From: [s--w--n] at [ariel.lerc.nasa.gov] (Wayne A. Wong)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: [CON] Chicago - W.A.W. Report (1 of 3)
Date: 7 Jul 1994 19:50 EDT

        Chicago Comicon 1994 Report 

The convention was held July 1-3, 1994, of which I only attended
the first two days as I had to rush back to Cleveland Saturday night.
Feedback that I've gotten for past con reports I've written is that
readers enjoy details, so I've included a lot in here.

While I waited in the guest registration line to pick up badges for myself
and my companion Friday morning, a lady came up and asked if this was the 
pro line.  It took a few seconds before I realized that it was Maggie 
Thompson, editor of the CBG, whom I had never met in person before.  Caught
off guard, I debated whether or not I should express my condolences for the 
recent loss of her husband Don.  I missed my opportunity, as a number of 
other guests gathered around to show their support.  Harlan Ellison then 
walked by and upon seeing Maggie held out his arms for her.  They hugged 
long and hard which I think may have brought Maggie to tears.  At that 
point I thought it proper to mind my own business.

After I finally got the badges, I headed for Artist Alley upon which I  
ran into Harlan again (he's shorter than I expected).  He was yelling 
after a 14-ish boy who had just walked by.  "Hey kid, what's in those 
boxes?!"  Harlan screamed while chasing after the kid.  Befuddled, 
the boy put down his load for Harlan to inspect.  I overheard one of 
Harlan's two companions ask the other "Now what's he doing?"  The other 
guy shrugged and said that if Harlan sees something interesting, he'll 
go after it -- he does that kind of thing all the time.  I didn't wait
to find out what was in the boxes as I clutched my portfolio and duffle 
tighter and quickened my pace.  :)

Artist Alley:
I had a table in Artist Alley which is a first for me in Chicago -  my 
only complaint is that the artists were all packed together very closely,
two to a table.  Fortunately for me, the guy I was suppose to share my 
table with never showed, so I was able to spread myself out a little more.
I had a display board behind me on which I mounted some of my original 
pin-up art.  I also had photocopies of the assignments I drew for SKY  
COMICS (Star Police and Darkness Chronicles), as well as a poster I drew 
for the former AXIS COMICS (Gin Ryu).

I spent about half the time at my table, the rest of it being spent on
panels, showing my portfolio and making mad dashes through the dealer
room.  I did a number of sketches, but unlike Steve Lieber, I was only
able to cover about half of my trip expenses with the proceeds (and I
drove! :).  Since it's a common question, No the convention organizers do 
NOT usually pay for the expenses of the pros unless the person happens 
to be a big-name Special guest.  Sketches this time were:
 - Superman
 - Prime, again.
 - An evil Alien from Star Police nick-named "Smiley" by Larry Merrill.
 - Dawnstar, for another big LSH sketch collector.  I told him about 
   the fellow I met at Motorcity who had three sketch books filled with 
   LSH sketches, and he practically started to drool.
 - An 8 foot tall four armed heavily armoured Ranger/Paladin named Black 
   Hawk that was created by a DnD gamer.  The gamer provided small designs
   of his characters and asked the artists to sketch them.  I couldn't 
   get to his sketch right away, so for some reason he kept coming up to
   me every 15 minutes or so to tell me how much money he was spending on
   sketches from other artists.  And he would remind me that an integral
   characteristic of the race that this character belonged to was that 
   they always, ALWAYS, carried their shields with their lower left arm.
   ALWAYS.  And he's tall.  8'-1".  I think I Got it the first time.

Highpoint of the con #1 - was when Steve Masarsky, head honcho of Valiant 
Comics, walked by my table and did a double-take at my display.  He then 
came over and started flipping through my pages.  We chatted briefly.

