Conning of Wonder a Story in Pictures II

Conning More Wonder from Photos

It's now officially more than a month since the end of WonderCon and I'm still posting about it. While not exactly timely I hope it is at least a little enjoyable. The second and third days of WonderCon yielded many more opportunities to catch photos of people in gorgeously elaborate costumes, or just gorgeous people in costume...you'll see what I mean. I was also able to attend a few interesting panels, and more than a couple that were a complete waste of time. Overall I had an amazing weekend and walked away with a few one of a kind mementos. Here are some more of my photos.

Anyone who follows Doctor Who has "their doctor" for me and Mildly Sensational it's the fourth doctor. He's the one we remember from being kids and our parents let us watch Doctor Who for the first time. In both cases the show scared the dickens out of us with all of its monsters and crazy over the top action. These guys clearly like the ninth Doctor played by Chris Eccleston. That or they like leather jackets and buzz cuts. The best part of their cosplay was the Dalek. It was built around a dolly so they could wheel it around with them. 

If not the best Star Wars themed costume I saw that weekend, it was certainly the most badass. I heard some of my fellow geeks call this guy "dark Mandalorian" and he was getting a lot of attention from fanboys with cameras, though probably not as much as...

...this lady's hammer. Seriously. Look at the size of that thing. How does she lift it with such tiny arms? I bet swinging that thing causes her some serious back pain. She attracted a lot of attention for...obvious reasons. I know she wanted to move freely around the con because shortly after this picture was taken she told the clot that had formed around her, "I would like to keep moving now." I didn't see her after this so I can only assume that she must have gone back to her car or hotel room at some point to change into something less...conspicuous. Ok. I have to get this out of my system, "BEHOLD! IT IS THE LADY OF THE STORM HERSELF! THE MIGHTY THORINA THUNDERBOOBS!" There I said it. Moving on. 

Easily one of my favorite costumes of the weekend, if not my absolute favorite. This young lady's Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon was absolutely spot on, and it was fun getting this picture of her holding the axe out toward the camera. The pose and the attitude were perfect. I don't know if she was there for the masquerade or not. If so I hope she did pretty well.

He claws outward, grasping at relevancy. Saturday really did have some great costumes. His is the only Spawn costume I've seen out of three conventions, and it was pretty much flawless. The only way I can think of to make it more accurate would have been for him to pull of the mask and reveal that he's actually Michael Jai White.  

I spotted these three getting their photos taken by a couple of guys with gear that looked they were at the con as professional photographers for another blog or news site. I managed to sneak in and get a couple of pictures. After asking Astrid to hold her axe out toward the camera I had a lot of fun getting similar "action poses" from other cosplayers. It's fun to get pictures of their costumes, sure, but I think the effect is better if you can get them doing something active. 

No convention would be complete without t least one Wolverine. It seems like he's in just about every other title from the M branch of the big two, so I'm honestly a little surprised there weren't more. As good as this costume was there was one other guy there who was built like Thor, but was sporting the claws and weird haircut of everyone's favorite human blender with rage issues. His was the best Wolverine costume of the day, but this guy was a close second.

Gifts
Saturday was the day I set aside to do shopping for friends and family. When I knew that WonderCon was coming up I reached out to some dear friends living in Boulder and asked if there was anything they wanted. They gave me a few ideas and I headed to the Con looking for the perfect gifts for my Colorado brother-from-another-mother and his family. In my search I stumbled across a booth that was selling a number of comic books with blank cardstock covers. These are becoming more popular as collectibles because they allow you to take them to a favorite artist and get them personalized with one-of-a-kind cover art. I picked up four. Three to go back to Colorado and one for myself. For my friends in Colorado I picked up Uncanny X-Men, Avengers, and Superman Unchained. For myself I picked up The Shadow. Below are the finished covers and links to the artist's websites.

Uncanny X-Men by Josh Figueroa

Avengers cover by Brianna Garcia 

A breath taking cover for Superman Unchained by Ruben Martinez

And a little something for me: The Shadow, cover by the only artist I know outside of WonderCon, the terrific Anthony Diecidue

Geek Speaking the Best at What He Does

Geek Speak: The Best at What He Does

Fuck. So I have to post this comic with apologies to Joss Whedon. At some point I remembered that he'd already made basically the same joke in the pages of Astonishing X-Men. By the time that occurred to me I'd already done the finishing work, added the text boxes, and laid out the panels. I wasn't about to put in all that work and not post the thing. 

If I get a cease and desist letter from Whedon's people I'll be sure to scan it and post it here, with the important bits redacted. 

The worst part is I can't be sure if I came up with this idea on my own, or if this moment from the comic book was floating around at the back of my head and only resurfaced due to some chain of linked events. The idea for this came up during the drive to the convention center one morning of Comic Con, thought now I forget the context. 

Whatever the source it does beg the question, "does Wolverine have a hobby?" Drinking beer, smoking cigars, and getting into bar fights are all rewarding pursuits, to be sure, but does he have anything that he looks forward to doing during his rare down times. Somehow I don't see him collecting stamps or quilting. 

