(Some photos here, but you’ll find others at the Soldier
Legacy Comic book facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.319582288129901.77169.115746865180112&type=3 )
Well, another fantastic convention weekend, thanks to Sydney
Supanova Pop Culture Expo. It was the 10th Anniversary of the event,
and by reports post-con, the biggest crowds ever. With a massive artist alley
(another record), I flew down to Sydney to be part of the Black House comics
4-table Juggernaut presence, (thanks to my publisher, boss and all-round
fantastic bloke, Baden Kirgan), to promote the recently released Soldier Legacy
trade paperback and latest issue to the New South Wales crowd.
I have to say, you friends and fans kept me busy! So much so
that apart from a restroom break on Sunday afternoon, I saw virtually nothing
of the show at all, apart from the Gestalt Comics Supa-star guests Christian Read and Andrew Constant mere inches around the corner, International comic book pro
Tom Taylor
http://www.tomtaylormade.com/ next door, and right before closing time Sunday, a quick hello and
thank you to international DC comic artist Nicola Scott (great to see you all
and thank you for the chats :D). It was that manic.
http://www.gestaltcomics.com/
Now this recap is basically a massive thank you to all the
people- friends, fans and pros- who stopped by the table on the weekend, said
hello, showed support, and/or bought the new books, or just had a chat. Plenty
of Soldier Legacy comics and Dark Detective fans showed their appreciation, and
I thank each and every one of you, new fan or old. AS I recently posted on the
facebook page before the event, it’s been about a year since the last Sydney
Supanova where my little self-published comic book series was picked up by
Black House Comics. For this I will always be grateful to publisher Baden
Kirgan, and Black House stablemate Chris Sequeira. As you guys are probably
aware, within this time there's been 2 reprint editions on the first two issues,
2 new issues, a trade paperback edition, a prime time TV commercial featuring
the character, 2 guest spots at this year's Supanova conventions (Melbourne and
Gold Coast), an upcoming guest spot at Melbourne's Oz Comic Con, a Comics
Creator of the Month with the ASA, a mention on Bleeding Cool news, a chat with
the guys at (Cool) Shite, more talking with the people of Geek Speak/Girly Geek
Speak
http://www.girlygeekspeak.com.au/, and a back up feature comic featuring a crossover of the series in the
nationwide newsstand comic book 'Dark Detective: Sherlock Holmes'. (Oh, and now
a upcoming Kapow! Interview :D) I'm probably forgetting some other stuff, but
this alone has been overwhelming. Above all, I have had the opportunity meet
new friends, to work & converse with some wonderful people, meet and talk
with some fantastic fans, and personal heroes & inspirations of mine, both
here and overseas.
Anyways, let’s not take up much more of your time, I just
want to make mention of some of the fantastic people I have the honour of
meeting on the weekend. If I’ve missed you, trust me, it was accidental. I’m
powered by very little sleep, and am using a lot of energy at the moment to
keep this change-of-weather/post-con-cold from taking a firm grip on me.
Firstly, my Black House comics stable mates, and Brothers in
arms: Jason Franks, Jason Paulos, Jan
Sherpenhuizen, Bruce Mutard, Matt Emery, and Baden Kirgan. What can I say that
hasn’t already been said? I count myself lucky to be among you guys, thank you.
Special mention to my mentor and close mate Chris Sequeira, who couldn’t make
the show- him and his lovely family were off to the USA on the Saturday, but I
did get to catch up the night before, and plug his series ‘Dark Detective:
Sherlock Holmes’ to the crowds. Good luck over there, and I’ll see you in a few
weeks in LA! Oh, and W. Chew Chan, my friend my art mentor, who gave me some
wonderful feedback and advice on my comic art before I jetted back to Brisbane,
great to see you too, Pal :D
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A "Thank you" sketch for the 1 year at Black House for Baden Kirgan. Features The Soldier vs 'Dark Detective: Sherlock Holmes' villain Dr. Nikola.
The wonderful Supanova crew members who were kind enough in
their run-off-their-feet weekend to drop by and say hello- you guys are great :
Particularly (and off the top of my head) Daniel Z (who I didn’t see this
weekend, but did catch up with when I guested it in Melb and GC recently. A big
and heart-felt Congratulation on such a massive and successful show! And for 10
years!), Bruce Moyle and David “Quinny” Quinn (also of (Cool) Shite, and
surrogant brothers for sure. I’ll find the paperwork. Carlos must have it ;P), Chris
Rattray (I look forward to the Sherlock Holmes show, thank you for remembering,
good sir!), Dion Brooks, Mark Williams (thank you for checking in, bro. Greatly
appreciated :D), Royd Burgoyne, Anthony Lance, Daniel Rathbone, Dee Pirko (who
got to chill for this show, but works super hard every other day of the year),
Missy and Felicity (thank you again for Melb and GC), I chatted with the lovely
lady who handles the authors at the show, and wonderful volunteers like Roger
Sidhom (what a nice guy)...I could go on, but I got to keep flying though ;)
http://www.supanova.com.au/
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One of my closest mates, my friend Barry (Ian) from QCA, put
me up for the weekend, it was fantastic to catch up with such a good bloke
(even if he barracks for NSW ;P). Always a lot of fun, plenty of laughs, and
thanks for the sandwiches- without them, I would have passed out for sure. Nice
meeting your mate Chris Buckingham too.