Lowpoint of the con - was when Steve Masarsky, head honcho of Valiant 
Comics, smiled, said thank you, and walked away.   :(

Highpoint of the con #2 - was when a little boy, maybe seven years old, 
stood in front of me unnoticed, watching me sketch.  When I finally 
looked up and saw him, he smiled and said bobbing his head, "You're 
*really* Good.  You're the best artist I've seen all day."  I thanked him
feeling very flattered and talked to him briefly about art.  He then
looked down at a Wolverine I drew and said, "Wow, this Wolverine is
great."  I nudged it towards him and told him to take it.  He looked at
me with a surprised expression and asked how much it would cost.  Even 
after I said he could have it for free, he still hesitated.  By this 
time, the boy's father arrived.  His father told the boy it was okay to 
take it and for him to ask me to personalize it to him which I was happy
to do.  Afterwards, my companion teased me to make sure my head didn't
swell: "You know, kids are smart these days.  I wouldn't be surprised 
if that little boy says the same thing to all the artists and now has 
a bag full of art."   I like to think otherwise.  :) 

SKY Comics:
SKY did not have a dedicated booth this year.  Instead they shared space
with Caliber Press.  I didn't have time to wander over so I don't have 
any other details.  I did bump into Bob Hickey and Joe Martin a few times
though.  With regard to the two projects I penciled for SKY, I received 
confirmation on some very good news and some very bad news.  I'll leave 
it at that for now.

The Nude Sketch:
Those that read my Motorcity con report from March might recall a dilema
I had when an art dealer left money at my table while I was not present
at the end of the con with instructions for me to draw and send him
a nude sketch.  I eventually did a tasteful nude elven maiden wading in a
pond holding a spear with which she just caught a still flapping fish.  
As an update, this dealer was also in Chicago, so when I walked by, he 
waved me over grinning, and took out an inch thick pile of photocopies 
of his "Collection."  Jeez.  Anything from a naked Popeye holding a 
strategically placed can of spinach to my, I think, *consevative* sketch, 
to some very hard-core dripping stuff.

RACM People:
Thanks to the dozen or so netters who stopped by my table to say hello.
I will refrain from mentioning everyone who came by, as I am terrible 
with names, except for John Benton from Hero Magazine, who looks a lot 
younger than I would have thought.  :)

Thanks especially to the trio of Glenn Carnagey, Mike Stailey and Hector 
Lee for interviewing me for COMX-TV.  Glenn asked the questions, Mike 
handled the camera and Hector... handled security.  Thinking back on what
I said and did during the interview, I'm fearful that it is going to look
really cheezy and I'll sound a bit too self-promoting.  Oh well.  I got 
to plug the work I'm doing for SKY Comics and I waved a color promo 
poster for PRIMITIVES, from SpareTime Studios, in front of the camera.
Thanks again guys!

Friday Night:
I joined the net-group for dinner Friday night, which was a lot of fun.  
About 30 people showed this year which was quite a few more than last year.
Giordano's deep dish pizza beats Denny's Grand-slam hands down!  The only 
downer was that the group had to be split in two.  I'll leave the details
for others to fill in.

Afterwards, I decided to skip the party at Halley's and the Torchlight, 
preferring to head back to the hotel.  I stayed at the Sofitel this year 
rather than the Hyatt.  I didn't feel as tired as I thought I'd be, not 
having slept the night before, so I decided to wander over to the huge 
Hyatt atrium/lobby with my portfolio.  Last year, quite a few pros hung out 
there and a lot of aspiring artists huddled together at the tables to 
sketch, which was a neat atmosphere to be in.  While I was traversing the
half mile or so of habitrail that connected the two hotels, I ran into my 
Star Police inker, Jerry Foley, who was on his way to catch the Oblivion
movie preview.  We tried to hook up all day, but kept missing each other.
He decided to skip the movie and hang out with me at the Hyatt to catch 
up since we hadn't seen each other since Mid-Ohio Con in November.  When 
we got to the Hyatt atrium, instead of the throngs of comic book fans I 
was expecting to find, we found ourselves in the midst of a bunch of 
Bengalis (?) who were gathered together for some other occasion.

We parked ourselves in one of the booths anyway and lamented about the 
state of the industry and the frustrations inherent in trying to break in.
Jerry has inked over a dozen books this past year and he is still knocking
his head up against barriers.  And he's good too!  We were then joined 
by Willie Peppers, penciler of a bunch of stuff, and some of his friends.
More lamenting, but in a fun sort of way.

