Ayn, Neal and the world around me...

[campued1010]

 

You going to Philly? Maybe you can enrich the lives of other board members as well!!!!!

[John R]

Here is a print that I liked, I did not buy it but now wish I did. If anyone knows who did this, give me a PM. Our kids (and us too) love the Miyazaki films and this would have been great fun in the house. My daughter was really upset that I did not get it.

 

Sounds like you had a great time. BTW - the name of the artist is Mark McHaley and the name of the painting is "Bus Stop". You can see this painting and more of his stuff here.

[greggy]

 

You going to Philly? Maybe you can enrich the lives of other board members as well!!!!!

No, I don't like your kind.

[dover]

 

Heroes Con 2011 cont....

 

 

I e-mailed Chrissie Zullo about a month before the show to see if she took pre orders and as luck would have it, she did. I asked for a Wonder Woman or Supergirl and asked her to surprise me. Well the wait was worth it as it is perfect and classic in her style. I was amazed at how little she charged and how much she did.

 

I will be getting more sketches from her in the future, I hope!

 

http://chrissie-zullo.deviantart.com/

 

 

 

 

 

[dover]

 

Heroes Con 2011....

 

I had e-mailed Terry for a pre order con skecth and set up getting this Wonder Woman done. I see a strong difference from his pencils to his inks. He even told me that he does them very different and his style changes depending on the medium. I was very happy having him do this piece as I have been reading his SiP stuff for a long time.

 

Terry is a great talent because I think he really enjoys it. I happened to have my Chrissie Zullo with me when I picked this up and he actually asked to see it and then took a picture of it. He loved it.

 

His pencils are different than his inks as shown in this peice.

 

 

 

 

[dover]

 

Heroes Con 2011...

 

What I did not realize was how many pure artists were at the show. Not people that were heavily involved with drawing / inking a current comic book rather artists that set up a booth and draw super heroes. I liked this guys work, Jason Mettcalf, so I asked him to do a sketch. In talking with him I asked what he was doing currently and he said just sketches. He had not worked on a comic book in a year. At first I was not sure how to take that or if I thought it was okay. Here I am collecting original comic book artist art and this was not really a comic book artist. I asked this question alot as I worked the aisles at Heroes and found there were quite a few in this situation. Interesting turn of events.

 

Well, after showing him a picture he went to work on my Adam Strange. It turned out very nice, simple and clean but it is so soft that I think I need to get it inked by someone.

 

Anyone have a good idea for an inker or colorist?

 

 

 

 

[Prince Namor]

Great report! You picked up some fantastic art from this show!

[dover]

 

Heroes Con 2011.....

 

This Tim Sale guy is popular. Looked him up before the show and read his detailed description of how he accepts sketch offers at cons. No getting in line early. Early pass people should not "lurk" in the area to jump on the list, really strict on the sign up sheet. Well I got to the table 3 minutes after the show opened and the line had formed. I thought for sure I would not get a slot, as it turned out I was the last one taken for the day.

 

The whole experience almost turned bad as I was inline for my Neal Adams moment and my phone alarm went off telling me to go get my Tim Sale sketch done. I was not a happy camper leaving Neal to get Tim. It turned out okay, as I'll report in my Neal Adams con report to follow.

 

 

Tim Sale

 

ready go-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dover]

 

Bryan Mon....Tuff Girl

 

Just happened to walk by his booth, he had a Supergirl skecth done and I got sucked right in; bought it. I later realized that I had bought a piece by him from the boards a year ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bought this on the boards last year....

 

[TeddieMercede]

WE WANT NEIL ! WE WANT NEIL !

[dover]

Heroes Con 2011...

 

Dear Fanboy,

 

Here is Adams.

 

I say that each time I walked by Neil's booth, the line was simply too long for me to consider standing and waiting. But right next to his booth was Josh Adams, who had no line at the time.

 

I stopped and talked with him for awhile. I asked the standard questions of working with a dad that is famous, how is the pressure, etc. In a past life I was in racing and saw many a son of a famous race car driver struggle to make it on his own under the spotlight and expectations. Josh seemed to be okay with it all and had come to some reasonable state of being all things considered.

 

On a whim, after looking at his trading cards, I asked for a sketch. Also bought a card. I have to say of all the sketches I had done, I was the least haooy with this one. The face just did not come out right, too sketchy and rough. Oh well.

 

They are quite the artistic family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dover]

 

HOTFLIPS!!!

 

 

I found myself at the Hotflips booth several times on Friday. I never realized they sold the hard covers for sketches / art work. Here I am walking around worried about protecting my new art and there on their table is just what I needed! I would get a sketch and run to their booth to get the cover and run off again.

 

Nice service at the show.

 

Now if I could just get them to sell CGC flip and stick bags for magazines in lots of 10. Anyone need to split an order of mag bags?

 

[TupennyConan]

I like greggy.

[dover]

I like greggy.

 

Me too.

[dover]

Heroes Con 2011...

 

What happens when you don't score the main stream title? or don't push hard enough for the big jobs? When you have the talent but something else is missing?

 

Bernie Wrightson was set up within view of Neil's booth. No winding series of rope lines, no fanfare, posters and support staff. Just Bernie and his wife, a book with original art in it and some smiles.

 

He does not do sketches, autographs are free and this year he did not even have a sketchbook to buy. He did have some artwork and I deteremined that I needed some. I found this full size page and has to have it! $40.00, can you believe??

 

His frankenstein ink / line work will always be some of my favorite art of all time. But to see these two bronze age greats with such divergent paths to fame makes me wonder why it is so. Did Bernie not push as hard? Not try, not develop the way Neal did?

