Boston Comic Con 2013 (#2)

So, I'm still riding the "Boston Comic Con" wave in terms of blog material. I've been pretty busy since the con. I'm working on Unpleasantpeople.com (there's nothing but a blank blogger page there at the moment) and re-designing my business card (which I will have handy for MICE) as well as more comics to be featured in Brain Parts #5.

Anyhoo, a few more of my favorite things:

Female Judge Dredd

Arthur Dent

Beast Boy

Female Empire Officer

Decked-Out Poison Ivy

Steampunk Mermaid

Blade

 

"Shut up and take my money!"

Tank Girl

Master Shredder

Steampunk Batman

Lady-Riddler

Sailors Venus, Moon and Jupiter

These are some of my favorite genders-swapped cosplays. I know they're pretty much the same costume as the male version, just more fitted, but I like that they didn't give into the pressure to make a conventionally sexy version of the costume. I mean, how many traffic-law-violaters can Judge Dredd blow away while wearing stilettos and a bikini? The guy dressed as blade made some very cool wooden reproductions of the hero's weapons, that I wish I'd taken detailed photos of, as they looked really cool. I was crazy-excited to see Tank Girl (who I would like to be when I grow up) and some classic Shredder and Sailor Shenshi. Oh yeah, and Steampunk Batman? Those wings are totally retractable!

This year I was rather print-happy. I've never really gotten into buying prints at a con, I'm so focused on the comics, but there was such beautiful work for sale, I couldn't help myself.

 

Top left: a print by Emily Smith. I was down to my last spending-bucks when I swung by her table, otherwise I would have gotten more of her stunning prints. She's definitely a watercolor-master, and when I've got the time, I'm looking forward to reading her webcomic, Acanthity. Should have asked her to sign the print. Dammit!

Top middle and right: pinups by Tracy Lee Quinn. I loved the first one I bought, I went back the next day to get another! Yes, that's Jem from Jem and the Holograms on the right. She was selling them for $5, and I wanted to get in there before she realized she could totally charge more for them!

The bottom print is by artist, inker and editor for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the Mirage years), Eric Talbot. I swarmed his table twice and he was super-cool and signed some of my comics.

 I didn't buy much in the way of comics this year, and I kind of regret not spending much time checking out Artists' Alley. I did, however, snag a copy of "Diabetes is After Your Dick" by the ever talented Cathy Leamy! So, you know, if you have diabetes and a dick, you should probably read this. Even if you have neither, it's still an interesting read!

 Oh yeah, this is a just a little pic of me hangin' with my pal Mike Mignola. No big deal.

My girlfriend Sarah and I bugged him twice, but he was very kind and patient (totally keeping it cool despite the hat-wearing psychopath having a conniption fit in front of him), signing our books and throwing out some self-deprecating humor. In short, he was totally awesome-sauce.

We also met David Mack. I've only read the first couple trades of Kabuki, but he's done so much more, I'll have to raid Sarah's excellent comic collection for more of his work.

Closing out my convention ramblings: some more superheroes in tutus! Enjoy!

Boston Comic Con 2013 (#1)

Well, after a week I've finally shaken myself out of my post-con zombie state, shuffled through my photos and scanned the doodles I did behind the table during my down-time.

It was a fantastic show, the venue was bigger and nicer, there were more people, and my comic sales were better at this con than at any con I've been to before. It was very exciting, encouraging and motivating for me. The scope of the thing was a bit intimidating and at times overwhelming, but I had a great time.

Left-to-right: Jose-Luis Olivares, Yours Truly, Matt Aucoin, Mo Oh, Jesse Lonergan

I tabled with my outstandingly talented pals Jose-Luis Olivares, Mo Oh, Jesse Lonergan and Matt Aucoin who made the haul down from Vermont to come. I'm so glad I was able to be surrounded by such talent at my table. My patient and supportive girlfriend also provided coffee runs, moral support, salesmanship and a much-needed shoulder-rub. Without her, I'm fairly certain we all would have crashed.

Because of the sheer number of photos I took and wonderful cosplays I want to highlight, I'll do a double-post about Boston Comic Con.

It's-a Mario!

A beautiful steampunk Wonder Woman.

Badass Legend of Korra crew!

Avengers/ Storm Trooper mashup

Darth Vader and his clone trooper girlfriend are steppin' out!

Awesome gender-swapped Avengers!

The steampunk Wonder Woman was by far my favorite of the numerous steampunk cos-plays, superhero or otherwise! I love that a lot of cosplayers would have a pose that they would strike for photos. It shows they were really into their characters and wanted to take a good picture. I wish I'd taken some detail photos of the crew of lady-Avengers, their costumes were beautiful and well-made. They managed to gender-swap their characters without needing to go overboard with the T&A, while being absolutely feminine. Julia Pug, who created the costumes does a lot of gorgeous sewing projects, has a great blog with some of her other work.