Earlier, I showed Jerry some of my new work including some inked stuff
that I did myself.  Prior to these pieces I hadn't inked anything in
over two years preferring to concentrate on penciling.  I left my 
portfolio open while the conversation wandered, and eventually a stranger
came up and asked if he could look.  It turns out the stranger had
at one time lived in Cleveland at which time he use to work as an 
engineer at NASA (like me).  He eventually broke into comics as an inker 
and has finished half a dozen inking projects for Marvel.  The 
disheartening thing is that he told me he still has to struggle to get 
assignments, relying on cold submissions and portfolio reviews.  He said
that there is no difference between when he was starting out and now, 
despite the completed projects under his belt.  :(

After all that talking Jerry and Willie got thirsty and headed for the
bar.  I started to feel tired so I hit the habitrail back to the Sofitel.

Panel Discussions:

INKING:
The panelists on "Inking" were Barbara Kaalberg, Jimmy Palmiotti, and 
Terry Beatty who also doubled as the moderator.  A bunch of others 
were suppose to show up but didn't.  I found this discussion very 
informative and useful.  From a penciler's perspective, I enjoyed 
hearing how my counterparts, three inkers with very different styles,
approached their work and what they expect from their penciler.  They 
also offered some insights into inking which I found useful since I'm
starting to experiment with inking.  Some comments made were:

- The inker's primary job is to enhance the penciler's work and give it
body and depth.  Barb and Jimmy said emphatically that inking is NOT 
just tracing the penciler's art as it is so often described.  They 
conceded that the inker plays second fiddle to the penciler and that 
while the inker should imbue the art with their own style, the inker 
should never overpower or bury the pencilers work.
- On inking tools, they said use whatever works.  For example Jimmy and 
Barb both use the W&N series 7 brushes and the Hunt pen nibs depending 
on the look they want.  They also commented that in recent years the 
quality of art supplies, from brushes to pens to ink, has gone down 
drastically for some reason.  A common problem seems to be that whenever 
artists find a supplier that they are happy with, the supplier goes out 
of business or the product is discontinued.
- Before Barb even attempted to ink her first pencils, she practiced inking
page after page of lines.  She would divide the bristol into grids and fill
the grids with horizontal lines, then vertical lines, then curved lines 
over and over.  Now, she is at a level where many of the pencilers on 
Malibu's Ultraverse books request to work with her.  In order to keep the 
pencilers happy, Malibu tries to spread her around a lot which tends to 
explain why she has worked on so many titles.
- Barb suggests that you photocopy everything, before you ink and after 
you ink.  They told a few horror stories about pages getting ruined and 
what it takes to recover.
- Inkers generally are paid less than pencilers, but inking usually takes 
less time than penciling.  Barb said she can ink two books a month while 
Jimmy can ink three but is trying to cut back to doing only two. Barb 
says she typically works 12-16 hours a day.  In any case, in response to
questions about pay, they all said that its possible to make a comfortable
living if you are good enough and fast enough.
- The comment I like best was when Jimmy and Barb both agreed that 
they, as inkers, work for the penciler and not the editor; if the penciler 
is happy, they are happy.  They're okay in my book.  :)  

ARTISTS AND MODELS:
The panelists were Alex Ross, P. Craig Russell, Charles Vess, and Mitch 
O'Connell.  Susie Owens, the model on whom the skantily clad Flaxen
character is based was also scheduled to appear.  I don't think she was 
missed much.  I don't recall the name of the moderator, who was effective 
but a little too patronizing to the artists for my tastes.  The topic 
was suppose to be about using models and visual reference while doing 
artwork but a lot of other related topics were discussed.  There's way 
too much for me to cover here unfortunately.  A few highlights are:

