one of the most ambitious and best-written and -drawn series in the field. Nexus has generated interest from the entertainment industry for years. Apparently, the one stumbling block is that the character is essentially an "assassin"--but of mass murderers, and it is a job that the character does not always do happily or willingly. This makes the series very rich and textured (and the creators have always explored the inherent moral complexity of the character). Understandably, the creators don't want the character compromised or diluted. In this age of infinite programming, it is surprising the character hasn't made the jump yet to other media. |
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Here is Mark Wheatley at the Insight Studios booth. Mark has been a longtime friend and supporter of my work. Mark's studio always has been on the leading edge of publishing, and recently has gained more prominence through the success of projects like Frankenstein Mobster!
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To show you there's something for everyone, this Abe
Lincoln look-alike was at a booth selling 12"-tall dolls of the U.S.
presidents! Yes, he seemed to be as tall as Honest Abe as well! Note
the faux White House backdrop! |
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CAVEMAN ROBOT! I have no idea what this character was promoting, but he was all over the floor.
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Here is Peri with yet another character tie-in that I
have no knowledge of. It appears to be a manga (Japanese comic-book)
character. |
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Peri's latest obsession is the movie Spy Kids 3, which she watches repeatedly on DVD. Across the street from the convention center were two giant inflatable robots (about 3-4 stories high) promoting the film, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which stars Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelie Jolie. The robots look a lot like the giant "robo-monkeys" in Spy Kids though, so when Peri first saw them, she started yelling "ROBO-MONKEYS! ROBO-MONKEYS!" So of course we had to take a picture! |
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Peri with a Pikachu, a Japanese anime character. |
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Another shot at the Star Wars pavilion, this one of Peri and Sadina. |
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Two more shots of the crowded floor. Again, I don't think these photos do justice to the size and magnitude of the convention!
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I believe this is the DC Comics booth, home of such comic-book icons as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Towards the
bottom of this photo, you should be able to make out the draped tables
to give you a sense of how big this booth is. |
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Sadly, so ends another exhausting but fun and productive convention. At the end of each show, I always joke that it will be a long and sad 361 days until next year's show! (That's July 14-17, 2005 folks!) By the end of the show, Sadina and Peri already had left for home, and my friend Bob and I took down the table. We dinner at that restaurant/bar staple of the Gaslamp District, Dick's Last Resort! Again, thanks to everyone who stopped by the table to express their support, to buy comics, and to everyone who helped out! |
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All artwork and text copyright by Randy Reynaldo
Page created
August 2004