Comic-Conflagration

Greetings gentle readers, sorry for the time lag (I couldn’t find the cord to download my camera). I’m sure other folks have posted numerous and better pics in Flickr accounts galore but here are a few of my snaps and musings from Comic-Con, which was splendidly fun and completely exhausting, just like it always is.

These pictures never adequately capture the madness but you get the idea.

Lady Miss Pamela asked me the other day what my favorite part of the Con was and my answer is forever the same:  I love all the costumes.  I meant to make a head-count of all the “metal bikini Princess Leias” but I lost track.  (Let’s just go with “lots.”)  One of them walking by the Suicide Girls’ booth muttered “Jeezus, eat a sandwich!”

Bumblebee vs. cheery Thor

W.A.C.S. from WWII? Nope, it's the Dune Sea Garrison girls!

Always loved the design of these helmets, and I dig Ahsoka too!

Scarlet Witch and her admirers.

I fell in love w/ the Scarlet Witch’s profile — best nose EVER.  (Apparently these guys liked her nose a lot too, they were lining up three deep to take pictures of her.)

And of course there’s great art all over the damn place.  I wish I’d gotten this guy’s name, he was carving absolutely amazing tiny little action figure bits in perfect detail.

What a steady hand and some sharp eyes can do.

And here’s just a couple of the figures from The Empire Mugs Back show, in which artists, comic book creators, toy designers and “celebrity fans” altered Mighty Mugs figures into Star Wars characters (to be auctioned off, proceeds to Make-A-Wish Foundation).  You can see more here.

George Walking an AT-AT and Admiral Ackbar Crunch Cereal!

The other great thing of course is running into friends; Travis Louie, Dave Wong, Mark Ryden, Laurie and Brom, the Pizz, and everyone else I’m forgetting right now who will be mad at me later.

Gary always does his "devil face" whenever a camera appears, and so does this guy! (Poor fellow was in that make-up chair ALL DAY LONG.)

Met Kazu Kibuishi, who’s book Amulet I completely love.  He was incredibly sweet.  The next volume comes out in September, woo hoo!

And this is what it’s really all about — you get to meet totally awesome people like Katie, below.  Making art is really solitary and troll-like, and unless you’re jetting all over the country following your paintings around, they’re off leading a jet-set lifestyle without you and you never really get to hear what anybody thinks about them.  So opportunities like this when you get to actually talk with people are just terrific.

Signings are just happy, happy places.

Finally it was time for our panel!  Ron told me before we started that he wasn’t funny but he’s a liar — here’s me braying like a donkey at something he said.

Hee haw! Hee haw!

And here we all are — Colin Berry moderating fabulously as R. Sikoryak, myself, and Ron English hang on his every word before we enlighten the room with the collective glow of our wit n’ wisdom.

Sorry I don’t have more pics of the panel — it’s mostly video clips, so as soon as I figure out how to post them I will!  Stay tuned.

It was great to share a stage with R. — we’ve known each other since art school (we were roomies!) and I’ve always felt a real sympatico with his work (grab his fab new book Masterpiece Comics) — and Ron brought a terrific angle to things as well as tales from the front lines of his confrontations with corporations and the law.  I always want to talk to Ron more but he vaporizes like a superhero with a secret identity.

I realized later that night when I unpacked my bag that I had buttons I forgot to hand out!  Rats!

A heap of us went out afterwards to eat with the always delightful Richard Quan, and at dinner I was served the funniest salad of my entire life.  This is a one-gulp $10 “heirloom tomato and Caprese salad” which came in a martini glass.

The Tiny-Tini Salad

This may go without saying but if anybody has good pics from the panel I’d love to see ‘em!

To make up for the big lag in blogging lately, I’m gonna unleash all kinds of gooey bloggy goodness in the next week including the upcoming Pinewood Derby, Best Formula Ever!, geeking out (again?) about Torchwood, zombies, rubber Frankenstein and more!  So don’t be a stranger.

“As Men Get Older, The Toys Get More Expensive”

Frankly I think it’s some kind of miracle I can still sustain love for the original Star Wars films given the utter travesty of the three prequels. Maybe that’s why I light up when I see stuff like this –

It’s a toy AT-AT that just sold at Christie’s auction house for $1,250. But not just any AT-AT, it’s a “Graff-At”, by EASE and JK5, the whole thing being covered with graffiti in the Aurebesh language (that’s the made up language created for the Star Wars films). The big honkin’ tag on the side reads “REBEL.”

Nobody knew Star Wars was going to be such a Big Damn Deal when it first came out so there were no toys. None. That’s almost inconceivable now in this era of mass merchandising even for films that aren’t hits (sorry Speed Racer). Once it became clear the film was, in fact, a Certifiable Big Damn Deal many toy companies were jumping to get the Star Wars licensing deal and originally Mego was supposed to do it. (If they had, I wonder if the first line of Star Wars toys would have looked like the old 6″ Mego super heroes with their cloth costumes?)

But apparently when Lucasfilm called, Mego turned them down to go make Micronauts. So Kenner Toys got the contract.