Derick, an even older close mate from my high school days, where
I resembled a puny Peter Parker. Derick stopped by before his work of
protecting the streets of Sydney to catch up, and I’m grateful he did. It’s
been too long, mate. And, if I had a dollar for every cosplayer who came up and
comments on the “authenticity” of his “outfit”... I’d have about $17 dollars.
The massive crowd that gathered when the slave Leias’ mobbed you for a photo
was hilarious: mainly because you’d been there for 5 minutes and were already
more popular than the comic book :P
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Ben Shackleford's Supanova haul photo, including Black House Comic's "The Soldier Legacy" and Gestalt's 'The Deep', 'Eldritch Kid' and 'Torn'.
The Kapow! Team were kind enough to interview me on the
Saturday morning; it was great to finally meet in person after swapping a few
emails with the producer Ben Shackleford.
The hosts of the show (Ray James, Alastair Brown and Sonya Kerr) and the
cameraman, whose name escapes me (sorry my friend, I’m terrible with names) were
very nice and great to talk to, and despite my half-asleep brain functions and
dark circles under my eyes, I managed to fumble out a few sentences about the Soldier
comic series, and perhaps only sound half-moronic :P I believe this interview,
making up part of their Supanova coverage for their season 2 #1 episode, will
go live as early as Thursday 21st . So look out for that :D I’ll
post a link no doubt.
At the show, I go to touch base with some other friends, readers/fans
of the Soldier book, or my artwork in general. Always a pleasure to talk to
them, and receive feedback, or just shoot the breeze on anything, or nothing in
particular. Again, I’m great with faces, terrible with names, so I remember you
all purely though these photos and in person. But have no doubt, you all mean a
lot to me and the development of this series and my comic book nonsense. Off
the top of my head, and in no order, thanks to mate Matty Currey, Johnny Taylor,
his wrangled over new Soldier fan Adrian, Daniel Honeyman and sister Lyndal,
Wayne, Jack and father Peter (keep up the drawing Jack, and thanks for the
knowledge Peter), the Medieval guys from ‘The Crow Blade Chronicles’, Mark
Panarello from Culture Shock (and Carissa Avenhouse shot past too, look forward
to catching up in Melbourne next week :D), Bron Mitchell, Ben Small (brief, but
“Hey dude”, glad to see you), the guys who got the Phantom sketches (nobody
ever requests cooler characters like that :D), Heather and Matt Greig (and Hether’s
partner and friend), great to see you and congratulations on your 2nd
Degree grading, Heather :D
I am always touched
when current serving or previous serving Soldiers stop by and really show their
appreciation for the Soldier Legacy concept. It means a lot that they see that
in essence; it is my tribute to them, and the serving people before them. One
guy (who I won’t say his name), was kind enough to show me his “Sgt.” Credentials
of a Commando unit. Fantastic. And thank you. I learnt quite a bit from the
chat. There was another fan that I got a photo with, who was a refugee from
overseas, and was really into the idea of the Aussie hero. My series sets out
to show heroes of other nationalities in the pages too, but it was nice to hear
his story of how thankful he was for himself and his family to be a part of
this nation (as we all and should be, we’re all refugees really). A gentleman to talk to, as were many others
this weekend. Hmm, That statement doesn’t cover the wonderful female fans of
the series who showed their support too; you will be referred to as “wonderful
women”, OK? ;) I appreciate all the readers, and am happy when people realise
the attempted universality of the characters without having to lose their
national or individual identity. Anyways, there were so many other nice fans,
so thank you guys.
And I also had the pleasure of either finally meeting
face-to-face, or having a chat to, some wonderful Aussie Comic creators; some
have hit international heights, but all are lovely people. Extremely talented
illustrator Chris Wahl stopped by; around the same time as another extremely
talented illustrator Jon Sommariva did too (and posed for an awesome photo).
