JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

I recently found a pile of sketches that I drew when I was living in Tokyo. These days I don’t sketch from life, but back then I often doodled what I saw, perhaps because everything was so new to me and I had a lot of time on my hands, living in a vast, complicated metropolis where I didn’t know many people and couldn’t really communicate very well with most of those few people whom I did know. I’m not sure what inspired me to go to Japan in the first place… but I remember having a fascination in going there from my late teens onwards. It may have been because I had grown up watching Japanese TV cartoons? Even though I didn’t know that they were Japanese as a child; to me they were just Cartoons.

I was raised on a combination of Australian, British, Canadian and American movies and TV shows. Some Japanese shows too, but they were all cartoons. Whereas I had formed an impression of what REAL life may have been like in Britain and the USA from watching a wide variety of their dramas and comedies, I had no idea of what Japan was really like after watching SPEED RACER. Imagine forming an impression of daily life in the USA from only watching Scooby Doo and you will understand the depth of my sensitivity towards the ancient and complex culture of Japan when I first set foot upon its soil, at the age of 22.

Even though Japanese culture has become so intertwined with western culture that we feel it to be our own, we don’t really get an idea of what daily life in Japan is like from their cultural exports, because for the most part the Japanese export their fantasies; games, comics and cartoons, rather than slice of life dramas. So my interest in going to Japan had developed without any clear idea of what to expect. When I arrived in Tokyo I was blissfully unaware of anything about the place, including what it even looked like. Arriving with no preconceived notions whatever made those first impressions of Tokyo very powerful indeed.

I remember seeing the modernity of Tokyo’s SHINJUKU area for the first time. Like a lot of other Westerners who arrived there in the mid 1980s, the only thing in my experience that I could compare it to were images from Science Fiction movies that I had seen. The density of the crowds, the modernity of the architecture, the visual noise of the neon-lights, the giant TV screens on the sides of buildings and the buzzing efficiency of the place were like nothing I had yet experienced. It amazed me that I had not heard of this place before I had visited it myself. I had vivid mental snapshots of Times Square, and Piccadilly projected inside my skull before I ever set foot in those places. Impressions formed not only from TV and movies, but also from conversations with friends who had visited them. I knew a ton of people who had been to London but had only met two people who had actually been to Japan before me… and why hadn’t they told me about GINZA? Or SHIBUYA? The first I knew of all these places, I was standing neck deep in their amazing spectacle.

Tokyo is a remarkably ugly city, and especially so given the fact that the people who live there are very much concerned with the appearances of things. But maybe “ugly” isn’t the right word, perhaps “disorganised” is better? But even that word shows up the paradox, because the Japanese are rather concerned with order as well, though apparently not when it came to the building of Tokyo. Right around the corner from where I lived was a bubble-gum factory, which was next to a school, next to an apartment next to a Temple. If there are zoning laws in Tokyo I can’t imagine what the restrictions must be…

For that reason it is a delight for modern architects. A Swiss architecture student I met one day, as I walked about the back-streets, opened my eyes to that fact. He had only come to Tokyo to see the buildings of Kenzo Tange and I used what little language and navigation skills I had acquired to help him find Tange’s church. Unlike me, I don’t think the Swiss guy cared much for Tokyo, other than the buildings. He kept asking me “Vhere are zee prOstitUtes?” I had no idea. My budget didn’t run to such things.

Ugly or not, Tokyo is a fascinating city to spend time in. Its wiggly streets noodle out all over the place, full of little nooks to explore, but newcomers learn the way to and from their daily haunts by rote, afraid to stray from the familiar path that they have hacked through the eccentric and tangled jungle of buildings and lanes. That is how I was at first. Later, I stumbled off the routes that I had known and often discovered that one block over from the path I had taken daily, there was a whole other world. Funny little shops. Themed cafes and restaurants. Weird buildings… and charming juxtapositions of things you wont see in any other city. There isn’t a better metropolis in the world to let yourself get lost in, which is just as well, because getting lost is very easy to do.

It is probably true to say that Tokyo is a difficult city to make friends in, though I did make a few, and acquaintances I made a-plenty. Sadly, I have lost contact with the Japanese people I knew back then, though I’ve managed to stay in touch with one or two of my foreigner pals. The subject of how hard it was to make friends in Tokyo was a common topic of our conversation. Some people would read a lot into it but It didn’t bother me, or even surprise me. I take it for granted that it is difficult making friends in any big city. Add to that a few other factors, such as not being able to speak the language, or the fact that the Japanese don’t traditionally entertain in their homes, and the GAIJIN can feel a bit left out.

