LSCC: London Super Comic Con 2016

I'll be attending the Super Con in Feb next year. As usual I'm taking commissions, same prices as last year and I'll be sketching all weekend also. Sketches I do at the con itself, as always, are free, it takes the pressure off me in case they're not very good basically. And it's cool. For pre-convention sketches, continue reading!

As an added bonus I'll be sharing my table with Barry Kitson. As the time gets nearer I'll post some information about what Barry will be doing sketchwise at the con. But for now, if you want a commission from him, then get in touch with Barry through the usual ways.

Now here's the information you'll need about commissions!

All the pre con commissions are done in pencil, ink and Copic marker. I can do something different, say pencils only, or linework, just let me know. I'll also be doing colour pieces again, basically they're copic marker pieces with watercolour added. They're a lot more finished than what I can accomplish on the day of the con and they're pretty cheap!

Here are some examples:

A4 B/W. These are £40.

A4 comic sketch covers. These are £40

These are pretty popular at the moment. The DC covers are a better surface to draw on but as you can hopefully see from the Stan Lee cover above, I can still draw ok on the Marvel ones...except the dead shiny ones they did a few years ago. Well, I can still draw on them but they won;t be that good!

A4 Colour. These are £50


A3 B/W. These are £80

These tend to be more full figure than the A4 ones as they're twice the size!

A3 Colour. These are £100

I don't mind doing a couple of figures on the A3 colour pieces, as long as it doesn't get crazy with detail

I'll also have some colour prints for sale, £10 each. I think they're pretty nice. I've, at the moment, got five different ones but by the con it'll probably be up to ten, depends on whether I get chance to colour them! Here are some examples.

As well, I'll have some new original art to sell also, more details to follow with that as it draws nearer to publication. And some other original art that I've had a while (hey, who wants to own an original Marvel Apes cover?) and cover recreations for sale.

Get in touch for sketches etc by the usual methods, basically watson904@btinternet.com, see Twitter for updates too.

THOUGHT BUBBLE 2015 SKETCHING TIMES!

I'll be sketching between 2 and 4pm, both Saturday and Sunday in the Royal Armouries Hall at table C. That'll be the place to come and pick up commissions or get on my sketchlist for the weekend. I'll be wandering the halls before and after also.

I do have a couple of slots left if there's anyone else who wants a pre-con commission doing but make it quick as I'll be closing the list after the weekend!

Baltimore Comic Convention; Postscript and review

I'm not a fan of flying so I was a little apprehensive before the start of the journey. My friend Scott (he of the driving to LSCC in 2014 infamy) and his family were heading down to London for the weekend so kindly offered to drop me at Heathrow. I arrived in plenty of time, Scott likes to be on time. I realised pretty quickly whilst in the line for check in  that very few people had bothered to adhere to the walk on baggage restrictons. I had an A3 art folder as my luggage and an actual laptop bag as my laptop bag. Crazy, how was I to know that they'll let you take suitcases on board as long as you can ram them into a locker. I decided on the folder as there was a lot of art in it that, if the airline lost my case, would really end the financial gain aspect of the trip. So I kept it with me. I cleared security with no issues, mainly because I wasn't carrying anything illegal.

I was looking forward to reading the third book in Conn Iggulden's War of the Roses trilogy on the plane. It was out last Thursday...but not at Heathrow. Still, I had some chapters of Russ Payne's part of the book (we're co-authoring a book) to go through and edit...the flight was only going to be 8 1/2 hours...

My mind was put at ease as I entered the lounge and saw Mark Buckingham and someone else I recognised from many cons but whom I'd never spoken to, he's now Henrik to me! Imran, the organiser of the great LSCC con in London turned up too.

The flight wasn't bad in the end. The food, some kind of pasta bake, bread, a mousse, other things I can't remember, was pretty good. Plenty to drink, helpful staff...I'd forgotten what it was like to travel with a real company after years of cheap flights to Europe. I ended up watching Terminator Genisys...it wasn't bad. I started to watch Avengers Age of Ultron but decided to watch the journey screen instead as I caught up with a little editing work. The only downside was that I spilt some orange juice all over my leg. However after two hours or so it dried out. The landing was a tad unnerving as the plane bounced and did a little skid.

