Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo this sunday

[cityhunter2501]

just saw the flyer of it on the news paper today.
anyone planning to go there this sunday at the Roundup Center?

among their guests I saw that Morena Baccarin (Inara from Firefly/Serenity) will be there, all of a sudden I'm tempted to go :rofl:
http://calgaryexpo.com/images/guests2007/Baccarin/morena%203.jpg

overall the list of guests seems pretty good, PurePwnage is there aswell
http://calgaryexpo.com/guests.html

10$ ticket, 15$ at the door

[Vagabond142]

I went to the show and man, I have to say... what a freakin MONEY PIT O_O!:eek: :D :D

I had 4 custom pieces done on site as well as two commissions (one was done by the end of the show, a Joe Pekar original pencil of Rogue, and one coming next week in the mail, that being another Rogue, except done by Dave McCaig (colorist and penciller freelancer that does a LOT of Marvel one shots).


The customs and commissions are:

-Francis Manapul (actual Top Cow Witchblade artist) and Marcus To (Trained by the guy that started Witchblade): "Witchblade Duo"

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/witchduo.jpg


The Joe Pekar original Rogue (holy cow this guy can draw super fast):

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/pekarrogue.jpg


Francisco Herrara custom Venom ink sketch and Rove (LOCAL ARTIST!!) custom "Flying Rogue:"

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/venom_rogue.jpg


Doug Wheatly limited print with independant finisher (the skull and bones above his signature were drawn on site to make this print a numbered one-off, essentially):

Here he is drawing and numbering it:

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/wheatleydraw.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/wheatley.jpg


Angus Oblong "Simon Oblong" (Me as an Oblong! :D)

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/oblong2.jpg


Angus Oblong also made a personalization in a book of his I bought that was the basis for The Oblongs cartoon:

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/oblong.jpg



Of course, there were also stars there... I got autographs and photos with Robert Picardo (Holodoc from Voyager, Woulsley from Stargate Atlantis/SG-1), Morena Baccarin (Adria from SG-1, Irena from Firefly), Christina Hendricks (Saffron from Firefly) and Ray Park (Darth Maul, Toad, etc)

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/autos.jpg


And the pics with each star:

Picardo:

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/picardo.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/picardo2.jpg

Morena Baccarin and Christina Hendricks:

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/bachen.jpg

Ray Park:

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/park.jpg



Oh, and Angus Oblong!

http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/oblong3.jpg


All in all, a very geeky day spent watching some incredibly talented artists do comissions, chat with my personal favorite artist, Francis Manapul, and generally wander around sweating my ass off because the air conditioning in the hall was going a little nuts. :P

[Vagabond142]

Oh, and here's Francis Manapul drawing the cover for my collector's Limited Edition numbered sketch book (he drew a custom cover for each book). To really scare ya, he did this cover in about 4 1/2 minutes. The last pic also has the completed bristol board sketch for Witchblade Duo.


http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/francis1.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/francis2.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/francis3.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/francis4.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/francis5.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/franciscompleted.jpg

[Disoblige]

Woow, that Witchblade Duo one is nice :thumbsup:

and.. Oblongs rock :D

[Vagabond142]

Angus Oblong is the coolest person on the face of the earth. Seriously. He took any question that was asked of him and responded from an Oblongs point of view... so "What do you think of global warming?" "Well, I think it's better than living down from a toxic factory, so it's good all around :D"

[TomcoPDR]

Did the guy who drew Spawn show up? (heard he was a Calgary guy)

[Vagabond142]

Todd McFarlane? I believe some of the pencillers from his studio showed, but Todd himself wasn't there

[Vagabond142]

Youtube videos!

Francis doing part one of "Witchblade Duo"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ANoAu0TY1Y


Marcus To doing part two of "Witchblade Duo"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpwt9r7YazY

[eb0i]

Of course I miss this due to the freakin' flu :banghead:

I guess I'll have to wait for it next year.:(

[Vagabond142]

Next year SHOULD be a two day event, because they plan on having more panels, some workshops, a LOT more stars n artists coming out

[cityhunter2501]

oh man, knew should have made some bs excuses to friends and went there :banghead:

[eb0i]

That Wheatley limited print is amazing!

