From: [s--w--n] at [ariel.lerc.nasa.gov] (Wayne A. Wong)
Newsgroups: alt.comics.alternative
Subject: Motorcity Comic Convention Report.
Date: 1 Apr 1994 10:22 EST

Finally, I'm getting around to writing some comments on the Motorcity 
Comicon, which was held on March 25-27, in Novi, Michigan, U.S.A.

I split my time between manning my table in artist alley, visiting the
Sky Comics booth, and running around the convention hall showing my 
portfolio.  Estimated attendance was around 10,000 for the entire 
weekend, substantially higher than the 6,300 or so record from a year ago.

Sky Comics:
Motorcity was the Premiere of "Darkness Chronicles" a story which I 
pencilled, and Bill Nichols and Bob Hickey wrote, for Sky Comic's 
Sacred Grounds, a 48 page full color anthology which will be out in August.
To promote the book, we distributed and signed free posters which feature 
the Shadow  Agents, the main characters in the D.C. story.  Over 600 
posters were printed up, which wasn't nearly enough as we started running 
low towards closing on saturday.

I was told that more copies of the promo poster for "Star Police," 
the other Sky project I am pencilling (the posters were originally 
distributed at the Mid-Ohio Comicon in November), would be printed up
to promote that book as well, but none were available.  :(  However, I 
did get a hint of some good news relative to this project this weekend,
which I'll post about once it has been confirmed.  :)

Besides Joe Martin, Bob Hickey, Chris Riley, and myself, Greg Land, 
another Sky artist was also on hand.  Greg was promoting the book
that he is pencilling, called "Storm Quest" written by Tom & Mary 
Bierbaum.  A short S.Q. story will be in Sacred Grounds as well, followed  
by issue 0, then a five part mini-series.

Stuff available at the Sky booth:  Recent comics including Blood & Roses
1-2, Seeker: Vengeance 1-2, Vapor Loch, Morgana X, promo ashcans, Blue 
Line comic art supplies and I believe some copies of Arena magazine.

Racm folks:
Quite a few racm people were at the convention.  Tom Galloway stopped by
my table a few times to chat, as did Jeff Bowman and "Mood."  I ran into
Louis Bright-Raven while we were both grabbing for munchies and later
met his partner, Alan Wescoat at the Celestial Comics table.  Thanks to
both these guys for giving me their three print package featuring their
creations.  I visited Steve Lieber on Sunday and much appreciate his 
comments and suggestions on my portfolio.  Steve was offering free sketches
of Hawkman during the con and as with most "free" things, he had many
takers.  I also stopped by the Axis/Studio DNA booth on Sunday to 
introduce myself to Matt Allen but apparently, he didn't make it to the 
con that day (I assume he was busy coloring away :).  Louis told me that
18 racm folks had visited him by the end of Saturday - its great that
the net was there in such strong numbers, but that also means that I didn't
get to meet a lot of you.  :(

General Info:
I kept pretty busy during the con, so I didn't have much chance to talk
to a lot of the guests or to attend many panels.  Here are a few tid-bits.

John Byrne will be celebrating his 20th year as a professional comic book
artist this year.  John related that in his career, he has produced some
12,000 (!!!) comic art pages, and the books he has produced has sold in 
total, over 50,000,000 copies.  As John joked, he is responsible for 
clearing out a small forest.

Speaking of John, Jim Warden, who is John's exclusive art dealer was also
at the con selling John's art.  Of special note is the painted front cover
for Danger Unlimited #2 which is based on John's b&w back cover (I forget
the name of the artist responsible for the painting).  The two covers are
being sold as a set.  I was foolish enough to ask the price... Yowza!

Someone posted a few weeks ago that Adam Hughes would be doing a Rogue
mini-series written by Bob Harras soon.  To my disappointment, Adam says
that he's not heard anything about it, although he would love to do 
something for the X-book family.  Too bad, as I was really looking forward
to claiming one of the Rogue pages for my collection.

In addition to the many titles that Axis Comics will be publishing later
this year (including Grell's Shaman's Tears, as everyone has been talking 
about), they will also start up a new publication called "FAN Magazine."
From what I can tell, FAN will essentially be a forum for comic 
professionals to spout off in regular columns.  I won't say much more about 
it, because I'm not sure what is suppose to be public info at this time.

The Con auction, which was on Saturday, was pretty close to my table in 
artist alley, so I snuck in and out whenever I had a few spare minutes.  
I wasn't much interested in the posters and books that were offered up, 
and it was not easy to get a good look at some of the original art that 
was available.  The only remarkable item that I happened to catch was a 
Jack Kirby HC sketch book, only 1000 of which exist, which was signed by 
Jack.  The book was bid up to $295.  These auctions are fun to go to even 
if you are not intent on buying.  A suggestion to anyone who plans on 
organizing such events in the future: Set the goods up ahead of time 
(perhaps even the day before) to allow potential buyers to examine the 
goods at leisure.  Also, while auctioning artwork, please have someone 
parade the piece around so that everyone can take a closer look.  This 
was done for some of the art at Motorcity, but not for all of it and not
extensively enough.  Also, Brian Murray, the auctioneer, wasn't particularly
adept at the role.

Artist Alley:
I gave myself time on Friday and Sunday to do other things, but I tried to
dedicate most of Saturday, the busiest day, to staying at my table in artist
alley.  I had copies of my pencils from both Sky projects on display (the
originals are at the inkers) as well as a bunch of story pages featuring 
Malibu's Prime character.   