- All of these guys had some formal art training (in fine art, I believe).
Ross use to work for a graphic design firm, Vess does a lot of theatre 
costume design, and O'Connell does 90% of his work outside of comics.
- Every panelist except Charles Vess uses models as reference.  Most 
noticeable would probably be Alex Ross' work on Marvels on which he
used extensive reference.  The moderator was his model for the photographer
character "Phil."  Ross spent one and a half years doing Marvels.  His
technique was to do thumbnails so that he knew the shots he needed.  Then
he would get his models to pose and act out the parts for him while he
took snap shots with the appropriate lighting that he needed.  He would 
then pencil the pages using the photographs and finally finish by painting
everything.
- For models, get your friends to pose for you.  Take photographs of them
or better yet, use a video camera and record them in all manner of poses
then freeze frame on whatever you need.
- Advantages of using models: drawing the body the way it really looks 
instead of the way you think it looks, capturing realistic light/shadows, 
etc. (the stuff you would expect).  Surprising to me was the comment that 
sometimes using models is actually faster, even considering time spent on
setting up shots, lighting, etc.
- Disadvantages of using models: The figures can become stiff looking.
Also, when using reference, a lot of artists fall into the trap of trying
to draw every little detail, every hair, every fold of cloth, etc.
- Maybe I'm just naive, but it seems swiping art is much more common 
than I thought.  Russell's advice: Never swipe from Gil Kane; editors 
will spot it in a second.  He went as far as to suggest who to swipe
from, but I'll keep it to myself because I'd hate to have everyone start
swiping from this person.
- When asked about their dream projects, Ross said he always wanted to
do the characters he grew up with.  Having finished Marvels, he's done
half of them already.  Up next will be the other half; a similar project 
which remains untitled for DC which is being written by Mark Waid.  
Russell said that he likes doing choirs of angels, big splashy waves --
basically the stuff he's known for, but he doesn't want to go back to
that all the time.  Vess likes fantastic settings, fairies, that sort
of thing.
- When asked if there were any projects they wouldn't do, the panelists
were not as open... but I seem to remember the letter X being murmured.  :)

SELF PUBLISHING:
I arrived at this panel about 20 minutes late so I missed the introductions.
If anyone else was there, I would love to know what I missed.  The people 
I reconized were Jeff Smith, Don Simpson, and Richard Pini.  Jeff was a
very articulate and intelligent speaker, and I am beginning to realize that
the success of his BONE Comic has as much to do with his business savvy 
and smart thinking as it does the quality of the comic itself.

- No magic formula or secret process to follow in order to succeed as a 
self publisher was reviewed.  :(
- The first thing anyone considering self publishing should do (I would 
extend this to anyone thinking about getting into *any* aspect of the 
industry) is get to know the business inside out.  Read, talk to pros, 
and read some more.
- The book has to come first.  If you don't finish the art, you won't have
a product so no matter how much advertising, screaming and promoting you 
do, you won't be able to sell anything.
- Jeff advised that would-be self publishers NOT quit their day job -- you 
have to be able to bring in a steady income to support yourself.  Chances
are the book will make very little profit, if any, when you are starting 
out.  He also commented that it would be much easier if you go it alone
as oppose to having multiple partners since any small amount of profit
will not have to be divided up to support several people.
- Richard Pini said that it is much easier to self publish these days.  
When he and Wendy started Elf Quest and Dave Sim started Cerebus in the
70's, it was much riskier because the distribution system was not as stable
as it is now.  Someone else said that publishers use to lose a lot of money 
because it was common for distributors to go bankrupt while owing the 
publishers money.  Jeff thanked Richard, Wendy and Dave for being the 
pioneers in self-publishing and leading the way so that he could do BONE.
- Once you've started self-publishing, the most important thing is to
keep up with the schedule and produce new work.  Don Simpson said that
it is all too common for self-publishers to produce the first two issues
of a series then disappear.  You have to get beyond those first two books
in order to establish yourself.