Anybody remember Micronauts? I didn’t think so. That decision put Mego right out of business. (After they realized their gaff they tried to make it up by licensing seemingly every sci-fi-ish movie that came out including Moonraker, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. They went bankrupt in 1982.) Meanwhile Kenner figured out that they needed to make the figures small enough so they could have ships that weren’t the size of an AMC Pacer. But by Christmas of ’77 they still hadn’t rolled out any toys. I made my own paperdolls (including a girl Jedi who kicked major paperdoll ass).

If you’ve stumbled into my studio at some point you probably tripped over a toy. I don’t collect as much as I used to (ran out of space to store/display stuff) but every once in a while I can’t resist something. Toys and vinyl figures have become so huge, sometimes I think it’s kinda sad that nobody ever taps me to rock one (though I totally get how my art doesn’t naturally lend itself as easily as some others. Sigh.).

There are occasional exceptions — Hasbro and Thunderdog Studios teamed up a few years back to do The Pony Project in NYC. They sent all these women artists a blank, white, HUGE vinyl My Little Pony and we all got to do whatever we wanted to it. (Proceeds from the sales of the ponies when to Hole in the Wall Camps, helping kids with life threatening illnesses.) So I made an Amazon Trojan Pony — painted it like a big wooden horse (I dearly love anything with fake woodgrain on it) and then cut the belly open so teensy tiny women warriors could rappel down with their swords and daggers.

Photo courtesy of ASMzine.com

Obviously this was a one-off but man it was fun.

Bantha Slippers?

Pictures courtesy of Jason Geyer and cannot be used without express written permission. All images © 1999 TIC TOC, Lucasfilm, Pepsi, andwhoever else might have been involved.

If you’ve been reading the blog you might’ve picked up on the whole “I’m a bit of a geek” thread. I grew up reading a lot of science fiction, and when Star Wars came out it hit me like a ton of bricks. (Hey, I’m not the only one.) I tend not to speak of the three “prequel” films because they upset me. Let’s not go there. But when I saw this I was filled with a mixture of nostalgia and deep longing. Action Figure Insider’s blog has a terrific posting about some Star Wars merchandise that never was. Dangit, I really want a Death Star Grill!

Pictures courtesy of Jason Geyer and cannot be used without express written permission. All images © 1999 TIC TOC, Lucasfilm, Pepsi, andwhoever else might have been involved.

Sorry things have been a little slow around here. I’m working on a commission painting (I’ll sneak some pics in here eventually) and had to write the bio for my upcoming book. The fabulous cartoonist/writer Lynda Barry nailed it when she said that most bios read like obituaries — all that’s missing is “and she died” at the end. So I was trying reeeeeally hard not to write that. It’s difficult writing about yourself without feeling like a big fathead so I went kind of “internal” and wrote more about the gears turning inside than a list of exhibitions. (I’m sure we can cram a list of those in the book for anyone who’s interested in such things.) And if you wanna know what the inside of my head looks like, you’re just gonna have to buy the book when Chronicle puts it out next year.

So while I’ve been busy busy busy things have kinda gone a bit wonky here at the homefront. This happens periodically:

Is it an alien landscape? A new lifeform? My latest art project?

It used to be a really nice marinara sauce. (Sigh.) I need a clone. Hey is it just me or did the Easter Bunny appear in my moldy marinara?

And speaking of Easter, if you were anywhere near the Bay Area I hope you got to hit Dolores Park last Sunday and frolic with all the beautiful creatures. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence held their annual Easter extravaganza (egg-stravaganza?), starting out with kiddie friendly egg hunts n’ story time, and rolling through some rollicking stage performances including the Hunky Jesus contest. The Sisters are deeeevine queer nuns with names like Sister Holly Lewya, Sister Florah Goodthyme, Sister Ann R Key, and Sister Aura Lee Gifted. You get the idea. They’re big on community service and I’m big on them. (I can occasionally be spotted wearing my N.I.L.F. shirt.) In case you missed it, here’s a few snaps…

Twister Sister and friends prep the egg hunt…

Love that killer Pucci print…

Fabulous pink pooch…

And lastly, me and my Peeps …

(I don’t actually know these guys, I just love Peeps!)

Stretch Out With Your Peelings, Cuke!

Seeing all those Stormtroopers at Wondercon reminded me of –

This blog isn’t big enough for all the great one-liners in there.

Pros and Cons

I used to go to Balticon with my high school boyfriend and it was a big deal ’cause we’d get to run off to Baltimore and goof around. (If you don’t know, Balticon is a sci-fi convention that’s been going on forever. Okay actually I think it started in the 60s.) I love me some science fiction but it’s comic conventions that really rev my engine, and here in San Francisco we’re lucky enough to have a couple doozies. We get APE (the Alternative Press Expo) in November and Wondercon in February (so I can spurge and go “Hey, it’s my birthday, I get goodies!”). And if you feel like a road trip, just head on down to San Diego in the summer and hit Comic-con.

A couple years ago at Wondercon, my friends Michael and Andy and I stumbled upon Joss Whedon wandering the isles and proceeded to talk his ears off. He was a real sport. Can’t remember if that was before or after I got groped by a Jawa.

There are heaps of very pro looking costumes but honestly I like the homemade, the old school, and of course the tiny superheroes.

I love comics, I love people in costumes, I love how happy and excited everyone is at these things — it’s like a big party.