Security was actually quite cool on American soil. It'd been 13 years since I'd been to the US and the new fingerprinting (both hands) and looking into a camera whilst answering questions was ace, very high tec. One bloke had his passport taken and was escorted away...

I've just realised that this hasn't had much to do with comics yet, or cons...but it will, stay with it.

I was met in Arrivals by my friend Aidan Lacy, the main man who made this trip happen and his friend Lisa, who would be driving us about a bit over the weeked and basically being there to help and guide us. As a resident of Baltimore for many a year she knew where to go. Both she and Aidan are originally from Ireland. We got to the hotel, The Hilton and got our keys. Nice place, massive lobby, different from the hotels I usually frequent.

Here's the view from the window the next morning!

After unpacking we went to an Irish bar and met up with Barry Kitson, Michael Finn (another big reason why I was there), Miki, Bryan, Ken, Michael Lieb and Michael and his wife (there were a lot of Michaels!). They were all friend of Barry's and a fun bunch...although Michael (Finn) suggested that Barry and I went on a Marvel Apes panel and I was pretty relieved when I became 100% certain it was a wind up...in hindsight it was obviously a wind up, who cares about Marvel Apes? But in my defence I was tired.

The executive lounge where we ate breakfast the next morning was awesome. Check out the view....pity there wasn't a game on until the night I was leaving.

I'm used to eggs, beans, hash browns, that sort of stuff to eat in the morning at comic cons...I had a cranberry muffin and a bagel with Philadelphia cheese. It was pretty good, especially the muffin. Whilst still in the lounge I met John Scarpone, a man I'd emailed with for years after he bought a fair few of my covers for Marvel and DC but never had chance to meet in person. Great to finally do so!

And then it was off to the con. I got my pass quickly, it was very organised. Plenty of staff, all wearing pink and highly visible. There were two levels of staff, regular and minion. The minions were clearly marked. All of them knew stuff too and were very friendly and helpful!

It was enormous compared to the comic cons I've experienced before in the UK. And it was pretty much all comics based stuff, unusual over here. There was one store selling t-shirts and it was floor to ceiling. There were thousands of designs. There were comic dealers selling stuff from Batman #1 to the latest variants. I didn;t check anything out, Aidan and I spent all the pre convention opening time looking for the table. I was seated between Barry Kitson and Andrew Pepoy. I'd never met Andrew before, really nice guy and a great artist. Always good to meet a fellow Bob Oksner fan and as Andrew knew him, well that was cool. We both picked up some romance comics we were after (I finally got Secret Hearts #143, Alex Toth art coloured by Neal Adams!)

I'm usually pretty nervous before the start of cons until I get a couple of sketches under my belt. No idea why, I've just always been that way. I was extra nervous on this occasion. Also, I'm used to immense heat at comic cons and dressed accordingly. America does air conditioning. It was pretty chilly by the end of the day! I usually sketch for free (number of reasons, probably the biggest being that I don't rate my stuff very highly and would feel awful if I did a sketch that was really bad and a fan had paid for it!) but I was sketching for charity this time. More precisely for the Ringo Scholarship Fund. The scholarship helps pay the tuition for a artists each year at the South Carolina School of Art and Design, AKA SCAD and was set up by Matt Wieringo in memory of his brother, the artist Mike Wieringo. I was asking for $20 a sketch but most people gave more. Thanks for everyone who contributed over the weekend! And it was really good chatting with Matt!

The other thing that was vastly different from the UK was that the con was 3 days and it got busy quickly. The sketches I did were varied, from the familiar, Hawkgirl, The Vision, to the obscure, Razorback and a piece inside a DC colouring book!