And Morena and Christina are HOT :love:

[Darkane]

I bought a 14" Metal Transforming Optimus Prime. I'm happy :) 20th Anv. Edition. Lou Ferigno is also still mint. He could kill people.

[Wakalimasu]

got a pic of me holding both inara and saffron :p


otherwise picked up some Star wars stuff from chinook hobbies as they had a convention price going on :o

[reiRei]

wow, I knew I should've gone to this...

[Vagabond142]

Very big kudos have to go to the artists down artist alley... I mean, only a couple (Herrara, Ramos, etc) charged for ink sketches, pretty much all pencil sketches were free. Marcus To was dealing out some incredible print quality sketches of TMNT, Witchblade (of which he said he loved doing the Duo poster :D :D ), Batman, the Darkness, etc. Francis Manapul was just incredible. Take one dedicated Witchblade NUTZOID (that would be yours truly), one aweseomekickassOMGWTFBBQ good artist that draws the best covers and panels for Witchblade, and make them meet at a convention. It was like watching pure magic as he drew both the cover to my sketchbook and even more so when he did the Duo poster. He even let me watch like RIGHT over his shoulder O_O!!!


Some more experiences:

Angus Oblong (c'mon, if you haven't heard of The Oblongs, than you're missing out on the funniest cartoon ever made). With a little idol worship (and the fact that he said I have a very cool hat :D ) he drew the "Simon Oblong" in like a minute... it's getting framed and hung on my wall :D He is also one of the funniest fucked up guys you'll ever meet. He's insane, but in a good sense O_o

Joe Pekar was an absolute fucking JOY to watch. If you've never seen soft pencils done before, just plant yourself so you can see him draw and just WATCH. His soft pencils are amongst the most beautiful you'll ever see being made. He was a tad grumpy by the end of the convention (as were many people, because they had been drawing ALL DAY), but he still took the time to talk me through his drawing of my Rogue commission, like "You see how by using the edge like this, you get a rough but soft look, and by turning it just so, you get a smooth and solid look" and all I could do was nod in amazement. He is a god of pencilwork. Just watch him draw if you don't believe me.

Rove was a fucking AWESOME guy to meet. I've seen some of his works around town, but I totally forgot that he was going to be at the con. So when I saw a booth with the name "ROVE" on it, I was like "oh shit, I gotta get him to do a Rogue!" So I waited in line while he did three portraits of people (his con special of $5 for a head shot, $10 for a full body was drawing people in like mad) and when I came up and asked him for a Rogue in any action position he wanted, he lit up like a lightbulb and was into it in seconds, saying that he was so happy to do something actually Comic-y for someone that he gave me a discount (full characters usually cost $15 but he gave me the $5 back and said "Thanks for letting me do some fun shit!")

Wheatley was a jolly huge guy to meet :) He's not as big as Pekar, but I would NOT want to meet this guy in a fight. But he's soooooo nice to the fans that it's hard not to fall into a conversation with him. We debated the finer points of Star Wars for about 10 minutes and then he pointed out his prints and sold me one for $10 which he then spent 2 minutes completing. Great guy to meet if you want to just look at some awesome art and talk to a Star Wars fan :P

Hmm... who else was cool...

Herrera was nice to meet, but was getting swarmed by Spidey fans wanting to pick his brain about his art and just drool at his live sketches (some of the Spidey ones were O_O!!)

The Udon crew were awesome to meet. They were just chocked to the britches with commissions, but still found time to talk Transformers with me :D

Seriously, any comic fan that went to the con and even had 5 minutes to talk to an artist came away happy. Everyone was so nice (Dave McCaig went so far to say the he felt that it was a necessary part of the job to go to cons because we do pay the wages of these guys :P), and I came away with one of the most beautiful custom posters in da wooooooooooiiilldd :P

And here I am with the artists:

Francis Manapul on the left, Marcus To on the right (I know it doesn't match the signage, but I asked if they could stand beside their side of the Duo poster)
http://members.shaw.ca/simon142/FrancisMeMarcus.jpg

[Vagabond142]

One thing I gotta remember to do next year is to bring more money! o_O I went to the bank machine 3 times T_T hehee I spent a tad over $200 there.... but the art I came away with was doubly worth it.

[civiclvr]

Anyone know when the comic and toy expo is? usually in the last week of may.. but haven't seen any ads for it yet!