In any case, none of that worried me… maybe it would have if I had spent more time living there, I don’t know… The truth is, I never felt connected anywhere, even in the place I had come from. At least in Tokyo I had an excuse for my alienation; I was an Alien! (We gaijin had to carry a finger-printed ALIEN ID card. I wish I had it now; what a souvenir!)

Sketching Japanese life was something I only did in those few still spaces here and there; parks, coffee shops restaurants and trains, but when I was on the move, which was most of the time, I took about a million photographs. I am so glad to have both the drawings and the photographs now, as a record of the the very happy years I spent in Japan. Mostly, it is only after some time has passed that I am able to look back on a certain time and realise how lucky I was to be there at that specific time and place. However, when I lived in Tokyo I was smart enough to realise that I was enjoying myself in the moment. I’ve only had that clarity a few times in my life and perhaps Tokyo was the first time. It is a great feeling to know that you are in the right place at the right time, at THAT time.

I always get jealous when I hear that someone I know is going to Tokyo, in a way that I don’t when people go on trips to other places that I enjoy… I am not sure why that is so… another mystery is why I have let 10 years pass by since I last visited Japan…

Perhaps it is time for me to go back for a visit?

NO Credit? NO Problem!
Here, at last, is the Abismo/Nerve Bomb San Diego Comic-Con report for 2007.

JIMMY “Easy Terms” BAKERSFIELD and RODDY “Deep Discount” MONTECARLO working the CON.

A COMIC CON trend that some small-press and indie exhibitors complain about is the growing presence of huge media companies using Comic Con as a place to pimp their wares and offer previews of up-coming games, toys, films and books. Their enormous displays with all the bells and whistles, and appearances by Hollywood movie stars are crowd pleasers for sure (judging from the spike in attendance since this trend began) but it makes it hard for the little guy selling home-made books to get any attention.

With these deals, we must be CRAZY!!
In the spirit of “if you can’t beat em, join ‘em”, Rhode and I resolved to go CORPORATE. Salesmanship itself was going to be our marketing “angle” this year.

You can trust Jimmy; he’s a professional.

But what do a pair of self-publisher fly-by-night cartoonists know about MARKETING? Plus, after paying for the Abismo/Nerve Bomb booth space, we didn’t have much money left over in the budget for booth decoration, which makes it hard to compete with all the full-scale Pirate Ships, Giant Robots and sexy Booth-models of other displays. What’s a down at heel indie self-publishing duo to do?…

Thankfully, two expert salesmen came to our rescue and offered to help out in exchange for taking a controlling stake in the burgeoning Abismo/Nerve Bomb business empire.

Ladies, Roddy is here for YOU!

Our new C.F.O. RODDY MONTECARLO and and C.E.O. JIMMY BAKERSFIELD took over the booth display this year, and really came through for us. Who better to work the CON than two bona fide CON-MEN? Thanks to their oversight, the Abismo/Nerve Bomb booth was transformed into RODDY and JIMMY’s Discount Emporium which was, without a doubt, one of the classiest on the showroom floor this year. To match their natty jackets, pumped up sense of style and full-bore salesmanship, Roddy and Jimmy tricked out the booth in snazzy signage and covered it in plaid, even though finding THAT much LOUD fabric was no easy feat.

As seen on TV!
The customers were really pulled in by the crazy mark-down signs, especially the FREE TOASTER deal, though sad to say, nobody spent the $1000 on comics that was required to take it home (as mentioned in the fine-print). That may be just as well, otherwise Roddy wouldn’t have anything to make his breakfast toast with.

The FREE TOASTER SCAM DEAL.Everything must GO!!
The New C.E.O. of Nerve Bomb anticipated higher sales this year but even despite all the NEW product (my Dad’s elephant book, a new mini-comic and some Giclee prints) sales were not much more than in 2006, when there was nothing new to sell. It is tough to figure out the key to sales… it isn’t simply a matter of new product, good booth placement and high attendance, that is for sure… because all those things were on hand this year, and KILLER salesmanship as well.

Act NOW to avoid Disappointment!

Roddy works a sucker customer!Thanks to Roddy and Jimmy’s help with the booth, Rhode and I both had time to do some socialising. One of my favourite things about Comic Con is the chance to meet friends whom I haven’t seen in ages, including a lot of people that I only see at cons. Each evening, there are so many people that I would like to spend time with that it is getting progressively harder and harder each year to organise a get-together when so many people are involved.

Spending an hour or so on Wednesday evening (after Preview Night) wandering from pub to pub with a huge group of hungry people, who were steadily growing HANGRY (hungry and angry) I resolved to thereafter venture out to eat with a group only it had a reservation. A few years ago, it was possible to just luck into some place that had space to seat your huge party of chums but that just isn’t possible these days, at least in the nearby Gaslamp area.