Speaking of fantastic artists, I got to meet Rhys James, and get his beautiful ‘Selected
Studies” book. What a top guy. Stephen Ford of King’s comics dropped by,
another great dude. The gentleman Emmet O’Cuana of ‘The Momus Report’ dropped
by for a chat, Stewart McKenny and Wendy, I got to say hello briefly; they are
tireless on these cons! Lovely to touch base. Speaking of popular and busy, Tim
McEwen; Barley a handshake but it’s always good to at least get time to do that
(and wave to the McEwen family :D). I think I also got a chance to barley
handshake Winter City writer Patrick Purcell on the way in the building
Saturday morning, same with 'Decay' Publisher Darren Koziol, and Kevin Scarfe from CFCA. Emma-Jean Stewart, Gavin Thompson, Rob “Racoon”,
and Katie from the ACT ‘Beginnings Anthology’ crew- congratulations on the sell
out, and Sorab Del Rio of Silver Fox Comics and good mate Paul Abstruse for
their sell out Graphic Novel ‘Zombie Cities’. Hayden Fryer came by with a copy
of Billy: Demon Slayer season 2 (thanks mate, I was literally chained to that
table, and nice work too!), and my separated at birth, Brother from another
mother Paul Bedford provided me with my copy of his mindf^&* of a book ‘The
List’, with Henry Pop/Tom Bonin images, and suggested a pose for the wankiest
god damn photo you’ll ever see of us at a con. Always a pleasure to see him. Update: I almost forgot to mention Noel! great to meet you, thanks for picking up the books, and for helping out Sarah Ellen with her Jennifer Hale thing. I'm sure she appreciated it, and it was great to meet another nice person. You watch folks, over the next few days, I'll panic as I remember I forgot to mention 'X' when clearly I should have. Like that nice Security guard that's always at the Supanova show.
The lovely Julie Ditrich was there at the show, along with
collaborator Jozef Szekeres, conducting their last Australian Society of
Authors Comic seminar, as they are moving on as Comic portfolio holders to
focus more on their creative work. Very sad, I joined purely based on their
organisational abilities, and will miss them in the role. I hope whoever takes
the reins will do as well as they have in lifting the potential of the comic
book scene in Australia, and I wish them all the best in their upcoming comic
work.
Right at the very end
of the show, I got to get this photo with all these top people, including the
wonderful Marvel illustrator, David Yardin (it was 7 years ago when I first saw
his original pencils on District X- the first international pro I’d ever met.
And surprisingly, he remembers. A very nice guy.) I also met illustrator Daniel
Picciotto before this photo...look, by now you’ve figured out that I think everyone
I meet or talk to are nice people. What can I say? Though my other day job makes
me cynical and subconsciously suspicious of people’s motives and sub-text (that’s
what we do in Loss Prevention, and thankfully, it helps weed out the face time
with d$%^heads ;P), it’s great to say that on average, the majority of people
you get to meet and chat to as part of this crazy journey are genuine, lovely
people. So one more big THANK YOU again for a great weekend, and I’ll sure I’ll
see you all again sometime in the future.
Alright, now a tonne of thesis and script work, a cold to
battle, and prep for Oz Comic Con Melbourne, and San Diego trip to do. See ya!
The Ghost who walks
Me and "Uncle Chop Chop" Chopper Read :P
Thanks Daniel and Lyndal!
First Soldier fan to visit of the weekend! Thanks bro :D
These dudes are fantastic Cosplayers- all their csotumes at the shows are gold.
Commission scribble- Batman vs. Punisher
The awesome Rhys James!
http://rhysjamesillustration.tumblr.com/
Ray from Kapow! drops by, too bad I didn't think to get pics with Al and Sonya (because I'm a moron).
http://www.youtube.com/user/KapowComicBookShow?feature=plcp
Thanks Roger!
Thanks Heather and Matt!
Thanks Cam!
Me and Emmet O'Cuana of 'The Momus Report'.
http://themomusreport.blogspot.com.au/
Steven Ford from King's Comics, Sydney.
The mean, lean, Chewie Chan
http://www.nswwc.org.au/support-for-writers/writers-about-writing/chewie-chan-on-graphic-novels/ http://www.wchewchan.com/ and me :)
Chris Wahl
http://chriswahlart.blogspot.com.au/ and Jon Sommariva
http://www.jonsommariva.blogspot.com.au/ will mess you up!
The gentleman-ly Bruce Mutard
http://www.blackhousecomics.com/creator-bios--photos.html#Bruce Mutard from Black House Comics, and a tonne of other publishers.
Jan Sherpenhuizen, Jason Paulos, Jason Franks
http://www.blackglasspress.com/ and I act like jerks at the Black House table.
http://www.blackhousecomics.com/creator-bios--photos.html
Daniel Picciotto,
http://danielpicciotto.deviantart.com/ Bruce Mutard, Paul Abstruse
http://www.paulabstruse.daportfolio.com/, Stewart McKenny
http://www.stewartmckenny.com/, Jon Sommariva, David Yardin
http://davidyardin.deviantart.com/ and me :)
Nice guy Matt Emery of Black House comics/Pikitia Press.
http://pikitiapress.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/sydney-supanova-2012.html Matt has some pics too :D
Me and Barry, or Hale and Pace cosplay :S
Sorab Del Rio of Silver Fox comics
http://sorabdelrio.wix.com/zombie-cities- we're not that blurry in real life :P
Daivd "Q-Dog" Quinn of (Cool) Shite
http://www.coolshite.net/ and I. "Wot?"
More photos on the Soldier Legacy Facebook page :D
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.319582288129901.77169.115746865180112&type=3
