Dragon Con 2011

Dragon Con was this Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, and for those of you who don't know, Dragon Con is the biggest pop culture convention in the South. It is held in five hotels: The Shearton, the Hyatt Regency, the Hilton, the Marriott Marquis, and the Westin. It brings together celebrities and artists to meet their fans, and it also brings together some very passionate people, who show their passion by dressing up in a costume. Actually I think that's why some people go to the conventions just to dress up and get attention for it, not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not my cup of tea. There's no way I will ever dress up for a convention...unless I'm with a group of friends who are dressing up then I might do it just to blend in with them. This was my third straight Dragon Con, and the thing is my objective when I go to any convention is to meet some celebrities whether they're from Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Smallville and some artists especially the latter. Networking is very important for an up and coming artist. As Fred Flintstone once said, "It ain't what you know, but who you know," and that is very true for an artist. If you meet an already established artist they may be able to give you some pointers or, in some cases, they may help you get through the door. Unfortunately, I have never been able to really network with a fellow artist properly...until the end of this Dragon Con, but I'll get to that later. I have met some great artists at conventions such as Neal Adams and Marvel colorist, Laura Martin, and since I have a love for both penciling and coloring I could've picked their brains for hours, but did I really network with them? No. There's still so much for me to learn in that area.


Dragon Con began on Friday, September 2nd, but I never go on the first day, and instead I chose to go on Saturday, September 3rd. I got there early since I learned that Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, was going to be speaking at a panel at 11:30 AM, and as a new Harry Potter fan I really wanted to go to that. Unfortunately, when I reached the Sheraton, where we had to purchase tickets for the convention, the line was extremely long, and in fact, it wrapped around the entire hotel. Well, Saturday is probably the busiest day for Dragon Con. The line, however, was moving at a quick pace, but it wasn't quick enough, and I wound up missing Tom Felton speak. Though I did take some consolation in knowing that he was going to speak on Sunday, too.


By the time I finally got my badge for the three days at Dragon Con I really couldn't walk around and take in the atmosphere because the next panel was 1 PM, and so there was no time to waste. The Smallville panel was held at the Hyatt Regency, and I arrived just in time to get a pretty good seat three rows from the front. The panel featured James Marsters (Brainiac), Sam Witwer (Doomsday), Laura Vandervoort (Supergirl), and Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor), and it was called "Three Bad Guys and a Supergirl." Of all the panels that I attended during Dragon Con, this had to be my favorite. They were extremely friendly, and that showed when one fan asked them for each of their nameplates. They not only gave him the nameplate, but they also signed it as well.


 

Smallville cast

 

Laura Vandervoort



James Marsters

 

Sam Witwer



Michael Rosenbaum

 I also attended the No Ordinary Family panel, which featured Julie Benz and Autumn Reeser, and I learned that the show had been cancelled. That really sucked. Congratulations to the television executives who have pretty much given me a reason not watch television since they keep cancelling everything I like aside from Smallville, which left on its own. While we were waiting for the panel to begin I overheard someone say that the show would have done better if it didn't have "no" in its title, which I think is a load of hooey, but who am I say.

Julie Benz

My final panel on Saturday was with the cast of Back to the Future: Lea Thompson (Lorraine Baines McFly), Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown), and James Tolkan (Mr. Strickland). Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this since the Westin ballroom was packed, and I was all the way in the back that my shots would have been terrible. I tried a couple of times, but every time I got a chance to do a shot, someone's head got in the way that I wound up giving up. Even though I was in the back and could barely see them it was a great panel.


After the panel, I hurried over to the Hilton to try to meet some of the cast of Smallville, and the goal was, of course, Michael Rosenbaum. I am happy to say that I got to meet him and shake his hand, and I also got his autograph. Boo-yah! I had him sign what I had used as a photo reference to a drawing that I had done of my character Peter Grayson in Materials and Techniques. It shows Lex looking down at the body of Lionel Luthor, who he had just killed, and it was an awesome shot, perfect for a photo reference. Although I was unable to see him speak that day, I also met Tom Felton, and he signed my Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince book, rather personally too. Both Rosenbaum and Felton may play villains, but they are extremely nice in person. The final person I met was Laura Vandervoort, and like Felton, she personalized her autograph for me. So Saturday was a great day.


