Comic Art

My final item from the 2008 Toronto Fan Expo: a second Ramon Perez JSA Classified page.

I should start off by saying I’m not an Ed McGuiness fan.  While at Fan Expo in Toronto I ran across Dexter Vines: he’s an excellent inker and had some nice pages for sale.  This Watcher page jumped out at me, mostly because of that Kirby-esque outstretched hand.

Another find from the Fan Expo: picked this up from the inker Drew Geraci.  As always I’m drawn to the black heavily inked pages.

My highlight piece from Fan Expo 2008: a glorious Wonder Woman sketch from Darwyn Cooke.  I had spotted him around the show on Friday and I found out he would be selling some of his sketch books from artist’s alley on Saturday morning.  Saturday I paced until I spotted him and was the first in line: he had done headshots of 50’s style women in each so I picked out my favourite.  Then he pulled out a portfolio of stuff for sale: I was blown away by the material but managed to pick out the item below.

First pieces online from the recent Toronto Fan Expo.  Tim Sale was one of the big names I wanted to get a piece from and he employs a unique system, or rather the two or three associates he had with him employed.  Tim does about ten sketches a day and hands out cards to the first people in his line giving a time that day when he’ll draw your sketch.  This is a great system: you don’t need to waste hours in line waiting for no real reason.  The one caveat is that he only spends 10-15 minutes on each piece, but his style fits the limited time frame.  I was in line the second day and brought a friend to wait with me since he didn’t want a Sale piece and I really wanted two.

For the Doctor Strange I provided reference material.  I really wanted a Dr. Fate but Tim didn’t want to do one: I asked for Hawkman but didn’t have reference material so I went with the Hulk.

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.

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.