Barry Kitson sketching at the con

After the con Aidan and I headed out with the Barry and his friends. A couple of additions to the group from Thursday night were David Donovan and Bruce. I'm usually happy to eat at Subway but this con was very different. We headed out in the warm evening to a Chinese restaurant. I'm not usually a fan but with Michael Finn as a guide (a vegetarian like myself) I had an excellent spiced tofu meal. I got speaking wth David Donovan about Curt Swan, comic strips and then the topic turned to the NFL. I'm a massive Eagles fan. Turns out that David was the General Counsel for the Washington Redskins for several years! One thing I found different in the US was that I expected to have a varied choice of NFL and baseball merchandise to buy as gifts. In the UK most sports stores stock the majority, or at least half of, the top leagues replica jerseys and many from across the world. Baltimore...well, they sell the Ravens, Orioles and a couple of Washington items...

We headed back to Barry's hotel, the Hyatt. We milled around the bar for a couple of minutes. I went to the loo and Barry had gone to his room. We decided to head back to our hotel and so Aidan, Miki and I left. The next morning I found out that Barry had come back down to say bye and ended up hanging out with Tony Harris, who he knows well, all night. Apparently that was my fault.

Back at the hotel Aidan and Miki showed me some choice pages of Legion of Superheroes original art they'd brought along to let me check out. It was great to see so many classic pages and covers. I'd never seen a page of original Steve Lightle art before and it didn't disappoint! There was a lot of stuff I'd never seen before, the Chris Sprouse designs for the Legionnaires team for example.

Saturday, more of the same at the con, sketching, meeting people I'd emailed back and forth with through Comic Art Fans, taking the odd five minutes to quickly scoot around the con. 

As Barry only made it for the Mark waid panel and had a ton of sketches to catch up with he suggested we order in some pizza and eat it in his room. That way he could get some work done too. There was an indoor walkway that connected the convention centre to the Hilton. As we wandered through it I noticed there were a lot of people wearing Bengals polo shirts and carrying clipboards. Turns out the team was staying at the hotel. Upon arriving at the Hyatt I realised that the Ravens were staying at that hotel! 

The pizza arrived pretty quickly. But they didn't send the plates. I, being slightly ucouth, would have been happy to eat off my hand but a phonecall was made to reception. The pizzas sat in their boxes waiting too. Another phonecall...it'd been half an hour and whilst Barry's stories about being an English teacher were very entertaining I was hungry and tired. We caved, Bryan, a recently retired Baltimore homicide detective, produced a knife and sliced the box lids into pieces to use as makeshift plates. As soon as he'd finished the plates turned up!

Sunday was real busy at the con also, even after lunchtime. Usually as a rule the attendance at cons dies out pretty rapidly after lunchtime but it wasn't the case in Baltimore. Lisa bought me the heaviest sandwich/wrap that I'd ever held. It was from Chipolte. It was great but took several sittings to devour. I also signed a lot of different books I'd worked on in the past including a Battle of the Planets trading card I did about 15 years ago! I do regret not looking at more comics and getting to meet all the artists and writers I intended to. But that's always the case! I also got to finally meet Mark Waid, really nice man. As I've said before, his Flash stories (drawn by Ringo) were what got me back into reading and drawing comics back in the 90's after a hiatus of several years. 

If you're into comics, comic art and sketches then I'd highly recommend the Baltimore Comic Con. I've found that so many comic cons today are more film and tv based (and whilst there were a couple of guests from the Arrow TV series there, it is a comic based TV series, no third Stormtrooper from the left here) and have little or no actual comic artists or writers there. Baltimore had guests such as Mark Waid, Neal Adams and Darwyn Cooke, mega creators, tons of other guests from the industry but also a massive number of small press and independent creators too. It would take the whole weekend jsut to get aroud them all. The number of comic book sellers was impressive and as I've mentioned previously, there was a wide range of stuff available. I picked up some great Silver Age issues for a couple of dollars each, cheaper than a new title is now. I never did find the stall Aidan mentioned that had loads of boxes of comics for 10 cents each! The staff were polite and helpful (something that unfortunately isn't often the case with bigger cons). A special thanks goes to the food fairy, entertainment alongside food delivery. There were also a fair number of publishers there as well. I had a great time and all the fans I met did too!