Tom Felton and Stan Lee


I had Sunday, September 4th totally mapped out that I would go to the Tom Felton panel at 11:30 AM, and then I would search for Stan Lee and Carrie Fisher, who were somewhere in the Hilton. Once I had met them both I would head down to the Comics Alley in the Hyatt Regency and meet legendary artist Jim Steranko, and I would pay a visit to my Sequential professor, Chris Schweizer. That should take me up to the Michael Rosenbaum panel at 4 PM. As Robert Burns once said, "The best laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!" When I arrived at the Hyatt for the Tom Felton panel I saw that the line extended outside the hotel, and in fact, it wrapped around the hotel that it took me quite a while to find the end of it. There were so many people wanting to get into this panel that the room that it was held in reached full capacity, and the rest of us weren't allowed in, including myself. So just like that, my schedule was thrown off because I did not foresee this at all. It was 11:30, and so I had to begin my search for Stan Lee and Carrie Fisher early, which wouldn't be that bad, but it did mean that at some point I was going to have a time slot where I did nothing. As for Tom Felton, good thing I got to meet him the day before.


It didn't take me that long to find Stan Lee since I just followed the map, and it led me straight to the room where he was signing autographs. Most celebrities charge for their signatures-Michael Rosenbaum was $20, Tom Felton was $40, and Laura Vandervoort was $30. After getting John Schneider and Peter Mayhew's autographs in Dragon Con 2009 and Neal Adams' in 2010 I was used to the $20 signatures, and so Felton's threw me for a loop. So Stan Lee could be anything, but hopefully it was something that I had in my wallet. It cost $55, and in the end, I am glad that I met him because that may have been my final chance although I wish that I could have gotten a handshake out of it to really get my money's worth. Unfortunately I had to sacrifice both Carrie Fisher and Jim Steranko, and that's going to be a bitter pill for me to swallow for a while. After Stan Lee, I only had forty dollars left, and one twenty had to be held back to get out of the Hilton parking garage. It's possible that Steranko would have just been a twenty, but I don't know. I chose instead to use the other twenty to buy Chris Schweizer's Crogan's March, and that turned out to be a good decision because he was sold out of the graphic novel by Monday. Steranko was nowhere to found on Labor Day.


I've already stated this to my friends in hopes that they will call me out on it if I should ever break this promise. I promise to all of you that if you ever want my autograph I will never charge you for it, and if I should ever break it then call me out on it. If you have to print this blog entry out and wave it in my face to get that free autograph then do it. I will be eternally grateful. The only thing that I will ever charge is my artwork, but my autograph is free.


Tariq Hassan and Laura Martin


 Monday, September 5th was the final day of Dragon Con, and I was going to end my day there down at Comics Alley since it would allow me to say goodbye to Prof. Schweizer, and it also allowed me to see Laura Martin as well as perhaps meet Jim Steranko. Of course, I've already indicated that I never got the chance to meet Steranko. I am not that great at networking at the present moment even though I know all of the rules to it, but I am still unsure how I should start a conversation. I suppose the best way to start networking is when you're not intending to do so. I was walking around glancing at people's work when I saw this one X-Men drawing that looked absolutely phenomenal that I stopped by the artist's table. His name was Tariq Hassan, and we started talking about Dragon Con, coloring, inking, and painting. If there was one thing that I did do intentionally it was dropping the little hint that I was an artist, and I did it while we were discussing inking in which I told him that I have trouble with inking. I am great at the thick lines, but those thin lines give me trouble every single time. I told him that I attended the Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design, and he stated that he has a studio not far from the campus and a lot of SCAD students drop by there. He even has some interns who are SCAD students. He told me to feel free to drop by some time. Wow! I didn't foresee that coming. Although I don't know when, but I think that I will take him up on that offer since it may lead to something.






It All Started with a Mouse

I had met Marvel colorist, Laura Martin during Heroes Con, and since she is a colorist I wanted to get her opinion of how I colored It All Started with a Mouse. By strange happenstance I did have a small print out of the drawing with me at Heroes, but it didn't occur to me show it to her until I didn't have the drawing on me, it was in the car. So when I learned that she was going to be at Dragon Con I felt that this was my second chance. So when I met her on the final day of the convention I didn't expect her to remember me, but she did although she couldn't remember which convention it was other than it was this year. When it comes to the jobs comics - writing, penciling, inking, lettering, and coloring - it was always writing and penciling that I was most interested in, but after doing the panoramic drawing I have grown to love coloring that I really want to excel in that area. Since this was my biggest project with digital coloring I wanted her opinion on it, and so I showed her the drawing. She absolutely loved it. She told me that she loved the transitions that I used especially with the mountains, the lake, and the forest. That was certainly nice to hear. There's still so much to learn in coloring, but at least I know that I am heading in the right direction.

Final Thoughts

I wish that I could've had a new drawing posted, but I haven't really done much in drawing pin-ups like I had been doing. I have been hard at work with my first mini comic, which will tell the origin story of my Intro. to Sequential created character the Vampire Mouse. It's a two part story that I hope will be ready by April of 2012, where I plan to sell them at the Flukes Mini Comics Festival in Athens, Georgia. Next week I will post some of the finished pages of part one of the story.

Until next time, this is Billy Wright wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody!