Comic Art

Two items from the Art Symposium.  Ramon had pages from his JSA Classified run with him: I couldn’t afford the flashback splash pages that I really wanted but did get this beautiful page with Wildcat and Catwoman.  I didn’t want to squander an opportunity so I requested an Alan Scott Green Lantern sketch.

At the Toronto Symposium I picked up a commission piece from Michael Cho.  I had emailed him last spring about it and he told me it would take awhile but I didn’t mind.  He’s a great artist and love his single colour work; in fact he was finishing up one at the show of Superman and Lois Lane that was stunning.

To the left is the finished piece: to the right are his pencils from the back of the piece: he lightboxes the pencils to do the ink and marker work.

I attended the Sequential Art Symposium in Toronto this past Saturday. It was held prior to the 2008 Joe Shuster Awards in Toronto. It sounded like an exciting event that would have a large community of Canadian creators, in theory at least. I was there for three hours and there were eight local artists and one from elsewhere in Canada; during my time there I saw about twenty attendees. It was poorly advertised and while they had a nice poster I only heard about it through some artist contacts: Michael Cho and Ramon Perez.

One happy note from the Shuster Awards: my local comic shop Big B Comics won retailer of the year. Congratulations guys!

Final item from the April Toronto show.  Maleev had a short list so I was able to get a commission from him the same day.  He works quickly so that helps, but the price didn’t.  The piece was done but I asked that the amulet be added, and neither of us could remember the symbol on his chest so he added it last minute and to my eye it looks like an addition.

One of three Dr. Strange sketches from the Toronto show.  I really enjoy the perspective of this piece.  I’ll be sure to get something from Karl every show since he’s from Ontario.

Saw Paul at the April Toronto show and requested a sketch: he’s doing wind elves for a new project and was kind enough to do this sketch for me.  Paul does a lot of work on animation backgrounds and he really shows off his skill in this piece: a few lines in the back, the severed tree trunk and he gives amazing depth.

Another item from the April Toronto show. Francis is at every Toronto show diligently producing sketches for free. He asked what I wanted and I left it up to him: received this very nice Hellboy sketch.

Attended the fan appreciation show in Toronto last month and picked up a few gems, mostly from local artists I’ve missed the last few years.  Ramon Perez is doing the current art in JSA Classified and did this amazing Dr. Strange sketch for me.  Stunning.

A great eBay find: three consecutive pages from Giant Sized Kid Colt but Larry Lieber.  These are my first western pages and I’ve really been enjoying them: Lieber’s work, especially the western genre, is going cheap on eBay.

Picked this up on eBay a while ago but didn’t have a chance to scan it until yesterday.  Rude seems to be selling off quite a bit lately and some deals are there to be had.  In my mind Steve Rude captures the golden and silver age in his art style, and this page exemplifies that.