GETTING INTO THE BUSINESS OF COMICS:
A slide presentation by Lurene Haines which I assume is from her new
similarly titled book, published by Stabur/SKY.  Again, I was about
20 minutes late.  After about 5 minutes, I concluded that the material 
she was presenting was a bit simplistic and basic for me and because I 
had her book on order already and because I felt my time could be better 
spent elsewhere, I left.  The few minutes I saw were spent on common 
sense topics, so I won't bother going into details.  Read the book.  :)

REQUESTS - PANELS I MISSED:
Being short on time, I missed a few panels that sounded very interesting.
If you happen to have caught them, I and I'm sure many others would be 
grateful if you would fill us in.  They were:

- Lawyers and Licensing - What you need to know before you put your 
signature on a contract instead of a sketch - how to sell your 
characters without selling yourself short.
- Collecting Comic Art - Find out more about how to get started collecting 
and the state of the market. 
- What Every Creator Should Know (but most don't) - The legal ins & outs
of the comics field.


Publishers:
The larger publishers all seemed to be competing for attention setting up
huge and costly displays.  If this were a contest, I would say Techno 
Comix from Big Entertainment won in terms of most impressive set-up with
their wall of tv screens and the two virtual reality machines.  I can't 
even guess at the budget that this company has -- it must be HUGE.  They 
also gave out free shopping bags filled with T-shirts, insulating can 
holders, frisbees, buttons and flyers galore all weekend.  Techno Comix 
also hosted/sponsored the guest hospitality room.  Unfortunately, I didn't 
have time to take advantage of it.  Marvel also had a nice set up, but to
be honest, I much more enjoyed the traditional "booths" rather than the 
"cells" that were common this year.  In terms of presense, Image was
very noticeable, as each studio or line of books had their own set-up.
The most extreme was probably the Youngblood Battlecruiser -- if nothing 
else, Rob Liefeld certainly knows how to cater to the children.  Too bad 
I didn't have time to wait in line to go inside the ship.  :)

In the past, I noted with interest some of the parallels in the careers 
of Bart Sears and Joe Quesada.  Now, both "fan favorites" have decided to 
start self publishing and their respective companies had very colorful 
splashy booths; Bart's new company is Ominous Press and Joe's is 
Event Comics.  I would have loved to introduce myself to Bart and allow 
him to contrast my page of art from Wizard #20 (the "Brute" plot that 
he printed in his column over a year and a half ago), with my current 
portfolio.  Hopefully, he would have approved of the differences.  :)  
Unfortunately, I was not able to find Bart, or Joe for that matter, 
all weekend.  I saw some of the pages from one of the Ominous Press 
books and I have to marvel at the computer coloring in this thing -- it 
was stunning.  On a negative note, I hope both these fledgling companies 
will look at the demise of Axis Comics and are able to draw lessons from
their mistakes.  Take it slow guys.

Autographs:
The only outrageous autograph line I saw was for Steven Platt -- I'm
sure there were others, I just didn't see them.  I'll refrain from 
making any mean spirited comments although I'm sorely tempted... just 
please imagine some for me.  >;)

I brought along a bunch of books that I wanted to get signed by some of
my favorite creators.  I left most of it in the car since I had plenty
of other stuff to carry, thinking that I could go back to the car to 
fetch whatever I want when I have time.  I didn't have *any* time and 
didn't get a single autograph.  :(

I did have my A Distant Soil: Immigrant Song graphic novel with me along
with the first three Aria Press issues.  I finally read Immigrant Song
recently and thoroughly enjoyed it so I wanted to let Colleen Doran know 
and get her signature at least.  Unfortunately, this year, as was the 
case last year, her mom was the only one manning the Aria booth when I 
had time to visit.  I guess she needed to take a break from all the hounds.

Statues:
This hobby is getting very, very expensive.  Not only do we get a
proliferation of cards, posters, POGS, clothing, and toys, we also 
get high-price statues.  Of particular note, I saw the Alien Queen, 
Cyberforce's Ripclaw and PITT.  All three of these were highly detailed 
and of impressive quality.  For an instant, I thought about getting 
the PITT statue as I am a fan ($195 retail!), then I remembered the 
starving artist demeanor I am trying to adopt and turned away.  :)

A BONE statue was also on display at Jeff Smith's Cartoon Books booth. It 
looked cute, if simple, in comparison to the others.  The statue was much 
smaller than I expected, so I mentioned it to Jeff's wife Vijaya (sp?). 
She explained to me that the reason Fone Bone is so small is because a 
Dragon statue will be forthcoming which will be the largest in the set,
and that the size of all the other characters were scaled based on their 
relation to the Dragon.  Ahhhh... I seee...  She's a charming lady btw.