San Diego is our town, Baby!Thursday evening we really hit the jackpot when a stripped down, special-ops task force of hand-picked and hungry folks successfully mounted a raid on a fantastic “all you can eat” Brazillian BBQ place called Rei Do Gado, which was scoped out by our San Diego food recon team of Jeff and Lovelyn (who took us to Hash house Au Go Go last year). Along with them, I spent a very enjoyable evening with Rhode, my good friend John Stevenson and the always hilarious Kirk Thatcher. We got an early reservation and hunkered down together to climb the meat Materhorn pausing between mouthfuls to disturb the surrounding patrons with both the tone and volume of our conversation.

Group Discounts!!
The next night, I had a very enjoyable dinner with another old friend, David Gordon, who now lives in New York. He introduced me to a whole table of his friends from Blue Sky. The service in the restaurant was slow but we weren’t in any hurry and had a very enjoyable time just chatting away about publishing and animation, while our food showed up bit by bit. As we ate, cellphone calls came in from reservation-less and hungry pals who were wandering the wasteland outside, looking for a place to sit and eat on a busy Gaslamp Friday evening, so by the end of the night our table was full of cronies from Pixar, ILM, Maverix and Blue Sky, as more and more friends came our way. Saturday night there was a big group heading off to dine in Old Town but I was very tired and the fact that the group was going a long way with no reservation made me balk (even though I later found out that they all had a fun evening and were seated no problem) and instead I went to dinner close by the convention center with Benton, Anson, Deanna, Bosco, Steve, Steward and his family and an old crony from my Colossal Pictures days, Antonio Toro.

Luscious French Toast.When you spend all day surrounded by nerds in spandex, it is good to have a hearty breakfast, which I did most days, starting with Rhode and Sam Hiti at the hotel we all shared a room at. Saturday, I had breakfast with John, Kirk and Dave at a Hawaiian themed diner by the harbour. The morning of the last day of the show started well with a HUGE Buffet Breakfast with Vincent Stall, and my hotel roomies Sam and Rhode.

Sunday evening wrapped the show with the traditional BBQ at the home of Derek Thompson’s ever gracious parents Barbara and Larry. This is the nicest end to the con for me. A large group of weary but happy attendees and exhibitors got together to wind down over gourmet hotdogs and drinks. Monday morning we slept in a little and had a breakfast at the SUN CAFE before we all made our separate ways home.

I managed to fit in a lot of socialising this year but I still missed out on eating with a lot of friends. That is what NEXT YEAR is for.

New Inventory!

No No No! Buy LOW sell HIGH!My SWAG for this year includes a book I have been seeking for some time, namely TIFFANY, written by Yann (prior collaborator with the great Denis Bodart) with artwork by Herval, an artist I first became familiar with through the Drawing Board. Herval has a clean style with great figure drawing and warm, clean colour palettes. The book is in French and although my ability to speak that language is close to zero, I can read it a little and I am battling my way through the book with a dictionary at the moment. The story is a whodunnit, concerning an elegant young woman, descended from the same family as Joan Of Arc, who takes over her brother’s detective agency after he is killed, to investigate his murder.

MONSTER ALLERGY by Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa, the husband and wife team that did Sky Doll. This time their artwork is an appealing fusion of both European and Japanese cartoony comics drawing styles.

GYPSY COLLECTED is an omnibus edition of 3 graphic albums, written by Thierry Smolderin and illustrated by a Swiss artist whom I admire very much; Enrico Marini. I first became aware of him when he drew in a very Manga-influenced style on a series called “Olivier Varèse” (also written by Smolderin) which was collected in an English edition called Negative Exposure. More recently, he illustrated a series called RAPTORS which was drawn in a different style. Gypsy shows his artwork in a transition between those two styles.

MASSIVE SWERVE by Robert Valley. I have bought about 4 variations on this book so far… hopefully Robert will actually put out a NEW Massive Swerve (rather than reprints and colour variations) sometime soon.

POPPING THROUGH PICTURES by Amanda Visell is a charming modern picture book in the tradition of little golden books; thick card stock pages and vivid painted, fun and cartoony illustrations. She also makes fantastic little toys which she sold at the con, and more of them can be seen in her Blog.

BUBBLES SKETCHBOOK by Luca Tieri was one of my favourite scores this year. This guy draws cartoons that leap from the page (or screen) with a crazy Pop-Rock energy. I’ve been a big fan of his energetic line and electric colour choices since I somehow stumbled onto his website a few years ago, so it is wonderful to finally own his book. Luca came all the way from Italy to attend the con and I had the pleasure of meeting him in person when he came by my booth with Rajesh from the Department of Art and Power.