I also spent Saturday taking sketch requests, but by mid-afternoon had to
turn a few people away, including one for Magneto, because I wasn't sure 
if I would have time to finish them all as I'm a slow artist and don't 
like to rush even "sketches".  Sketches I did were:

Haggard - a character from Sky's Darkness Chronicles.
Ultra Boy - for a big LSH fan who had a nice sketch book filled with great
  LSH art.  The pressure was on, because I new my sketch would be next to
  sketches by some fine pros.  This guy had two other sketch books that 
  he was circulating too - quite an impressive collection.
Prime - for a big Prime fan who liked my Prime pages.
A "fan-designed" character - the requester designed a female chest emblem
  which showed off alot of cleavage and wanted me to sketch a character 
  based on it.
"Something Suggestive" - from a guy who had a sketch book filled with
  scantily clad women, often in compromising positions.  I tried to make
  him happy.  :)

The last sketch request, which has me in a mild dilema, I still haven't 
started yet.  The request came from an art dealer with whom I am friendly, 
who said he liked my stuff and asked me to do a nude woman for him.  I told 
him I prefer not to do full nudes, especially when he showed me the type of 
art he was looking for.  He said he has a collection with over 50 nudes 
which he mats and hangs in his bathroom - which is a real shocker to his 
house-guests.  He showed me a typical example, a sketch done earlier in the
day by Tim Vigil...those familiar with Vigil can imagine what it was like
...real hardcore sex/violence stuff.  I'm no prude, and a few suggestive art 
pieces, like the one I mentioned above, I'm willing to do, but I didn't 
want to go much more explicite than that.  Partly, I don't want to get 
pegged as a cheesecake or hardcore artist.  So, I turned him down, although
I did do a Haggard head shot for him gratis, in his "Comic Book Greats" 
Hardcover.  Then on Sunday, towards closing, while I was away from my table,
he came back looking for me.  He found my friend and left some money along
with his mailing address and instructions.  He said he really wanted a 
sketch from me and wrote  "...a nude... or as close as you can come."  
So, my first moral dilema as a pro which I hadn't previously given any 
thought to:  He's a fantastically nice person, and I know what he is looking
for and can do it for him easily, but I personally would prefer not to; 
should I give in to the fan?  Hmmmm.  This question could be extended to 
the assignments I might be offered in the future.  If sex (or westerns, 
or space adventures or whatever) sells, should I take the assignment, 
even if it is not what I am interested in, or want to work on?

Back to the con.

Shopping and original art:
With little spare time, I tried to do some shopping towards closing
on Sunday.  Not much of interest in terms of comics that could be found
at a glance without digging or asking -- plenty of "hot/cold" recent 
comics lined the dealer tables.  (What is the point of 50 plus dealers 
all offering the same books at conquerable prices?)  I quickly rummaged 
through a few piles of original art to see if I could find any bargains.
I saw a bunch of eye-popping Brian Bolland covers and some nice Martin 
Wagner Batman/Grendel pages.  One dealer had an amazing Dale Keown splash
piece featuring the Hulk from Marvel's Swim Suit Special.  The same dealer
had this piece at $4000 when I saw it last at Comicfest in October.  This 
con, he brought the price down to $2,500.  Still not within the budget of 
a young struggling artist/engineer, unfortunately  :).  

What I bought:
Despite my best efforts to get rid of some money, I didn't find anything
in the dealer's room during my short shopping trip.  My only con purchases
for the weekend were two sketches I requested from Adam Hughes, whose work
I really enjoy.  One was of Rogue standing thigh deep in water (since
he's not doing a mini-series, I figured I'd at least get a sketch), and 
the other was of Wonder Woman leaping in the air.  Both really nice and 
money well spent.  As lovely as both sketches are, I am considering getting
Mark Farmer, one of my favorite inkers, to ink one of them for me if I run
into him at some future convention, just to give it that "finished" look.  
If you have a chance to meet Adam at a future con, flip through his 
portfolios -- he does some very nice work.  If you want a sketch from him,
you have to get to him early as his time for sketches gets filled fast.

(In anticipation of many requests from net friends who might want photo
copies of Adam's sketches, I will have to unilaterally refuse just to be 
fair to everyone.  Sorry.)

Portfolio reviews:
I showed my art portfolio to quite a few people at the convention from 
Marvel, DC, Valiant and others.  I have a separate summary of some of their
comments, but would prefer not to post it openly.  If you are interested 
in seeing it and If I know you, drop me a line and I can mail it out.

I'll close by commenting on the good people that inhabit Artist alley at 
these conventions.  Throughout this weekend, I met a lot of them, many of  
whom are relatively new to the profession or are working for small 
press/self publishing houses.  These artists typically aren't "big names" 
like the Special Guests that were set up nicely in another area, but they 
work just as hard and in some cases are just as talented.  So for the 
con-goers this summer, if you don't make a habit of visiting guests other 
than the big names, walk on over and say hello to the smaller guys.  They
won't bite, and in fact, I've found most will greet you with a smile.

That's it.
 - 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.
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    W     A     Y     N     E     .     A     .     W     O     N     G
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 "I don't own them.  I just gave them life." - BWS, Re: Archer & Armstrong.
                                                 [s--w--n] at [ariel.lerc.nasa.gov]