Purchases:
I had time to make two mad dashes through the Dealer's Room.  My method of
shopping in the past has always been to go through the entire room to 
see what's available and to do some comparison shopping.  That was fine 
when I had more time to spend on shopping, but these days, I am usually 
limited to half hour breaks.  Unfortunately, I still shop the same way, 
so by the time I cover the entire floor I don't have time to go back to
get anything I would have wanted -- not that I could remember where to find
any particular item in that huge place anyway.  Hmmm.  I think I'll have 
to rethink my strategy  ;).  The only items that I saw that I was 
interested in were some original art pages, but that starving artist 
demeanor kept getting in the way.  :)  "$6,000 for that O'Barr piece?
Sure, no problem.  I should be able to cover that by doing sketches
til my arm is a nub!"  :)

My purchases at the convention totalled $10: $6 for a PITT tank top, and
$4 for Nightwolf #1 and 2, which I bought from Ken and Mark Lester of
5 Star Comics based on a recommendation from Stephen Conley, publisher
of Avant Guard.  I haven't read the books yet, but they look decent.  
5 Star Comics, like several other small publishers, had a booth, which 
meant they had to pay the high booth prices.  I *seriously* doubt they 
sold *anywhere* near enough copies of their books to cover the cost of the
space.  Not to pick on 5 Star, but I had walked by their set-up several 
times during the weekend to check out their operation along with those 
of a few other small publishers (for reference), and they never seemed 
particularly intent on trying to draw attention to themselves.  The small
publishers should realise that at a con when their little booth is 
surrounded by huge sprawling, noisy, splashy set-ups from the larger 
companies, they have to put in that extra effort to get attention and 
not just sit at the table with their heads down.  For example, a couple 
of guys near my table in Artist Alley had a bunch of mini-comics they 
made themselves.  They had props and were friendly to all passers-by.  
They made a ton of money (I was watching) by hustling and talking to 
folks.  It *does* make a big difference.  (end sermon. sorry.).

PORTFOLIO REVIEWS:
I had planned on showing my art portfolio to a bunch of different 
publishers to entice them into throwing assignments my way.  Things 
didn't quite work out the way I planned.  My biggest problem this year
was lack of time, and only being able to stay for the first two days
didn't help matters.  Everytime I walked by a major publisher's table
with my portfolio in hand, I was faced with huge lines that I knew from
experience would take at least an hour and a half to get through.  What's
worse is that often, the person conducting the review would get tired 
(which is understandable) and leave without someone from the company to 
replace him.  A friend of mine waited in the DC line twice, and both 
times the reviewer stopped looking at portfolios just when he started 
getting near the front of the line.  This happened to me once.  That's
a lot of wasted time. 

I did show my stuff to a few companies, but the only ones of note were
Techno Comix (A Lady and Ed Polgardy, formerly of Defiant.  How *DID* 
he get this job?) and Ominous Press (not Bart Sears).  Here's a tip for 
aspiring artists: TC has lined up a slew of big name writers to develop 
their comic book line, but has yet to secure any artists that I know of
-- If you think your stuff is up to snuff, give them a shot.  For 
Ominous Press, Sears will do ALL the art for 1994, but they plan to expand 
in 95 and would like to fill their ranks now and get ahead on some of 
the projects.  Me, I've got other plans.

And that was Chicago Comicon 1994.  I had a GREAT weekend despite the
crunch for time and am looking forward to next year!

Next: San Diego!!

 - Wayne, will end this con report, as he usually ends his con reports --
   encouraging any comic book fan that has never gone to a comic book 
   convention to go to one.  You will no doubt have lots and lots of fun.
 =========================================================================
    W     A     Y     N     E     .     A     .     W     O     N     G
 =========================================================================
 "I don't own them.  I just gave them life." - BWS, Re: Archer & Armstrong.
                                                 [s--w--n] at [ariel.lerc.nasa.gov]