Wizard World Philly 2006

Yesterday I took a trip to Philadephia with my friend, Joe, to attend the Wizard World Convetion. I spent most the the day in the "Artist's Alley" area talking to illustrators, looking through thier portfollios, and watching them work. I had a handful of them do do a sketch in my sketchbook.

First I talked to an indie comic artist, Jason May, who I had sketch a neat spider looking robot.

Next I found a couple of guys that work on an indie horror comic, The Corpse, and had one of them, Ken Heaser, draw what seems to be their major icon.

The next couple of artists I didn't really talk to much, just asked them to do some sketches. I didn't even catch the girl's name that drew the "girl looking back" for me. She was very cute, though. I guess I got nervous. She had a website but it doesn't show much of her work, more her partner's work.

I asked Tom Ryan to sketch me his favorite character, and I'm not sure who it is. Maybe Mr. Freeze from batman? Tom doesn't have a website and is not affiliated with any comic books.

I spent over an hour watching Any Lee do his work. He calls it "Modern Zen Art", it's a mixture of Sumi-e style painting and comic illustration. Original and very fun to watch. I asked him to sign my sketchbook with his brush, to help me remember his style so I could look him up later and he instead did a sketch of me, it took him about 15 seconds, I was very impressed. I later asked him to paint a dragon for me and he gave me a free print along with it.



Last, but by no means least, Andy Macdonald of NYC Mech, did a very impressive drawing of one of his mechs for me. It was really amazing to watch the page go from nothing to this in just 20 minutes.

It was a great day and I can't wait until next month when I'm going to the International Comic-Con in San Diego to see even more artists.

I plan on doing some sumi-e style paintings of my own soon.
~Adam