The meal after the con was quickly organised, the restaurant next to the Hyatt. It wasn;;t until we were seated that I realised it was a steakhouse. The waiter informed me that there was nothing vegetarian on the starter list...but I had a great baked potato and spinach as a main. Darwyn Cooke is a very entertaining man. In fact I sat laughing for most of the meal listening to Darwyn, Barry, Cully Hamner and Frank Tieri!

Free smells and serious delivery. Great!

Afterwards we returned to the bar at the Hyatt. Mike Grell was there. I'd met him briefly at the LSCC a couple of years ago and it was truly awesome to sit and chat with him about the Legion, Warlord, Sable and many other topics until the early hours. As a kid I never imagined I'd ever get to do that. It was pretty cool!

Me and Mike Grell. 

The next day was spent searching for presents for the family. I had specific orders from two of my kids, a fluffy unicorn from Despicable Me and Shopkins. My kids are pretty specific, I kinda like that, I was no different, I'm still not really! The day started in a proper, non-chain diner. I tried grits as I had no idea what they were. I still don't. Lisa drove Aidan and me around Baltimore showing us the landmarks and places of interest. It really is a city of extremes. She was very patient with my specific requests! As there was no Eagles gear I got myself an Orioles t shirt. Aidan bought Subways for the three of us. Looked and tasted no different from the Subway in Cleveleys where I live. Consistent! 

Authentic American diner breakfast

Grits...still no idea

I managed to ram everything I'd bought into my case and then it was off to the airport. Bit of a disaster, Lisa's car had been towed. She'd parked it next to the stadium but it wasn't on any markings, it was fine. But they'd cordoned off the streets for the Orioles, Blue Jays game that evening. It was a sad end to the weekend. 

Many thanks to Aidan for getting me out to the con and also to Lisa for all she did too. And to everyone else involved!

Took me a week to recover, turns out I can't sleep on planes! 

THOUGHT BUBBLE 2015 UPDATE!!

I will be sketching after all at the Thought Bubble Con in November. I'll have a 90 minute slot each day. Keep checking in for info about where and when!

NICE Comic convention postscript

As always the con was awesome. I know I'm a little late posting this but I've been at the Baltimore comic con since Thursday.

Usually, as regular readers of this blog will know, journeys to comic conventions with Russ Payne are long winded, seemingly never ending affairs that take us hours longer than they should. This time was different, we arrived when we were supposed to. It was a surprise as neither of us had bothered to print off a map nor knew the name of the hotel we were staying at. 

Jeff had organised the meal for the Friday at a Turkish restaurant...in hindsight not an ideal place for a vegetarian to eat. What I ate was grey and had a cheesy topping...still, Jeff and Bub are amongst the very few UK con organisers who care enough to provide meals for their guests. Everyone else seemed to enjoy the squid and meaty stuff that was served! Russ enjoyed the grey stuff judging by the way he inhaled it in seconds!

A photo of me with a pre convention commission!

My friends and I played 'the sketch game' in the bar on Friday. The idea of it is that a person nominates an artist and then everyone takes it in turn to say what comic character they'd have the artist draw for them. The round ends with the person who nominated the artist choosing a character. Then the person next to them nominates an artist and so on. Also, the artist nominated would be drawing the sketch at their peak artistically, this creates a few arguements, for example, was Kirby at his peak around FF 50 or on the New Gods run? It's a fun game, the disagreements are pretty cool too. Basically it's a load of comic nerds chatting about a topic they care about for a few hours. 

It can get embarrassing when someone doesn't know the artist who's been nominated. They get tagged as a civilian. Elitist? Yes, of course. Occasionally there are heated outbursts. For example, I said I'd get Frazetta to draw me a Shining Knight on Winged Victory sketch. That counts as two characters apparently. It took half an hour to resolve. I still say I was right.

Another pre con commission

...and one I drew beforehand to sell

The game petered out after Larry announced he didn;t know who John Buscema was. He started talking politics so I started a counter chat about football. Russ thought about jumping into the river...

