I have so many pictures in my laptop that it’s impossible to get everything loaded and into a post. But, I might as well chip away at the stack. The reason most of you come to my site is because of the pictures (I have about 4,000 loaded already), so I figure I should share as many as I can. Here are a few items I picked up at Comic-Cons past.
Charles Vess’ Book of Ballads and Sagas
Charles Vess has beautiful fantasy artwork and I have several comics with his work. So, I was really happy to see him at a table and chatted him up a bit. Charles was giving away a preview of his then-upcoming personal project so I snagged one. It’s a thin, full-size, black-and-white promo that contains a couple of pages from a story written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Charles. What gorgeous stuff.
Geoff Darrow’s Shaolin Cowboy
Geoff has done several projects for other people, but this is a solo comic book he’s created, co-written and illustrated. Shaolin Cowboy is a weird bit of science fiction-fantasy-western-dystopian-post-apocalyptic-drug-addled-European-comix-inspired comic book fun by one of the most detailed artists in the industry. Just the art alone is a viable reason to buy this book. It’s too bad Geof hasn’t made this story an on-going thing. Here’s a print we bought form him a few years back. He added a little sketch of the monk’s head on the lower right corner.
Here’s a close up of a quick sketch Geof did when I was buying the print.
Here’s what the published artwork looked like.
Instant Piano
Instant Piano was an anthology project put out by Dark Horse Comics (which I’ve always considered to be the HBO of comic books) that took some of the most inventive yet less well known creators and gave them free reign to write and draw some short stories. The following promo sheet was handed out at a table where all of them were signing stuff. I was already a big fan of Evan Dorkin’s Milk and Cheese, and Kyle Baker’s art on The Shadow (which was a series of very good stories but also a hilarious send-up of the Howard Chaykin mini-series). The other artists were: Mark Badger, Robbie Busch, and Stephen DeStefano. Funny story: All the guys sketched and signed the sheet. Kyle Baker was last. He said something to the effect that I should buy the book because it was going to be the greatest thing ever. I kind of chuckled. He shot me back a dirty look and said something like “It IS! Why are you laughing?” I smiled, picked up my promo sheet, and hurried away. I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t actually bought the books. Hmm. Add those to my list.
And here’s your bonus: the covers to the Instant Piano Comics mini-series.
The 1980s had been a special time for Elisa. Hopes, dreams, ambitions, loves, adventures … she had it all. After college, she began a scrappy and rapidly accelerated career as an investigative reporter. For Elisa, the pursuit of the hard story was life juice. Like a lot of journalists, she wasn’t always sure her motivations were altruistic (did she really believe in the creed of uncovering truth, no matter what, or was she sometimes more concerned about getting the satisfaction of nailing a story for personal ambition?). The fact that she questioned her ethics at all was a sign of her core morality — something not common among her fellow newshounds.
It was bound to happen. She’d been warned, by both those that meant to protect her and those that meant her harm, that her flame would burn out very quickly if she strode too quickly and too deeply into the infected underbelly. Her predicted demise, a mysterious murder, was tragic not just for the loss (or at least significant change) of a robust and meaningful life but because it also dropped a heavy hammer back down on the era of openness and decency that was peaking its hopeful and shining head out of the grey mass of detritus suffocating the city.
In corporeal life, Elisa Cameron was tough and hardworking, but she also knew how to have fun. As a young and vibrant college student in the mid 1980s, she would spend weekend nights enjoying a social life with friends and trendy strangers. New Wave music was all the rage and its infectious party atmosphere was hypnotic to Elisa. She frequented the dance clubs in Arcadia’s “City Lights, Sinful Nights” district (a hotspot for Arcadia City University students). The sounds of ABC, Spandau Ballet, The Blow Monkeys, OMD, Simple Minds, Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, and many, many more flooded the clubs and streets. Elisa loved it.
The Furs formed in the UK during the late 1970s and were prominent until the early 1990s. They are probably best known for their hit “Pretty in Pink” the titular theme song for the John Hughes movie (incidentally, Elisa hated one of our Hughes’ favorites,
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