The Joker! Expozine! Etc.! Etc.!

It was my great pleasure to spend much of this past weekend at Expozine 2009 here in rainy old Montreal. The headliner for the show, in my opinion, was webcomic darling Kate Beaton. She's doubtlessly amongst the most gifted webcomickers working today, so it was a no-brainer to get a drawing from her. Her sketches were Wicked Cheap, I was tempted to buy a few except her crowd was persistent as all get out.

I had to settle for the world's greatest Nikola Tesla sketch.


You should see the Commissioner Gordon that Kate drew for my pal Rebecca Stacey. In a theme sketchbook groaning with awesome drawings, Kate's takes the cake.

I also had a great time chatting with Billy Mavreas (of the legendary Monastiraki which is currently exhibiting some great James Kochalka paintings), Young Adonis (infamous Montreal artist), and the amazing Jasper whose mini-comic "Crabs in My Room" is one of the greatest comics I've read all year. Jasper is a tremendous talent, I cannot wait to read more from her.

Meanwhile, back at the drawing board, I'm doing a lot of art that can't be shown (working on a new book). I have been working with my watercolours, and I finished a Joker the other night that I think is pretty neat. Here it is. I've also finished a Hellboy commission that I rather like, but I must wait for permission to post it.

Epic super-late TCAF recap

Hey hey, here's my TCAF post. Try not to have a heart attack and die from not-surprise that it's a wee bit on the late side, but honestly you'd rather that Proof #21 ship on time, right? That's what I thought.

ON TO THE SHOW

Drove up on Friday with the girls from Abe & Kroenen and talked about secret projects. So many awesome comics will come out of this, I am sure.

I met Kate Beaton! I was exactly as nervous meeting her as I was meeting Guy Davis in Baltimore last year. Just a monstrously talented person and it was a pleasure to enjoy a moment of her company and snare her book. The following comic is true:
Always awesome to see the Topatoco team; I've been a huge fan of Jeffrey Rowland's for years and years... In fact, the subtitle for Overcompensating (namely: 'the journal comic with a seething disdain for reality') was coined by me! Little known fact.

I run into Holly more than I do Jeffrey, to be honest, so here's the shoutout to my favorite team in webcomics:While kicking it at TCAF I was crashing with R. Hiro, one of my favorite dudes ever. On Saturday night we decided to kick out the jams and produce some fresh comics about the experience. The following was done while eating pie and watching a Hercule Poirot mystery. Party times!

Other awesomeness from Saturday: kicking it with Scott C. (another of my favorite dudes ever), saying 'hey' to Stuart and Kathryn Immonen (the first couple of comix who are too, too patient with me), and hanging at the Joe Shuster table and doing some drawing. I drew a Zatanna!

Sunday was much busier, I wasn't so completely overwhelmed by the craziness of everything. Got to kick it with Tom Fowler for a bit, and finally meet Graham Annable (who is crazy talented and a really nice cat). Also? Becky Cloonan! Can you believe it?!
The reason that this comic kisses her butt is because more people should be sucking up to Becky Cloonan. Fact provable by science. Pixu is great, great, great horror comics; buy it immediately.

After kicking it with Becky for a spell, I cycled around and chatted up folks like Matt Forsythe and Ray Fawkes before sitting down at the Shuster Table until close. And that's that! Here's a bunch of people that walked by my table on Sunday. Easily the best-looking people at any convention ever, I think. Just a very sexy and handsome bunch.


See you in two, TCAF. It was a real slice.