 

[dover]

Heroes Con 2011

 

 

Fun buy for the kids!

 

[dover]

 

Heroes Con 2011....

 

 

One of my favorite pieces of the show!

 

Matt Slay is one of the nicest guys out there. Spent a long time talking to him and his lady friend about any number of things in the comic art world. He was interested in the sketches I got, if I liked them and if I did not why? He wanted to make sure the buyer got what they wanted and were happy.

 

He talked himself through the whole process. Talked about the pose, the hair, the hips and bum, really interesting to watch the creator at work. I am working on buying a second piece of his art, one that I saw at the show!

 

I was happy.

 

 

beginning...he used the Terry Moore WW for a start

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dover]

 

Heroes Con 2011....

 

 

Dear Fanboy,

 

 

Neal Adams attended Heroes this year for the first time. To be honest, I was not sure I was even going to meet him. I knew his sketches were very pricey, I did not have anything for him to sign and the line was always loooooong to get to him. I walked by his booth many times during the day as I hunted down sketches but never thought the line would get shorter so I convinced myself not to worry and maybe some other time.

 

About 5:20 I was wondering around aimlessly looking at wall books for amusement when who should come by? Joey (post) and he mentioned that the line for Adams was gone and I should go meet him. That was all it took, thanks Joey, and I was off to see the Wizard. Still had nothing for him to sign but that was remedied when I got there. I looked for a book or print to use and then found the hardback, limited signed edition of Neal Adams Art. They were running a special, buy the book and get Neal to do a sketch inside for $250.00 total. I valued that to be a pretty good deal, and I shelled out my cash.

 

I was second in line, 5:30 waiting for him to finish someones book and excited about what to have him draw. First it was Ms Mystic.....then changed my mind to Deadman.....and then realized what character he could bring the most life too in a short time: Green Arrow. As luck (or not) would have it, as I was about to hand him my book for sketching my phone alarm went off and I had to go to get my Tim Sale skecth done, FP 5:40.

 

Finally get to meet this man and I have to leave. I tell him what I am doing and he says, "that's okay, I don't need you here to draw, I have that part down pat." Run to Tim's booth, Tim is there talking to another artist.....talking....talking.....ugh. Finally he sits down, 8 minutes late and begins his work. As I detailed above, he did quite a fantastic job. He has to keep the sketch so that it can dry and they can scan it, so I'll have to come back later to get it. Back to Neal.

 

I arrive and he has just cracked open my book and started. What a time. I tell him I have a little CGC collection of his covers and that I am tryng to collect them all in CGC 9.4 or higher. He acts a little surprised but not phased. Trying to think about what to ask him, I go for the question that I always come to with him. "Neal, what happened in 1977 that seemed to change the way you draw or at least present your work?" The look on his face was interesting, he knew there was something and he readied himself to tell me. A voice rang out behind him, a lady (his wife I believe), "you met me!" behind every great man is a woman to hold him up.

 

On to Neal's answer. First he had to correct my timeline, no way it was 1977 (however, it is what all the dates say on the comic books) but his answer was this, "that was the time I was working on convincing DC that it had to change its comic book format." Neal's vision was that comic books would have to change, they would need to be bigger, more stories with slick covers and sell for more; a dollar say. It was in this time that Neal did a great many covers for the DC Dollar books. He did House of Mystery, World's Finest, Superman Family, some war books all in this new format. I suspect he was granted great freedom to do the covers as they tend to stand out by themselves.

 

Note that Neal was the one that brought a real color pallet to DC. Neals background in advertisement gave him a large base to draw from to be able to produce great work. "otherworlds33" on the boards first put me onto this and it is easily confirmed in interviews and again, he talked about it to me during the sketch. He understood the whole process and used it to help him create or break a barrier he felt was limiting him.

 

He talked about many things after this, some of which I would never put into print. He gives himself much more credit on projects than just the art work. He described many of the books he basically wrote even though he is not given credit. He went through several items in this vain to profess that he was a writer as well. At the same time intertwined was his indifference for the covers that were begun by Carmine, Neal doing the finishing on what were his layouts. He did not have too much fondness of these early DC covers, IMHO.

 

While I was there, which ended up being for 1 and 1/2 hours all total ( it was after 7:00 when the lights were flashing and Neal finally finished my sketch), people would come by and get his autograph so he went back and forth from signing to sketching, flawlessly I might add. I have to think he spent extra time on my sketch as there was no one waiting in line behind me and no pressure to finish.

 

Two more interesting items came to pass while I was there. Someone brought a book that their friend had made in which they redrew Adams covers and added a twist or character to them. They left the book for Neal to look at and of course asked for any input that he could give. When the person left, Neal looked at me and asked, "give him input? He wants input on what I think of him redoing my covers?" It was sort of amussing for sure. Hey Neal I redrew your cover and added a character, what do you think?

 

 

The second event was a discussion on the growing earth theory! No really, I have pictures and videos. Someone getting an autograph mentioned they were a science teacher and Neal took off like a fish on the hook. He got into a 10 minute discussion on particles and pair relationships, even drew it out in one picture i took. Neal is actually going to be in a conference on the subject coming up. I don’t remember when or where, but it is an actual conference on this subject. It is gaining traction and Neal is one of the supporter / drivers of it.

 

 

He really is a legend and a talent of extreme significance. He is still drawing and creating to this day. I need to get a SC of his book to read, there is no way in hell I am going to open my HB book to read!

 

[dover]

Heroes Con 2011....

 

 

Long line

 

 

 

the man

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dover]

Heroes Con 2011....

 

 

Neal on pair theory....

 

 

 

 

short video of him talking about it