Friday, April 27, 2007

Reports from SPACE!

And so, another visit to SPACE has come and gone. This year marked my third appearance at Columbus, Ohio's independent comic book convention. It's my favorite show to set up at, free of the whistles, bells and Z-list celebs hawking twenty-year-old photos of themselves, allowing us indie guys a chance to find our audience. This year the show ran for two days, which was great because shows like these are too few and too infrequent.

This year, Nik & I went to SPACE (I love saying that) with a friend of Nik's and fellow artist Jon Culczar, creator of Wicket & Imp, an insane comic that must be seen to be believed.

This year we got to hang with a lot of friends and had an all-around blast. The Man himself, Robert "Hollywood" Swinton was at the table next to us and Mike Indovina was just one table away, so it was a reunion of sorts for we OTF members. Unfortunately Jon's table was clear across the room.
Nik & I cheese it up for a picture taken by Hollywood.
Medicated Betty (above), one of Hollywood's (also above) creations, was my first-ever drawing of a bald woman.

Nik & Hollywood (below) fall victim to my ninja-style photography.Mike Indovina, creator of Satyr, Chimera and fellow OTF member was just one table down from us. This show was the debut of not only his Satyr tarot cards but The Chimera Collection, which as you can about imagine, is the complete collection of every published issue of his masked mystery man The Chimera.

Saturday night was spent dining at a faux Mexican joint that reminded me of a Chili's but with better food although my steak kinda tasted like a tongue and Mike had a bit of difficulty building his own burrito. But, they had Dos Equis on tap in chalice-style mugs as big as my head that Jon encouraged me to steal, but we couldn't figure out how to sneak the enormous goblet out the door.
One of my favorite stops as SPACE is the Torc Press table. The guys over there are in it for the love of the game and they're always coming up with newer, stranger books. Their latest effort (as far as I can tell) is an "all ages" book called Gulatta! and it involves Akuma Boy, the Japanese Chaos spirit trapped in the body of an American punk whose heroic motivation revolves around his love of simply beating people up.

Above is a drawing I did for them for the heck of it featuring my favorite character of theirs, Alice is Lost. Check out their website and, more importantly, check 'em out at a show.

Well, that about wraps up my report from SPACE. I've still got a ton of books to read that I picked up there, including Jon's books and issue three of Sgt. Death, and plan on reviewing the good ones as I go.

Keep it here, boppers.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

In Honor of my April Banner...

Courtesy of the Kinks...

I remember when you were down
You would always come running to me
I never denied you and I would guide you
Through all of your difficulties
Now I'm calling all citizens from all over the world
This is Captain America calling
I bailed you out when you were down on your knees
So will you catch me now I'm falling