And I Think It's Gonna Be a Long Long Time

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being the featured speaker at Kensington Middle School as part of Right to Read week. I'll write about that later, and hopefully I'll get some photos from them to post along with that. I stupidly forgot my camera. Anyway, the kids had brilliant questions, and one of them was "What's the weirdest thing you've had to draw?"

I know I mentioned my personal favorite, a bowling rhinos illustration for Scene that I did back in 2004. I'd forgotten about this recent addition to the Wall of Weird: a karaoke singing octopus. This was a sketch for Christopher Brimmage who's got an entire website devoted to the characater and artist sketches. You can check it out here.

You'd think that my first thought of what to have an octopus karaoke would be Mandy because of my affiliation with Angel. But, after further thought, I thought something a little more... Shatneresque.

Radio Randomness

As part of the Free Comic Book Day festivities, I'll be on the Mud, Mihalik and Mike Radio Show Wednesday, April 30, to talk about Free Comic Book Day, the FCBD promotion with the Lake County Captains, and comics in general. It should be eight kinds of fun. I'll be on sometime in the 9:00 hour, and you can hear them in the Greater Cleveland area on WNCX 98.5FM. You can listen online at their website, too.

New York Comic Con Day One: No Pictures For You!

Why? I just didn't have a chance to take any pictures is all. There'll be at least one obligatory shot of my table with me behind it sometime this weekend. Just not today.

The show went pretty well today. New York starts it's public show around 3:00pm, which is later than most shows, but makes sense. I've often thought three day shows should adjust for people who have those job things I've read about. Or school, too.

The pre-show starts around noon if not before. Which makes for a long day.

I showed up for that and set up my table and chair (big thanks to Paul for grabbing those for me) and then walked around to do the meet-and-greet. Obviously, I can't tell everything that went on, but here are the highlights:

- Got to hang out with some friends I almost see only when I'm on the Left Coast. So I got to see Charlotte Fullerton, Gabe and Chachi Hernandez, Dwayne McDuffie, Jerry Ordway, Ronn Sutton, Janet Hetherington, Leonard Kirk, Len Wein, John Gallagher, Rich Faber and other people that I'm sure I'm just spacing on now.

- Ran into Kevin Gamble, ace producer and writer-star-guy who's on Tiki Bar TV, which is a great iTues download. Get it now... well, after you're done reading at least. I gave him some Love and Capes, including #5 that takes place at the Riki Tiki Tavern, inspired, in part, by said Tiki Bar.

- Got to sit and actually talk with great artist and business runnin' hero Kyle Baker. So many shows are just the wave-and-hand-a-book thing. This was actually a protracted conversation, which was great.

- I met at least three people I intend to use the Old Zahler Charm (i.e. relentless begging and constant follow-up e-mails) to get some work.

- I met one person who specifically asked me to work with him. That's always nice.

- Many Iron Man Toon Tumblers, as well as many other Toon Tumblers were sold. I always like it when my clients do well.

- Had some fans, actual fans, at my table. People who have read the book. People who read this here blog (and requested a Mera commission). I'm not going to name them without permission. But they know who they are. It's good to see the book finding an audience.

So, let me 'splain... no, there is no time. Let me sum up. While the day had no Huge Moment of Importance there were lots of little lower case versions that bode well for me and things to come. That's good. And there are still two days left. That's even better.

CleveLand!

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise, but the Mystery Game Board piece was done for Scene Magazine, in the issue that comes out today.

They're running a feature on Cleveland's screwed up politics, and wanted a CandyLand type game board with several Cleveland incidents on it. So, everything from the sink hole to the Ameritrust Building, to the County Commissioners, to National City Bank's troubles are illustrated.

Scene Magazine supplied me with a PDF of the finished version, which you can see by clickin' and embiggenin'.

I'm thrilled with the way this one came out. I think it's a great piece.