Here is Whedon's take on the joke in the pages of Astonishing X-men. If you haven't read his version of the X-Men, check it out. It's worth the cost of admissison.

Comic Con - to be continued

I will continue to relate my ComicCon story, but it will have to wait until my mind is no longer reeling from a condition known as "the tired."

Geek Speaking on the Sexy Snikt and Kicking to Start

Geek Speak: The Sexy Snikt

As comic strips go this one isn't very high concept. The idea grabbed me as having some funny potential, so the problem became the execution. Initially I'd envisioned this as much more realistic with Wolverine looking rugged and manly in his leather jacket and jeans. He'd be standing in a hallway of the Xavier Institute when Psylocke walked by. Same idea, very different execution. I went this route because the tiny hero versions I've done are fun to draw...and it's a lot easier this way. 

Yup. Wolverine is drinking beer at lunch. That rogue. 

Starting the Kicks

I've been trying to think of some ways that I might be able to take what I'm doing with the blog and my cartoons to the next level. Some things are kind of self evident. Already I feel like I'm outgrowing the straight blog format. At the very least it's not a great way to showcase the comic strips, and anyone just getting started out reading the strips would have a hell of a time going back to the beginning. When I converted blog to a magazine layout it helped some, but in looking at other webcomics as a guide absolutely all of them make use of a viewer that allows the reader to go back and forth, view an archive, even jump to one at random. 

To be competitive I also need to bring up my game in my artwork. Drawmelt has been a part of that strategy, and getting the opportunity to draw a live model in a cool, totally chill setting has been of huge benefit to my artwork. The other part of bringing up my artistic game is learning to work in digital. Most of my education in drawing comes from my dad who was a tremendous artist, and an art teacher, but he had a classical education. By extension, I do too, plus a liberal dose of instruction from the incomparable book, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Before long that's not going to be enough. I'm going to need to learn to draw on a tablet using something like Photoshop. 

Both of those things take a tremendous toll on the dual resources of time and money. Neither of which I have in surplus, and shortly after my number two is born I'm going to have a lot less of each. I need a solution so I started looking into Kickstarter.

It's intriguing. My goal would be pretty modest. I'd need start up money to upgrade my computer, get a second monitor, purchase a tablet, subscribe to Adobe Photoshop, and have general expenses for at least six months. Compared to other projects out there, that's relatively humble. What's stopping me is all the unknowns. An even bigger blocker is the possibility of success and not only having to live up to my stretch goals, but to produce something; to live up to the expectations and faith of my supporters. 

People who come up short with the excuse that they're terrified of failure I don't think are being totally honest with themselves. More terrifying than failure is the prospect of success. Failure is not starting in the first place, that ship has sailed before someone can open their mouth to make the excuse. Success is scary because once you have it you have to work to keep it. 

So that's something I'm wrestling with. What's clear is I'm quickly reaching a point where I need to make a move into something bigger, or keep this going as a passion project, but not something that's ever going to buy groceries. 

Maybe someone reading this has a solution, some perspective, or an angle on this I haven't thought of yet. At this point I'm all ears.

Doodling Tiny Heroes

Doodles: Tiny Super Heroes
At some point in the not too distant past I got the idea to try and draw tiny, cute versions of Marvel superheroes. I think we were probably watching the animated series adaptation of Marvel's Avengers at the time. Whatever the reason I took up my pencil, turned to a blank page and drew a picture of tiny spiderman...that looks like someone put him together from spare parts. Undaunted I tried Wolverine, and ended up with something that looks like he's up and trying to walk around without the advantage of a skeleton.

Finally I had the bright idea to draw Thor. Not sure why that seemed like a good idea at the time, given that he's not exactly easy with the helmet, and the armor, and the hammer, and the long flowing locks of blond hair. Maybe I just found the right groove for drawing tiny heroes or maybe the challenge of drawing all those details made me focus in a different way, but I managed a tiny version of the mighty thunderer that is almost...cute.

After Thor I tried my hand at the wasp and came up with something that I like, but it turned out more realistic and less cartoony than Thor...Is it weird that I think the Wasp is hot?

Since then I've drawn a few more. Honestly, it's a lot of fun drawing tiny versions of these characters.
This one of Catwoman was done in about ten minutes while sitting in my car before work

Green Lantern is a character I've only recently started to appreciate. I really like the idea of these heroes drawing their powers from the elemental force of Will itself. This one was drawn at my desk at work between calls, meetings, and when I could grab five seconds to add a line here or there. Even so, I caught a couple of dark looks from a manager who I think doesn't like me drawing at my desk.

It seems like it must be some kind of rite of passage that all comic book geeks, artists, and even humble cartoonists must draw Wolverine at some point. It's like someone is going to come and snip off the parts of you that make you a comic book geek if you don't. I think that's why Wolverine has something 10,000 monthly titles and appears in all of the other comic books. I don't mean Marvel comics. I mean Wolverine is in every comic book ever created. As ridiculously overused as I think Wolverine really is, this was a lot of fun to draw. It's another that was done in about ten minutes in my car before work.