Comic-Con exhausts even the super-salesmenI came by some great little books by way of swaps, including Marty Ito’s PAINTMONSTER book and
Doug Holgate’s SPAGHETTI WESTERN/CHECKMATE WORDSWORTH Mini, both of whom had come a very long way to be at the con (from Japan and Australia, respectively). In exchange for some hits of our OLD SPICE, Marc Nordstrom from B-Minus Comiks swapped me an anthology of their previous hilarious stuff plus a NEW issue of GO GO CHANGEBOTS, which is their very funny Transformers parody.

There were a few things that I wanted to buy but didn’t get, and I hope to pick up later. These include Chris Sanders’ new colour sketchbook, and Bill Presing’s beautiful BELLE DU JOUR book.

Close-out Sale!
2007 was the 10th year that I attended Comic Con, the 7th time as an exhibitor and the 4th time sharing an exhibitor-booth with good pal mr Rhode Montijo. In the time that I have been attending, Comic Con has not only grown in size but the focus and tone has changed as well. 10 years ago it was already huge but my memory of that time is that it was mostly about comics and the people you saw about the place, both exhibiting and attending, were overwhelmingly nerdy, pear-shaped or skinny, men.

Master huckster JIMMY “Easy Terms” BAKERSFIELD, Pimping some pachyderms!

In those days, the few women in attendance were most likely models paid by booths to be in costume. A few years later the numbers of women fans started to climb when we began to see tubby ladies dressed in Sailor Moon outfits. Now the Con is attended by a broad range of men women and children, and a lot of the fans walking around wearing HERO outfits are actually good looking… but thankfully there are still plenty of pear-shaped anime characters, fat Spidermen and skinny Hulks about the place because that is what Comic Con really is about, for me. On the subject of costumes I didn’t attend the masquerade this year so my costume watching was limited to what walked past my booth. This year there were a lot of buff-dudes strutting around in capes and speedos brandishing cardboard shields. Most of them were “spartans” methinks, but some had a Viking vibe.

Selling the hotel to a gullible tourist puts the operation in the red!

Red-Light Special
Highlights of this year’s con (apart from those mentioned already) were:

• Steve and Bosco’s reaction to the booth (which made it all worthwhile)
• getting a smile from Rosario Awesome.
• Steve Purcell winning an Eisner!

Product Recall
The only bummer this year was the Faulty air-conditioner in our hotel that blew piping hot toilet smell into our room.

No interest ’till 2008!

See you next year!I came away from this year’s show very inspired to do some new stuff for next year. The quality of self published books has really soared from the Black and White sketchbooks done at Kinkos a few years ago, to square bound books, and then to the hardbound full colour books that we see now. The affordability of quality small-run printing means that it is a great time to be a self-publisher but on the other hand it means that you really have to raise your game if you want to stand out these days. The number of indy artists producing their own beautiful figurines and toys is also very inspiring… it gives me a lot to think about!

See you all NEXT YEAR!

(thanks to Rhode Montijo, Jeff Hansen, Sam Hiti, Jav Hernandez and Bosco Ng for the great photographs!)

Recently I have been travelling back in time; scanning mountains of old photographs that I have taken from as far back as primary-school and e-mailing many of the pictures to friends. It has been fun to trade e-mails with ex co-workers, school friends, and old travelling companions about the memories that the pictures have dredged up… “Wallowing in Nostalgia” was the term used by my old pal Gary Page.

While sorting all these pictures and attempting to plug them into iPhoto in chronological order, I realised that I had forgotten a lot of details… not just names and dates, but the sequence of events. All of this has led me to think about the frightening impermanence of memory, and how it can fade if not sometimes replenished. I think that is one of the great things about photographs; that looking at them can help keep our memories alive.

Even before this photo-archiving project I had been writing down some funny little fragments of childhood memories for a similar reason; just to get them on paper before my mind goes completely. Continuing on from this recent Nostalgia-kick, My brother was in town last week and of course we swapped a few tales from our childhoods.

When I was a kid, I got a simple little Kodak Instamatik camera for my ninth (or tenth) birthday. I dont think that I ever managed to take an in-focus photo with that thing but that was the all photographic equipment I had up until I hit the road. When I was travelling in Asia I realised that I needed a camera more able to do justice to the fantastic sights I was taking in, and upgraded to a NIKON FG20. That did me fine for several years until it was stolen when I was travelling in Peru (along with a sketchbook filled with sketches of my travels for the 3 previous years). While still in Peru, I bought a fully mechanical NIKON FM2 which I have to this day. I have yet to go digital but that may happen sometime soon.

The period when I took photographs most diligently was from the time that I left Australia up until a little after I arrived to live in San Francisco. The time between those two events encompasses a lot of travel and many adventures in Asia, Europe and South America. It was a period in my life when I took pictures almost everyday for several years.

