Starving Artists at a Comic Show

I went to a small comic dealer show in Fairfield, NJ after church today. It's a small bimonthly show with maybe 15-20 dealers. Bargains galore and good collector stuff. I find the big shows are sometimes too heavy on dollar boxes and not so heavy on good collector's items. Perhaps that's a sign of the times in the industry. Anyways, good mix at this show, and they do this cool little no-minimum-bid auction with some good stuff dirt cheap. But I'm rambling, because I'm going through this phase of not finding any comics I like. I think my continuing journey through Cerebus (all 300 issues) has sucked the life out of my fanboy side. So I bought almost nothing aside from a DVD my daughter wanted and an old Yellow Submarine Ringo/Blue Meanie figure. But I'm rambling again.

There were a few artists there doing their thing, though, so I spent most of my time chatting with them.

The point I'm leading toward (geez there had to be a point sometime) is that you can spend 10 bucks on dollar boxes or you can spend 10 bucks and support an indy artist and make his day. Having spent lots and lots of time on that side of the table, I know what it looks like, watching people walk past your table because it's the straight line between the dollar boxes and the 3-for-a-dollar boxes. Not really wanting to give you a a glance for fear that you'll talk to them Not wanting to express interest for guilt of not spending cash. Not wanting to give a few minutes time to look at work that this artist has poured his heart and soul into.

I bought some xeroxed prints from Dana Greene, who had studied at the NY school for visual arts. Once we began to talk he showed me a stack of photos of the celebs he's met at shows. He was painting an Iron Man shot at his table so I watched his technique for a while. I learned a lot. Gave him the Megazeen site to look at. Who knows what will happen?

Another artist, Michael Parla, was doing some amazing work with Prismacolor pencils and black cardstock. Really cool stuff, I'd never seen anything like it before. I bought three postcard-sized prints from him. So impressed was I that I stopped on the way home at the art store to buy some Prismacolor pencils and black cardstock. I gotta give this a shot.

The third artist (I did not get the name I'm sorry) had a portfolio of pinups and sequentials that I flipped through. We discussed inking techniques, the old "brush vs pen vs quill" debate to which there is no right or wrong, just talk of the trade.

This weekend I spent $55 having my Amazing Spiderman #129 professionally graded, and I spent 10 bucks on some indy artists. I wish it had been the other way around. And I resolve to make it moreso from now on. You should too.

Today's pic is the Sculpy version of Dean Rankine's Sticky Bunny, because I had an afternoon to kill.