Greg LaRocque was sitting, possibly with his son, sketching. I always liked LaRocque's smooth style in the 1980s on the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Flash. I bought some DC tryout pages he'd done of Batman facing down Darkseid - lovely work. He should be still getting all the work he can handle. He's working on a new book for a small company - when I find the ad again, I'll mention it as he's a Northern Baltimore creator.
Me with Al Feldstein, EC artist, and Mad editor in chief during the glory days.
Jim Shooter, former Legion of Superheroes writer, Marvel Editor-in-Chief and Valiant EiC.
Jim Shooter was quite friendly - one of the guys in front of me had a pile of Avengers comics to be signed. Shooter told an anecdote about 3 of them. In one, artist George Perez added in art that wasn't in the script, like a nun answering the door when the Avengers were in hot pursuit. So Shooter called someone at the local Berlitz and had the Beast speaking correct Latin to the nun. He said they were planning to pay, but the translator was so tickled to be in a comic, he didn't want it. The issue of the Avengers with Ant-Man shooting up full-size and hitting other Avengers? Rob Liefeld told Shooter it was the best comic ever. Finally, in the first What If series - What if the Avengers Never Existed? - Archie Goodwin provided the main plot for the story by telling Shooter, "You have to kill Iron Man." Shooter spoke briefly about the fun times the old Marvel Bullpen was, and then signed my Avengers: The Korvac Saga and the DC Legion of Superhero Archives 6-7 - without mentioning this! "OFFICIAL: JIM SHOOTER RETURNS TO DC'S LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES"
by Matt Brady, Newsarama (September 6, 2007).
Don Rosa, heir to Carl Barks on the Disney Ducks.
Herb Trimpe drawing Wolverine.
John Romita Sr. and Herb Trimpe getting together. The line for Herb Trimpe was always long, which I was pleased to see. He had written an article for the NY Times a year or so ago about being forgotten by comic book companies, but people reading comics in the 1960s and 70s saw his work all the time, especially on the Hulk. When John Romita Sr., the former Marvel art director stopped by, they hugged and then kept giving each other credit for creating Wolverine. Apparently Trimpe came up with the character and Romita the costume. Trimpe's got a book out - The Power of Angels: Reflections from a Ground Zero Chaplain. I had him sign that and a copy of Origins of Marvel Comics that my wife had signed for me by Stan Lee in 1991. Trimpe took a great pleasure in asking if he could sign the page over the top (ie higher) than Stan Lee. Fine with me.
Joe Kubert, caught at his Kubert School table, signs a few comics, but not for me, sigh.
Claire was quite taken with the Girls with Slingshots table decor.More photographs, courtesy of Joel Pollack of Big Planet Comics:
Arnold Blumberg, curator of Geppi's Entertainment Museum
Sergio Aragones
Kyle Baker
Joe Kubert
James Jean
Frank ChoAnd here's a press show interview, "Catching Up with Baltimore Comic-Con's Marc Nathan," by Tim O'Shea, September 5, 2007.
Dang cool! If I photoshop myself into these it's almost like I was there, too.
ReplyDeleteI went yesterday; it was a ton of fun. I especially enjoyed the Sergio Argones talk and chatting with him at his table. What a cool, funny guy!
ReplyDeleteBest. Show. Ever.
ReplyDelete(Well, in Baltimore anyway)
Marc Nathan's guest list was unbelievable, and the only shortcoming I felt was that he hadn't staffed up the volunteers sufficiently to cover all of the people there. Historically, they have a great track record of taking extra-special care of their guests, and in the 5 hours I stood waiting for a Barry Kitson sketch (no no, trust me, it was worth it), I only saw 1 red-shirt volunteer stop by, and that was to tell Barry his lunch had accidentally been given away and they ran out of them. (They made it up to him the next day)
I know that Marc has already aligned some of the guests from this year to come back again next, including David Finch, who was one of the downright nicest creators I've ever met.
Finch always had extremely long lines, but I'm afraid I don't know his work - what's the story?
ReplyDeleteFinch had very long lines on Saturday. I found his line with about 7-8 people on Sunday late in the day (he might have just returned to his table, not sure).
ReplyDeleteI think his first major notice was when he started working at Top Cow, and then ended up at Marvel doing Ultimate X-Men with Bendis, and then Avengers and New Avengers with him as well, before he helped successfully relaunch Moon Knight. He was also one of Marvel's original "Young Guns", which were new (not really) artists that they thought were going to be huge (the rest were Jimmy Cheung, Olivier Copiel, Trevor Hairsine, Adi Granov and Steve McNiven).
I feel so old.
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