Part of me is sorry that I haven’t kept that habit up consistently since then, because there are some gaps in the photo record, but another part of me is glad I have sometimes laid the camera down as otherwise there would be even more to scan. And as it is, scanning my photo collection is already a massive job.

My habit was to shoot colour slides and Black and White prints. I don’t yet have the means to properly scan slides (I may buy myself a slide-scanner for Christmas) so it is the prints that I am doing at the moment, including some prints I had made from my favourite colour slides.

Many of the photos probably wouldn’t be interesting to anyone who isn’t in them, but a few that I took on my travels in South America, Europe and Asia (such as those shown here) may be of interest to even casual viewers. So I hope to have an updated online PHOTO gallery added to the site in the next few weeks.

UPDATE: The PHOTO section has now been expanded to include 3 new galleries. Each contains about 24 pictures, accessible via thumbnails. Please go take a look.

I have just spent two enjoyable weeks travelling around Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia with my Dad and my brother Jo, who have both become interested in the American Civil War. This daguerreotype (taken at Gettysburg) shows the members of the Lost Brigade:

(from left to right): Major Screwup, General Malaise and Private Parts.

In addition to Gettysburg, We visited other Civil War sites at Antietam/Sharpsburg, Manassas/Bull Run, Petersburg, Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley. For me it was a crash course not just in the Civil War, but also in a broader history of the USA, because we also took in some sites that were not directly related to the Civil War.

All throughout the trip we drove through some amazingly beautiful countryside but the most picturesque by far was the Skyline drive along the Blue ridge mountains. We spent an evening there staying in some very beautiful accomodations in Shenandoah National park.

I enjoyed visiting Yorktown, historic old town Williamsburg and Jamestown, which was the site of the first permanent English settlement in the United States (dating from 1607), and the original capital of the colony of Virginia. The city was abandoned last century and there isn’t much left above ground these days apart from a ruined church and a museum housing the artifacts dug up by an ongoing archeological excavation.

But the place was vividly brought to life for me by a living history guide we met inside the national park. He was dressed in early 1600’s garb, and told a group of us the history of the site, and fielded questions as he stayed very much “in character” as an actual historical figure known as John Rolfe, who was the husband of Pochohontas and was instrumental in establishing the tobacco trade. I found out later that the guide is actually one of his descendants.

I’m always a sucker for people bold enough to play act in silly costumes!

After about a week of touring around, we then headed back to my Brother’s home in Columbia Maryland for some quality time with his family, which included quite a bit of time drawing cartoons with my two nephews.

But we also managed to fit in some more US history field trips, including a visit to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, which withstood a massive British naval Bombardment during the War of 1812 and inspired an onlooker to write the National Anthem.

Also, after 15 years in this country, I finally had a chance to visit the nation’s capital; Washington DC. The highlight of the visit for me was the marvellous monument to Abraham Lincoln. Seeing Honest Abe sitting in his chair after I had just spent several weeks absorbing the history of the Civil War, and the legacy of that particular President, gave the visit more meaning than it otherwise might have had.

After a few weeks of blazing humid heat it is certainly refreshing to be back in the cooler climate of the Bay Area.

The annual pilgrimage, by a caravan of us devout dorks, to COMIC CON (DorkWorld Mecca) has come and gone… and, as always, I had a lot of fun communing with “my people”.

The Caravan
Rhode and I drove down to San Diego on Tuesday in a heavily laden car, tailed closely by Bosco and Steve (looking like assassins in their huge, rented pimp-wagon) who kept an eye on our back wheels, which were splayed cartoonishly outwards by the load of product. (The lads also escorted us homeward on the following Monday; car weighed down with Rhode’s cash this time, breaking the trip back with the now traditional majestic meat meal at HARRIS RANCH Steak house on I-5).

Location, Location, Location
This year Abismo/Nerve Bomb had a fantastic booth location (unlike many of our friends) and we put a lot of effort into our display and were very happy with the result, even though we had to deal with Jumpsuit-envy. Most years, I experience some kind of Snafu with either a print deadline, my hotel reservation, or a shipment nightmare… This year all went smoothly at my end. Rhode schooled me in how to be philosopical when confronted by life’s mishaps, not only when he graciously went along with the jumpsuit thing (my idea) but also when the mis-direction of several boxes of his books (sent to his home by mistake, rather than the con) made him less upset than I became after paying for two Danish pastries, and later discovered only one in the paper bag when I returned to our booth.

Verilly, Rhode is a classy dude.

Speaking of class, we were BOTH treated to a sneak peek of the awesome first 40 pages of the DEATH DAY graphic novel by the Mighty Sam Hiti, who was our hotel roomie this year. I don’t want to give anything away about the book except to say that this project is very different to Tiempos Finales and is even more ambitious. I was very happy to be part of the inner circle; the rest of you will just have to wait a while to see this book. Hah!

