Unrelated Topics: Comic-Con and comic Conan

As promised, here is a post rife with complete sentences, as well as a Comic-Con wrap-up. First up, the last illustration from the commisioned project where I was asked to depict a few distinct TV characters--my favorite talk show host, Conan O'Brien:

click above for larger view

Same technique on this one as the previous few--inked with Tombo brush pen and Sakura microns, followed by obsessive Photoshop touch-up and coloring. The colors on this piece don't quite gel. They get the idea across well enough, but there's something subtley lacking. In that respect this piece shows its age--I think I'd do a better job on the colors today. Incidentally, this and the Mr. T sketch from tuesday, were both drawn years before Mr. T became a semi-regular on Conan. MY DRAWRINS' PREDICTED THE FUTURE!

So, Comic-Con. It was a decent show--crowded, but manageable (unlike last year). For me, Comic-Con is always a very surreal event--every fifteen minutes I'm running into someone I know, very often someone who I haven't seen for years. For example, literally, within five minutes of stepping into the convention hall to pick up my badge, I ended up talking to someone who I haven't seen since college (closing in on 8-9 years). It's nice running in to some familiar faces, and its always cool to meet new creative people too, and get excited about drawing and writing. However, talking too much and being in a dry air-conditioned environment for four and a half days straight left my throat pretty messed up. Enough about my ridiculously frail constitution! The highlights:

• Vinny drew me an awesome sketch of Skeletor--I will post it in the near future.
• The Tired Girl Collective was joined by the very lovely Anna Woltz. Anna had a button that read "Frodo" but looked like the Ford logo, so naturally, I bought one.
• "Hand-wrestling" featuring super-posable cardboard robot action figure thingees. It basically amounted to videos of a person's hands making two cardboard robots "wrestle." It's ridiculous, I don't understand the point of it, but the robots are awesome. Check out Kami-Robo.
• Samurai cats in the style of traditional Japanese ukiyo-e prints. Verbal description doesn't do it justice--good sense requires you to visit the website of Moira Hahn.
• Martin Hsu's art really caught my eye, as did Seth Reek's. Let your eyes soak in their talent.
• I bought the volume of Dungeon that I was missing, King City (review on its way), and an advance copy of Comic Foundry.
• Jacob, who is both a Prince, and a Scholar, picked up this Transformers exclusive for me, so I didn't even have to wait in line!

Phew. Enough of that! Comic-Con 2008 will be upon us before we know it. Onward, to the future, dear reader!

(Next Post: Harry Potter!)