San Diego Comic Con

(swiped from Facebook)

 

Sometimes I still get the fear of missing out on Comic-Con, but the stress and expense are too much. And a lot of trains have left the station since then. Comic-Con used to be about talking to artists and writers, and just scrounging thru boxes of back issues, but since it "went Hollywood", the bloom is off the rose for me. I can't deny the success of the MCU. The giants like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created a modern mythos that Joseph Campbell would understand. But to me, the original Marvel Bullpen seems to be becoming hazy legends like Homer and the Odyssey, or even Shakespeare.

Those times were from my crazy youth, and I'll always cherish them.
But it's time to move on now.

Looking back on the Con from 1994(?)

 Still, enjoy the day!

Joe Sinnott sketch of Ben Grimm, the Thing.

I don't remember if I went to comic con that year, but I met Joe Sinnott on an Amtrak train going east in the summer of 1995. He saw me sketching, and seemed impressed that I could draw on a moving train. He later gave me this sketch of Ben Grimm, the Thing. I think he said something about not wanting to be deterred by a rocking train.

(Ben Grimm - the Thing by Joe Sinnott, now copyright Marvel/Disney.)

Found this sketch in the bookshelf today. (I have it framed now.) Man, it's been almost 20 years?!

I've lost track of time it seems. Joe Sinnott gave me this beautiful sketch 2 years after I met Jack Kirby. Just wanted to set the record straight. The Thing is truly one of Jack's creations!

Jack Kirby San Diego Comic Con

This was my most cherished memory from the San Diego Comic Con. This was the day I met Jack Kirby. (I think this was 1993.) He was just standing there in lobby by himself. I hesitated, then asked if I could get a picture. He seemed more than happy about it. I was surprised that he didn't have a whole crowd around him. I said thank you to him, but beyond that, we didn't say much. It didn't occur to me much, much later that he might have wanted to have been left alone.

(Photo taken by Mark Evanier for the L.A. Weekly  Suzy Skaar for "The Art of Jack Kirby" (Blue Rose Press, 1993)

This is a collage I put together in tribute to Jack. The newsprint article is from the 1994 L.A. Weekly.

Later that year, In August 1995, I met Joe Sinnott on a train ride going east. Sinnott was Kirby's inker during the Silver Age, I believe. He saw me sketching, and gave me a sketch of Ben Grimm.  Whatta year. Long live the King!