Comic con or Media con?
The convention floor was arranged such that I rarely saw exhibitor friends and whenever we met, the discussion was about the layout of the con itself rather than the latest inspiring book, or new talent we had discovered. In recent years there has been a steady growth of big glitzy booths, but this is the first year that it really irked me. Previously, the stuff I was interested in was concentrated in a few areas and was easy to browse during a quick break. This time around, most of the things I wanted to see were sprinkled from one end of the show to the other, hidden away in hard to find nooks and crannies between the massive displays of huge corporate booths…. Artists trying to show their work were placed right in the maw of the media madness zone, consequently I didn’t get to see much of what I was looking for.

Some people said Comic Con is now too big. Art and Comics are being overwhelmed by other things; booths promoting TV shows, Toys, Movies, Games and so forth. I understand why media-producers want booths at Comic Con; the most elaborate and expensive booth, brimming with booth-babes, blaring music and flashing monitors, is substantially cheaper than even the cheapest advertising campaign. They get to broadcast their content to over a hundred thousand pairs of eyeballs over the course of a week, which they hope will then translate into free BUZZ that will expand in the blogosphere. But I can’t figure out why the general public pays to see what are essentially huge advertisements, but there you have it, they do. Judging from the density of the crowds in the media promotions areas the general public is very interested in what they have to offer.

Personally, I don’t mind if Comic Con becomes a general pop-culture media supermarket, but in that case “the product” should be organized so that you can find what you are looking for. I heard rumours that in future the artists alley, small press and art booths may be moved upstairs, leaving the main hall exclusively available to the three-ring media circus. Some artists were annoyed by that idea but I would welcome it, especially if you could buy a ticket to either (a) both areas or, if you preferred, (b) only one or the other. The whole thing could be called MEDIA CON and only the upstairs part; that actually deals with comics, could be called COMIC-con.

Others felt that it might be time to create an entirely NEW con, where the focus would be brought back onto artwork, artists, writers and creators. We then wondered why there are no cons after the middle of the year on the west coast and why there isn’t one in LA, a city with perhaps the densest concentration of cartoonists… Maybe its is time for a Fall convention located in LA, called CREATOR-con or CONTENT-Con (or simply TOON con)?

Anyway, that’s enough of my rambling… It’s time to talk about the good stuff: Comics, and the costumed and pear-shaped people who consume them!

The Haul
I picked up MOST of the stuff on my shopping list (the balance to be procured forthwith at shops here and there) managing to score a few great sketches in my copy of Out of Picture from my sometime Co-workers Daniel Munoz Lopez and Robert Mckenzie. In addition to the stuff I had planned to buy ahead of time I got a copy of Chris Sanders‘ new sketchbook and pretty much every comic ever drawn by Micheal Aushenker.

Con Beauties
Rhode and I were visited by a woman representing a booth full of Convention models who suggested that we contact her if we need any “Booth Babes”. I pointed out that in our nifty high-waisted jumpsuits we were our own booth babes this year, and if that she had the need for any “booth dorks” in future, she knew who to contact. As for costumed beauties, I saw the most beautiful Wonder Woman I’ve ever seen at the con (and I’ve seen a few, of all shapes and sizes over the years), a very pretty Alice in Wonderland and (brace yourself for a creepy admission) the life sized Princess Leia mannequin in the Gentle Giant booth was exerting a strange attraction on me as well…

Some other great costumes were the two guys painted in shades of grey who were MARV and KEVIN from Sin City, a teeny Supergirl with a huge presence, a great Galactus, a pretty Powergirl and the Robot Caveman guy. I saw a near perfect Chewbacca and, in a strangely disturbing sight, I saw another low-rent Chewie with his head off smoking a ciggie. This year I saw more great costumes on the floor than at the Masquerade, though dancing ninja lady was a crowd pleasing event-closer.

Got any Freebies?
We saw a little camera crew (wearing name tags identifying the production company of a famous media mogul) wandering by the booths focussing their camera on the covers of various books, one after the other, as someone read the titles into a microphone. I pictured the mogul himself, sitting in a hot tub, chomping on a cigar while he watched a live feed, and drank in the pop culture cocktail from afar… Others were more direct; both small children and media folk are always hot for free comics and come by blatantly asking for them. I tend to oblige, as long as the freebie-hunter is less than 4 feet tall. The panhandling is less cute from people who got in for free and are on an expense account (if they are as important as they say they are, anyway). It especially sucks giving a free comic book to a reviewer who then tells everyone on the internet how dumb he thinks my comic is…

Ah well, that’s SHOWBIZNISS.

