WonderCon 2006

I attended WonderCon last Friday.

The two biggest highlights of my attendance were meeting Tony Salmons and talking to Rafael Navarro and Mike Wellman at the Comic Bug booth.

Tony Salmons was someone whose art I have admired for years. I have followed his comic book work across the spectrum of comic book companies (Marvel, Dark Horse, DC...). My favorite work of his has been the Conan and Doctor Strange pages at Marvel and "The Mark" over at Dark Horse. Also his recently completed Batman "Legends of the Dark Knight" and "Black & White" were some of the freshest takes on Batman in recent years. I got to ask him some questions about his career and I also got to show him a copy of Robotika. He thought Ryan's cover was outstanding and he was also very kind about the interior pages. I even got up the nerve to ask him to do a Robotika pin-up. He agreed and I hope we will be able to work it out.

Later on in the day I walked by the Comic Bug and re-introduced myself to Rafael Navarro. I met Rafael a few years ago at an earlier WonderCon when he was just starting out his comic book series Sonambulo based on crime noir and Mexican wrestlers. He in turn introduced me to Mike Wellman the manager at Comic Bug, who has actually heard of "Robotika" and wanted to get a few copies for his store. While we were talking, James Sime of the The Isotope walked up and he also remembered who I was (after some reminding) and told me to keep up the good work. It really made me feel pretty good that "Robotika" is getting some attention.

I also walked by some original art dealer tables and was blown away by seeing the Michael Golden original comic book pages and covers. What ever happened to his art book that was palnned by Image last year?

I have also made a few new "discoveries". Enrique Fernandez is an artist creating comics in Spain and France. Just recently he completed an adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz". Beautiful work, very strong character designs, and innovative page construction.

The convention can be a very hectic environment so I did not really get a chance to conect with any of my friends, but I am fortunate in that I can catch-up with them "off-convention" at any time. So that was fine and it was great to see fans line up to see Ryan and Mick at their tables. I did get to talk to Michelle for a bit (about bats!) and Ryan was kind enough to take some time out to sign some art work that I got from him a while back (one piece is a penciled page of Liz as a little girl that never made it into the BPRD and another was an ad that Ryan penciled and I got to ink for Wizards of the Coast). I also ran into Jim and Wendy at the convention center lobby and for a few minutes we said "hi".

It was a beautiful day in San Francisco with the sun warm and the sky clear. I very much enjoyed walking out to the Gardens and watching the crowd on the Green. The evening was also warm and the downtown bright with lights.