Jimmy Aquino of the Comics News Insider podcast picked up Unpleasant People #1-4 ($12 for all four issues, plus shipping, y'all!) and mentioned it as one of his "Top 3" in episode #488. It really meant a lot to me to get mentioned, and I was grinning like a mad fool when he talked about my work. Pretty sure I scared my roommate.

After seeing an adorable little girl wearing a Spiderman shirt and a tutu, I was inspired!

My girlfriend Sarah had some great suggestions for other heroes to get the tutu treatment, and I think I'm addicted:

 

There will be more to come! Maybe I'll clean these up nicely and make prints for the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo. Gotta keep thinking ahead!

Next up: the rest of my favorite cosplays, links to the fabulous artists whose prints I picked up, me gushing about having met Mike Mignola and a couple more lads in tutus!

the ULTRA UPDATE!

Okay, so I have good excuses this time for the lack of blog updates over the past few weeks! April was crazy! It felt like everything that could possibly happen to me, happened to me in April: did my taxes, got really sick, juggled two jobs for a little while before switching and had two conventions in two weeks! April had its ups and downs, but I'm glad it's May now. I've decided to take it easy this month. I'm also getting close to finishing the pencils for "Unpleasant People" #4. Just a couple pages left. I want to go to the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo in the fall and I want to have two new books by then (the aforementioned "Unpleasant People" and another issue of "Brain Parts").

Speaking of conventions, I had a great time at the Boston Comic Con and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival in NYC.

At the Boston Comic Con I tabled with my good pals Matt Aucoin and Jose Luis Olivares. We had a great time and even put together a little anthology called "School Pencil" the night before the con. It was a combination of one-page works from all of us, plus some jam comics. Matt drew the fabulous cover. It's a pretty awesome cover. I don't want to jinx it, but odds are, there will be a "School Pencil" #2.

Some of my favorite costumes from the con here in Boston: Starfleet, of course, I nearly shit myself when I saw a "Stargate" costume (first time I've seen one at a con), also the first time I've seen Carl Sagan cosplay (apparently not a lot of people were recognizing him. For shame, science fans!), I liked that this Harley Quinn was faithful to her costume in the comics and show (I'd seen enough interpretations), the Keymaster is always a hit, where else do you see Indiana Jones face off against Lady Deathstrike, and I loved these Doctor Who ladies (does this mean the Tardis is also the companion?).

A nice fellow named Rich Johnston stopped by the table to chat and shared some fruit snacks with me. If I had known at the time that he was a journalist, I would have tried to act more intelligent. But he did end up mentioning Matt, Jose and myself, as well as some other great exhibitors in an article he wrote about how great Boston Comic Con is. And it certainly was great.


Some of the great stuff I picked up at Boston Comic Con: "A Daley Dose of Monsters" by Rich Daley, "Avra Kedabra Vol. 1" by Elizabeth Neronski, "The Stuff of Legend, Book 2: The Jungle" by Mike Raicht, Brian Smith and Charles Paul Wilson III, "Caroline's Catalog" by E. J. Barnes, "Geraniums & Bacon #6" by Cathy Leamy, "Kristilyn's Burlesque Sketchbook Vol. 1" by Kristilyn, "The Superhighs" by Dani Marie and Jessica Vitali, "A Conversation about Spiders" by Aya Rothwell, "It's A Maglorificent Monday" by Andy Wong, "Inky Stories" by Dave Marshall, "The Underburbs #1" by Joe Haley and T. J. Dort, "Paul and the Reveres Issue 1" by Tina Pratt

MoCCA was a blast, too! Got to stay with my good pals Katherine Roy and Tim Stout (also alumni of the Center for Cartoon Studies). I also got to see my pal Kenan Rubenstein and pick up one of his great teeny comics. If you haven't checked out his shit, you should check out his shit.

A sampling of the great stuff I picked up at MoCCA: "Yasha Lizard" by Kristina Stipetic, "The Island of Doctor Moreau" and "Pugs on Drugs" by Kat Fajardo, "Rat Bastard Part 1" by Cliff Galbraith, "Amelia Part 5" by Denis St. John, "What's Normal Anyway?" by Morgan Boecher, "9 P.M." by Melanie Gillman,  "Franz Kafka's Poseidon" by Jarod Rosello, "Nothing is Private" and "El Diablo" by Luis Enrique Echavarria Uribe, "On the Beach" by Kenan Rubenstein

And since I feel bad that I've been neglecting my blog for so long, here's another comic to close out this post:

I can't stop with the Illuminati jokes!