Quality Time
Happily, a reviewer who has actually written some NICE things about my silly comics, Michael May, stopped by to say hello in person and it was a pleasure to meet him even if only briefly. Meeting people at the booth is one of my favourite things about Cons and this year was no different, especially as I wasn’t getting about much myself. Talented brothers Mike and Matt Cossin from Las Vegas, came by and showed me their very impressive comics work for Humanoids. I met Sonny Liew Whos Malinky Robot comic I have admired for a while, and I had a long chat with Nikos Koutsis, who had come all the way from Greece to attend, about the comics biz in America and Europe the different tastes and so on. Two animation/storyboarder ladies from Vancouver bought some stuff and chatted a bit.

This year I was selling sketches, so thanks to those people who bought some: Dan Bois, Russell Vossler (who usually picks up some of my stuff), Irma and Rafa Navarro. Speaking of sketching, I forgot to attend the Drawing Board Sketch session at the Marriot this year (after coming out of the Masquerade we were so dazed that we weren’t thinking straight) consequently I didnt see as many Drawing Boarders as I would have liked…

While wandering through the maze of media noise looking for some booth (which I never located) I stumbled upon old pal and mega-talent Cam de Leon, looking very forlorn in his overshadowed booth. He later visited our booth and we swapped our legal war-stories…

The always entertaining Kirk Thatcher came by to catch his breath. It is surely proof of how draining Comic-Con can be that even Kirk looked beat down for a moment on Saturday, until the B-Minus crew hooked him up with a Tecate and we gave him somewhere to sit and drink it. He paid us back for the use of a chair by scaring away our customers with his smart remarks but redeemed himself by treating us to his absolutely perfect GREEDO impression. Hilarious. On the Thursday night I had an enjoyable dinner with both Kirk and my dear chums John Stevenson and Carol Hughes, who I see less of now that they live in LA.

In addtion to con-going pals from the Bay Area (such as the Ghostbots, the E-Ville Press folk, Maverixes, and other cronies) who I often see at home, I usually meet a few friends and ex co-workers I haven’t seen in a while at Comic con. Sometimes it is the only place I DO get to see them. This year Dave Pryor showed us all his new 2 Minute music video he has been making in his spare time. Colossal Pictures compadres Sam Register, and later Sue Crossley also put in much welcome appearances. I was happy to see (briefly) Aaron Blecha, formerly of the Bay Area but now based in London.

Rhode’s been doing cons much longer than I have, and he has many regular visitors who I enjoy meeting each time we do San Diego. Edward Artinian and his charming family visited, and I finally got to meet El Gato’s Micheal Aushenker after hearing about him for years. He led us all to a part of town most of us hadn’t visited before, and to a trendy Sushi restaurant/dance Club where we were by far the ugliest people in the room. After a tasty meal he then showed us how to sashay up to the ladies on the dance floor.

Ted Mathot demonstrated the “never say die” attitude that enabled him to pump out over 160 pages of comics since last Comic Con (in addition to his strenuous day job) when he determinedly led a tired posse of us through town on Sunday night, trying to find a pub that hadn’t already closed. Some of us needed to debate the Short Storm/Tall Wolverine thing and Sam needed to wash the broken glass (aquired at “dinner”) out of his mouth.

Rhode’s childhood pal Jeff, and his wife Lovelyn, often visited Abismo/NerveBomb HQ, as they have in years past, and they brought us sandwiches and burritos a few days in a row. We had an obscenely huge breakfast with them before we left San Diego on Monday morning. The servings at HASH HOUSE Au Go Go are criminally huge, such that not even we dedicated starch munchers can get through them, a fact proven when Jeff (a betting man) threw a twenty dollar gauntlet on the table and flat out challenged all present to try.

Regrets..
Me: STILL didn’t hook up with a Vampirella model (next year for sure, though).
Rhode: Not buying the Unicorn VS Werewolf t-shirt.

OTHER Perspectives
Don’t take my word for it; here are some more CON reports: Ted Mathot, Javier Hernandez (including a great photo of JAV chilling with GALACTUS), Sho Murase, the Out of Picture crew, Lyla Warren’s PHOTO gallery (I grabbed a few, thanks Lyla!) and the mighty Ronaldo. Also, don’t forget to check out Flickr, the AFTERMATH thread at the Drawing board, and YouTube. Still want more? How about watching a short about Convention costumes (needs divyx player) and another called nerds in paradise (thanks to Ms MONSTER for the movie links). Bosco has some GREAT pix online: gallery1, gallery2, gallery3, gallery4

And finally, Rhode and I have some cameo appearances in the magnificent Hel on Ice video, produced by the B-MINUS crew.

See you next year, definitely at Comic Con (we paid already) and who knows… maybe even at Creator Con…
ITS ON!

