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!

Some Pleasant, and Unpleasant, People

First off, I know this is kinda old news, but after a wait that seemed like eternity, "Avatar: Legend of Korra" (sequel to the masterful animated series "Avatar: The Last Airbender") is finally here! It seems that perhaps the animation isn't quite as smooth as "The Last Airbender", but maybe it's because I was so dazzled and hadn't seen anything like it before. I sort of miss the whole journey aspect of the first series, too, but I love this one to pieces anyway, and I'm so impressed with the world-building. Again, these people did all their homework and created a three-dimensional, complete world and populated it with engaging, well-rounded characters. Anyhoo, this was my reaction:

In the me-centric news department: I finally finished the pencils for "Unpleasant People #4".
I've started inking it (starting with the lettering and panel borders) and hopefully it won't take too long. A big shout-out to my pals Mo Oh, Matt Aucoin, Jose Luis Olivares and Denis St. John who gave me their feedback and helped me present a more polished comic. So here's a couple portraits of the character Magda. A lot of issue 4 is about her back story. I was going to save the pencil sketch to put in the comic at the end, but Magda's head is so frikkin' big, I'm just going to draw something else.

 

 

As for stuff I'm watching that inspires me: I've been having "RuPaul's Drag Race" marathons. In the first season I was completely taken with Pandora Boxx. She was funny, intelligent and beautiful both in and out of drag. She was absolutely enchanting for the whole competition. 

Her nose is a little too big in the left-hand picture. In the right, she's a space princess gone rogue. And that's that.