Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The Long Con

Part I of II: Stars, Stripes, and Animators
It's been a whirlwind week of nerdery! Rather than dump all my Comic Con pictures on you in one mega post, I thought I'd break things up into Con and pre-Con shenanigans. It all started Tuesday with the red carpet premiere of Captain America.


Marvel talent manager George Beliard (who gave me my "I am Captain America" cover job) was kind enough to invite Ronnie, Bill, Bobby, and myself to the event. Ronnie and Bill were the first Marvel/Pixar synergy artists, contributing Iron Man covers last year, and Bobby and I had Captain America covers released this month.


Ironically, I had to ask Superman for directions to will call.


The event was a sea of stars and stripes, and these stars travel in style.


The next morning, it was on to the California State Summer School of the Arts with Erik Benson and Emma Coats to teach high schoolers a little something about animation. Erik, Emma and I all share the same CSSSA to CalArts to Pixar path, so we can  definitely appreciate someone like Martha Baxton (below), who has been working to guide young animators into the industry since the Eisner era!


Another stalwart member of the CalArts staff is the cafeteria guy. Ten years since I first strolled through the lunch line and this guy is still working the kitchen! And I still don't trust his taco bar...


Being back at my alma mater to teach exactly a decade after being a CSSSA  student myself was trippy  because I was hit with two flavors of flashback. Like a scoop of CSSSA on a CalArts cone. It's especially weird when artifacts of my CalArts tenure are sprinkled throughout the department, like Pat McHale's poster for our Senior year Producer's Show.



I can't wait to see what comes of this new generation. After personally critiquing all of their sketchbooks, it looks to me like the future of the animation industry is in good hands!


After CSSSA, it was onto San Diego for the main event! But before rampaging into the convention center, I paid a quick visit to my grandparents in Vista to show them the Captain America cover I was bringing to the Con. My grandpa, a fellow artist, was more than happy to accept a copy!



My grandma's casserole was as tasty as ever, though I'm not sure she's as interested in comic art as grandpa.



Stay tuned for tomorrow's instalment of the Long Con where Cap and I will invade Hall H (because we know the H stands for Hydra).


5 comments:

William Jardine said...

Cool post, wish I could have gone. Epic new comic reactions as well, although I think you missed a step by not getting one of you showing Cap the cover! :D

Carrie Liao said...

haha awesome con part-one report! It would have been nice to run into you but I didn't stay long... though I heard there was some wild tr!ckster party on Saturday night (or something like that) :P

Megan Nicole Dong said...

It was great to see you at Con/Trickster and congrats on the awesome comic cover!

Dave Lebow said...

Really funny movies with the Grand-folks!
Congratulations on the comic cover! That is a great and prestigious gig!
As always and entertaining and informative blog.

Unknown said...

William- Cripes, you're right. I'm kicking myself now!

Carrie- Yeah, Trickster was packed Saturday. Someone even tweeted, "I remember when Trickster was underground."

Megan- yeah! Always good to see you guys. And always happy to peddle some Stitch!

Dave- thanks, Dave! It's always fun visiting them before Comic Con. They love hearing about the nerdery!