I just spent halloween in Maryland with my brother Jo and his family. This is a shot of myself with Dash and Anakin (nephews JACK and TYLER), taken at the Baltimore zoo during the “Boo at the Zoo”

I just spent a very enjoyable weekend in Chicago, attending the wedding of Heather McClenahan (now Heather Deyo) who I have known since she was 2 years old (when I became pals with her Dad Jon, at Hanna Barbera in Sydney). Being at the wedding of someone who was a baby when I met them as an adult is making me feel pretty old…

I’ve always liked Chicago but I’ve never seen it in the Autumn before and it was beautiful to be downtown, seeing the fall colours crisply contrasted with a bright blue sky. Oh by the way, before heading downtown to check out the CLOUD GATE (see pic at right) in Millenium Park, I took some copies of Rocket Rabbit #1 into QUIMBY’s bookstore, just especially for all you comics-loving Chicagolanders.

I just spent a really fun long weekend in LA, visiting with a lot of my good friends from the Bay Area who have moved down there over the last few years. It’s funny to see some die-hard LA bashers of a few years back getting comfortable in SO CAL. But I won’t make too much fun of them; who knows, I may even be moving that way myself very soon…

While in LA, I dropped off some of my books at two great comics shops down there. You can pick up copies of ROCKET RABBIT #1 next time you go comics shopping at either Meltdown Comics on Sunset Blvd or Hi de Ho on Santa Monica Blvd.

Another Comic-Con has come and gone, and I had a really great time this year. When I got home and had the Nerve Bomb accounting department tally up all my profits, I discovered that I actually did better financially LAST time, but I had a much more enjoyable time of it this year. Probably because I had a new book that I was pleased with, a great booth and a cool booth-buddy.

Rhode, Bosco and I drove down to San Diego on the Tuesday before the con, breaking the trip with a stop-over in LA that night, where Tony and Gale played host to the three of us, and we all shared an enjoyable meal at their house. Later, we watched “Still life with animated dogs“, which is a really unique film by Paul Fierlinger, in Tony and Gale’s newly built home theatre.

The good vibes continued when this year I managed to side step the annual screw up with my hotel reservation. It was becoming something of a tradition for me to be jerked around by whichever hotel I was booked at. My buddy Bosco wasn’t so lucky however, having found himself checked in to the Hillbilly Hell Hotel, so he came and shared the suite with Rhode and myself.
Despite the cramped quarters and nightly snoring wars (poor ole Rhode being caught in the crossfire of honking blasts coming from me and Bosco), we all got along great (especially after Jenny gave Rhode some earplugs).

To the left is a sketch of Rocket and the Professor that I did for Russell Vossler while at my booth. He was kind enough to email me a scanned copy.

This year, in addition to the usual suspects, such as Ronnie and Enrico (who had briefly toyed with the idea of NOT exhibiting this year), The sketchbook sessions guys, and the folks from B-Minus, even more of our pals got into the act as exhibitors, namely the E-Ville press crew and the Bunny Mouth kids.

Each night we were able to take some time to socialize in Town, even managing to pull off the amazing feat of seating about 20 of us in one restaurant. I find that most nights I want to spend time with so many people that organising such a big get-together becomes impossible, but somehow we made it work at least once. Plus, the sushi was great.

I was able to hang out with a lot of people (which I regreted not doing much of last time) and I got to meet some people who I’d only previously known through email or by their art websites. (including Douglas who took this pic) So it was nice to be able to match faces to the talents.

The con isn’t the same for me without one of our mini-traditions, a Sunday night get-together over hot-dogs at Derek’s parents’ place in San Diego, and this time it was done in their newly purchased home. A very pleasant evening was spent eating hot dogs and geeking out on comics lore (even some people who’d prefer not to admit it were geeking out… HARD).

The drive home to San Francisco on Monday was a straight shot up boring old Highway 5, but interrupted briefly by a tasty evening meal at HARRIS’ steak house. A possible NEW con tradition that I learned last year from Bosco.

I picked up a lot of neat books.. but even so, if I have any regrets about this year’s con it’s just that I didn’t do more shopping around… and that I missed out on hooking it up with Vampirella again…

Oh well.

I’m back from a month long trip back to Australia, where I spent Christmas with my family in my home town for the first time in over 10 years. It was one of those rare and happy occassions where all the far flung members of my family managed to be in the same place at the same time for a few weeks.

Apart from time spent in my home town I had a week or so in Sydney, and I got to see a lot of old friends. Thankfully, I just missed the worst of the heat wave, but it was still plenty hot for somebody who has become aclimatised to the mild Bay area climate…

Speaking of travel, while back in Australia I picked up some travel guides from JETLAG TRAVEL. The next country I want to go backpacking in is definately Molvania.