Memorial Day is usually spent camping or having friends over for a bar-b-q. For some odd reason, the organizers of the Phoenix Comicon decided that it would also be a great weekend for a convention. Seems like that was a good idea.
I had thought about going for a while, but I didn't really have anyone to go with, plus it started on Thursday night, graduation, so there were some conflicting schedules. Instead I had planned on hiking Rogers Canyon since the weather was supposed to be unnaturally cool, 80s. At the last minute, some family friends called, wanting to know if Molly and I would want to go to the comic book convention. Hmmm, of course we would.
I haven't been to a convention for a long time. The last one I went to was a Star Trek convention and Leonard Nimoy was the star guest. This weekend THE ultimate guest, William Shatner was appearing, but, I didn't feel like spending 500$ just to sit and chat with the captain. Plenty of other stars were there too, since it is the 15th anniversary of the Next Generation, but really, we were more interested in the artists.
This was Molly's first time and she was a little hesitant. BUT, the minute we walked in, a sea of people, most in costume, changed her mind pretty quickly. Everywhere you looked; super heroes, star wars characters, Doctor Who, and just some weird people in general, all geeked up to be there.
Once we plotted our course though, we had a blast. We met a few artists, went to a debate about whether zombies were fast or slow, gawked at people wearing "inappropriate" costumes (molly shaded my eyes a few times), and picked up a few freebies.
Two high points: Molly "commissioned" her first sketch from an artist, Tom Hodges. He works on Star Wars animated series and webcomics. He does some awesome stuff. Molly liked his style and he drew a wide variety of characters. She asked for Thor, her favorite character, and got it. On the second say we went to listen to Steve Rude "The Dude". Steve's an interesting character. He lives in Phoenix, is mildly famous in comic circles, and has been in trouble with the law, namely Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Anyway, he was doing a talk on drawing dynamic figures. Molly grabbed front row seats and we got comfy. First he drew a generic "Kirby" figure to illustrate basic dynamics. Next he took a simple line drawing of Snow White and added "embellishments". He made a simple figure into a wonderfully shaded portrait. At the end, he said, "Well, I'll have to give this away, but there are two little girls in the audience. What should I do? Who likes Snow White?" Molly started giggling. So he handed her the Snow White and gave the Kirby copy to the other girl. COOL!
In all, it was a great time. Molly had a blast and wants to go again. It was a great way to spend the weekend. I picked up a cool Batman print from Scott Godlewski, Molly got a couple of other small sketches. Next time their in town, we'll check it out.
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