The convention was at a new venue due to a booking clash with the new owners of the original venue. However, the rugby ground was pretty good. All the artists, and there were many, were in one room and the talks and panels, Brian K Vaughn, Garth Ennis, were in another. There was plenty of space for people to walk and a steady flow of traffic. It was a short walk from the town centre. Jeff put some decent food on during the day!

Staff were helpful and communicative, a massive plus if you've ever attended certain cons in London in the summer and experienced the opposite! It really makes everyone's con more enjoyable.

Russ wasn't doing any panels this time so he decided to help out at my table. I really can't talk and draw at the same time so it helps to have a co-pilot. Appreciated. 

I didn't walk round much as I was busy sketching but everyone seemed to be happy!

Another one I did to sell on the weekend

And another that I did as a commission. What I liked about this commission was that when I asked if he wanted a Cardy or a Perez Wondergirl he knew what I was talking about.

Saturday night Barry Kitson thought it'd be a good idea if he, I, and a few others (Russ, Mick, Rich, Tony and Simon) went for a quiet meal together. We ended up at an Indian restaurant which served fine, and very reasonably priced food. Barry regaled us with industry stories and we ended up in a Wetherspoons until 1am. 

When we got back to the hotel there was still a lot of activity in the bar, Jeff, obviously was still around, Ian Churchill and his wife Sasha also. Ian decided he liked my jacket and asked to try it on. I tried on his striped blazer (most people said it was an ice cream salesman or tv gameshow host blazer. I thought it looked a little like a '60's Mod jacket). Ian decided he wanted to trade permenantly...to be fair, he looks a lot better than me in the jacket (in his too)...but still. At 4am he went off with a group to find some chips, with my jacket. I was starting to worry it was now Ian's jacket. 

In the meantime people were beginning to notice just how terrible Russ' shoes were. They were awful, white with black swirls on them and what looked like hemp soles. They cost two pounds. It wasn't money well spent...Bob lost it. He started screaming at the shoes, pointing at them and swearing at them. He was right, they deserved to be destroyed.

Ian eventually returned to the hotel to Barry Kitson announcing that 'Ian Churchill must die'. Ian's response? 'I have the reflexes of a mongoose.'

I got my jacket back at 5am. I went to sleep at 5.15am. I woke at 5.30 as Russ had started snoring. I panicked, convinced that everyone in our part of the hotel was awake because of it and at any moment the door would be kicked in. I pressed a pillow over my head and sometime before dawn I grabbed a couple of hours sleep. 

Jeff only attacked me twice over the weekend. Both times it was unprovoked. Both times it was done in a nice, if frightening, way. Thanks, Jeff.

A Grant Gustin Flash

Sunday was another day of sketching and suchlike. Also, unusually for a con, it was busy until the end. Often the attendance at cons dwindles sharply after midday on the Sunday as everyone has got what they came for and wants to make a quick exit and make it home in good time. Russ did a professional job assisting me. He actually fell asleep at the table. 

It was great to meet up with Barry Kitson and Paul Renaud again and also meet Paul's girlfried Marion too. Paul's work is awesome, enhanced by the wonderful colouring he does. Nice to see Doug and Sue Braithwaite again as well, although I would have liked to have spent a little more time with them!

And another Grant Gustin Flash, a pic I've used before...but not on a sketch cover!

The journey back was incredibly quick! We chatted mainly about a book we're co-authoring...we overcame a few continuity problems and figured out much, most of which is now forgotten! 

More about the book soon. I've finished my half, I finished months ago (to be fair, I have to do a small rewrite on the last chapter). Russ keeps cutting and pasting the same paragraphs into a different order to convince me he's done some work on it...you're fooling nobody, Payne.

A few days later I was off to Baltimore...

Thought Bubble Comic Con 14/15th November 2015

Quick update!

I'll be at the Thought Bubble comic con on the 14th of November. Right now I'm not sure I'll be at the con on the Sunday also. I'm not 100% sure I'll have a table to sketch at right now but I will be attending. So, if you want to commission me for anything then feel free to. I'll post a time nearer the date of the con when it'll be possible to pick up the art from me on the Saturday.
Prices are as usual, £40 for A4 or sketch covers (leave enough time for me to draw the thing if you're sending these to me!) and £80 for A3. I probably won't have time to do colour stuff, but you can always ask!

Here are some examples of previous commissions and pieces I've brought along to sell at other conventions!

First up, sketch covers...these are proving to be pretty popular right now, £40.

A couple of A3 pieces

And an A4 piece

Make sure you don't leave it too late, for example the day before the con, to ask me to do something for you!

BAltimore Comic Con update

Off to Baltimore for my first Stateside comic convention in the morning. I was hoping to get a blog up about NICE last weekend but I'll have to put that off, needless to say it was great though!

For anyone attending the convention this coming weekend I'll be at table #210, next to Barry Kitson. Pop over and say hi, check out some art and get a sketch! After the text are a couple of sketches I'll have for sale. There are plenty more, these jut happen to be a couple I've scanned!

I'm hoping to have some prints and booklets with me too, jsut trying to figure out how to pack them right now...I'm having to leave my banner at home as it just won't fit and would be cheaper, with excess baggage charges, to have another one made whilst I'm in the States!

Hope to see you there!

NICE comic con, quick update regarding sketch covers

Since I'm getting asked to draw more and more pre con commissions on blank comic book covers I figured I'd bring some with me to sell! So I've got some DC issues headed my way, Superman, Batman, Titans. I'm not doing Marvel for now as I need to find some issues that have paper stock tat doesn't try and repel ink, Copic marker and sometimes pencil! I'll post a few examples here as I get them finished!

NICE comic convention update

Only a couple of weeks to go now until the con so get in touch soon if you want a pre con commission doing. Here are a few pieces I've already finished for people to pick up on the weekend.

If you want to get on my free sketchlist (I sketch for free at the actual con) then come by early and get on the list. There's no need to stand in line and wait, just get your name on the list and come back later. Hopefully the sketch will be done!

I'll have the usual collection of things to peruse and sell!

Also, as you can see, I have now joined Twitter. It seemed like a good idea so I can let people know what I'm up to and which cons I'll be appearing at over the coming months. I'm not really sure how it works yet so expect some odd posts (or tweets).

Back to work now (I have the Baltimore con the week after NICE so I have twice the sketching to do) 

N.I.C.E. Northampton International Comic Convention 19th/20th September 2015

NICE is coming up fast. It's pretty much the best con for real comics fans in the UK and I'm not just saying that because the artists and writers get looked after better than at any other UK con. If you're after sketches and the chance to meet up with and mingle in the bar with the pros then this is the con to go to. 

As always I'll be sketching all weekend. I sketch for free on the day. As a result my list is booked up pretty quickly. So come by on the Saturday to ensure you're on it!

I'm taking commissions for the con, these would be the nicer ones that are more finished pieces of art.. Same deal as always, pay on the day. As well as the pre-ordered ones I always bring a selection of different sketches to sell at the weekend too. So come by and have a look, there may be something you think is nifty!

Here are some examples, first A4 black and white Copic marker, pencil, ink.

Each of these would be priced at £40

Next up we have film or TV likeness pieces, same size, same price. The images are below are scans unlike the photos above they give a better idea of what I can draw!

An example of an A3 likeness. I did a nice John Watson for the last con but forgot to photograph or scan it.

The above pieces would be £80. Makes sense as it's twice the size of the £40 pieces.

Here are some examples of A4 coloured pieces I did for LSCC earlier this year, £50. I can also do coloured likeness pieces.

Again, not great photos, but you get the idea!

And finally some examples of A3 coloured pieces that go for £100. Not too unreasonable. The coloured ones were an experiment for the last con, they did pretty well, so there'll be more, if I get time.

I'll also have a selection of prints for sale at £10 each, see below for a couple of them...and I'll be bringing copies of my latest booklet too.

Get in touch by the usual channels if you're after anything, and remember, don't leave it too late!