There
were lots of newcomers around with great potential. In the next
aisle from our table, Philip Bourassa and Andrew Strawder were
promoting their new comic series First World and Seven
Cities of Elhazz. Both series feature solid artwork. I got
all three comics available and I can't wait to read them. Philip,
the artist from First World, even did his rendition of
Zed while at the convention. Click
here to have a look. You can visit their site at www.dragoncandy.com.
Business
was good for us right from the start, with the owner of Mile
High Comics, Charles Rozanski, buying 200 copies of Zed for
his store. That was on Wednesday afternoon, about half an hour
before the doors actually opened! From then on sales were steady
and the fans were eager to get a personalized sketch. I did a
lot of those and my drawing hand was ready to fall off by the
end of the convention.
My
presentation was on Thursday afternoon on the first official day
of the convention (Wednesday was considered the preview). I talked
about my whole career from college to my latest project Zed. The
audience reacted very well and laughed in all the right places!
The
Bud Plant booth was busy
as usual and sold out of our books. Bud bought another 50 books
from us to fill up his emptying shelves.
On
Sunday, I finally met Mike Kunkel (HeroBear
and the Kid) and we talked about the possibility of exchanging
pin-ups for our comics. Mike was a really pleasant guy and judging
from the people lining up at his booth, it looks like the show
was a success for him also.
Although
I spent most of my time at our table, I still got to walk around
and do a bit of shopping. I spent my allowance filling up holes
in my Kirby/Lee - Thor collection. I just love that stuff (I'm
a bit of a Marvel Silver Age collector). Speaking of Kirby, I
met John Morrow and thanked him for printing the king's original
pencil pages in magazine form. If you like Kirby, make sure you
get a hold of John's Eisner Award nominated The
Jack Kirby Collector magazine. I never miss an issue.
All
and all, we had a great time and we're looking forward to do it
again next year!
Michel
Gagné, July 25, 2001