ZAPP!

Ah yes, the comic-con I've been talking about has finally happened. In all fairness, it was more of a comic show, but hopefully as the years go on this baby can become a full-fledged convention. Going through, my pictures from the show are pretty crummy (I didn't take them), so I've only got a few.

There were a lot of really nice people there, and a ton of geeks so it was good. Overall it was a success, we didn't have that many people come through, but more than expected for sure. I got a chance to snag an artist table, so the first day of the con I didn't have too much work to show. Admittedly, the second day I only had a little bit more to show, but that was fine. A good portion of the show, and when a lot of artists were there, was Saturday.

Our two guest artists were Jerry Robinson and Lee Marrs. Like I said, these photos are pretty bad (my mother took them, she's not the best at catching people looking good) but here's Lee, in the middle of conversation:



And Jerry, deciding what he and his lovely wife want for lunch from Cosi:


Riviting, no?

They were both really nice and I hope they had a good time. I know everybody else really enjoyed their presence, and they are probably what drew a good portion of the crowd.

The venue itself was pretty small, I guess it's because I hadn't seen it since walls and floor were put in:


But it seemed perfect for the size of the show we put on. Like I said earlier, the artists were all really nice and I think they had a good time, even if it was a bit smaller than what they're used to.

I do enjoy being in Artists Alley because of the people you get to meet. Both the fans and fellow artists. I only wish I had more work to show, it doesn't help that I was told I'd get a table till the day before I left from Savannah. Oh well, next year should be better.

I did meet a lot of people but I think one of the few who stood out was Mark Jackson, a fellow (former) SCADie. It was interesting to find another person who knew who my professors actually are. Even moreso, to know he was about to graduate right when the sequential major got started! Mark has some really nice work, I highly suggest you check him out at Kimota.com.

Sunday was pretty slow, less than half of the attendees from Saturday showed up. Also, a few artists didn't come back so the room felt a bit more empty. It worked out though, as the quietness was quite peaceful. I brought the boyfriend with me too, he took the time to work on a "school project" on 3DSMax, so that was time well spent for him I think.

It was a pretty good show. I hope next years is more successful and perhaps we'll be able to get actual workshops, contests, and viewings so this becomes a real convention.

Who You Gonna Call? Superhero Contest

There's a great contest going on right now at VisArts that anyone can enter and I highly suggest taking a look at it.



Prizes include getting your name in the gallery info for the show as well as having your winning 1 page comic published in the con program guide.

If you know anybody who might be interested in this contest, please do share the info. The printout above as well as more information on the exhibition can be found here

Wheely

Ugh, it seems like I keep missing Spectacular Spectral Saturday. Damn you life outside of work!

Well, this will be quick, and filled with images to make up for my lack of time management >.<. At least last week I had a good excuse, I was far too burned out from moving and people to want to upload something graphic.

Nonetheless, here we go.

These images are all part of a little game for the children's section of the gallery at VisArts. They're split up into 3 parts: head, torso area, and legs. What you do is spin a wheel and create your own character.

First up, we have the one I dubbed Princess:


She more of a sorceresses really, what with her passion for telling people's futures and then altering their real lives to accurately match her prediction. In actual reality she's no princess at all, that royal personage has been a fluke, as she slightly resembled the local village diva at one time. Now, the main difference between her and the real princess? Well, that giant tail she has. No princess would have such a lizard-like appendage on her person. But no princess would actually need such a tail to grift people either. "Oh whoops! You tripped on my tail, how terribly sorry I am! Please, let me tell your fortune to make up for it!"


Next up is your typical all-purpose superguy:


Not much to say about him, he looks pretty stereotypical as it is.

At least this next guy doesn't seem so boring. Here's Mr. Piggy:


From the galaxy of Oinker, Mr. Piggy is a gentle giant. Surprising considering how tall and large he really it. When he's not destroying planets or accidentally hitting meteors, Mr. Piggy likes to cuddle up to his collection of stuffed space farm animals. His favourites are Chick and Cow, which he affectionately carries with him at all times, just for good luck.

And lastly, another alien on board, the twins:


The Twins are hot and cold. Coiled together like some sort of terrible Twizzler accident these twins' personality is easily recognized by their colour. We have the cool twin, who enjoys relaxing and has a low temper, and we have the hot twin, who hates most everything and loves getting into big arguments. They may be twisted together but that doesn't mean they have to get along.


And that's it for the wheel really. To see the other set of weird characters you'll have to go to VisArt's grand opening, September 30th.

Blargh

The first week is almost over and I feel kind of tired. That may be because I've been staying up super late but nonetheless...this is one more week to count down before I get my new laptop. Ooo I'm excited!

So far, school has been okay. I desperately need to get a new sketchbook, all the ones I brought with me are more than halfway full...and filled with crappy drawings that date back to over 3 years ago. Way to go me >.< Dick Blick), so I'll hold off until maybe next week or so. I really don't feel like spending over an hour in line for some dumb sketchbook.

I am looking forward to my classes though, the drawing for sequential course (Sequential Art is my major, otherwise known as comic books) will be awesome, for the professor (like most of the Sequential professors) is a hilarious geek.

The only thing I'm not looking forward to week after week is the inevitable bus ride I must take to get to one of my classes. It's in a building that is quite popular, as all underclassmen (and transfer upperclassmen like me) must go to this building. Hence, the busses are packed. Seriously, people are standing in the aisles. I can't wait for everyone to drop out so I'll be able to enjoy my ride without worry. By next quarter, the bus will thin out quite a bit, but I won't be on it since I seriously hope no other classes take place in that building.

Oh, and I'm still working on VisArts stuff. I really need to finish one particular piece for them too. Damnit.

Last Physical Day at Work

This weekend has been quite busy and I've failed to do a few things (sorry!), including write about my last physical day at VisArts.

I say "physical" because I'm working from home/school from now on. I'm not off the map, and everyone can reach me via phone or email. I don't quite know if I've doomed myself to some horrible work-fate... The next day after I left I got many phone calls from my boss. So it's nice to know I'm needed, and I certainly hope I'm not needed too much.

The last day was pretty good. Even though I spent a lot of it bouncing from one computer to mine to somebody else's computer. Stupid batteries.

I honestly can't say that I worked on one exact project. I spent a good amount of time during the staff meeting concocting a new cover for a little brochure we're giving out. I'd also say a good amount of my time was spent on the new program guide. Which, since I once again missed Spectacular Spectral Saturday, I feel obliged to share with you:



There it is, in all its Fall glory. How lovely.

Of course, the guide is not complete. I'm still waiting for a few descriptions and images from everyone. I guess my plan of actually finishing one thing that Wednesday failed. Oh poo.

I stayed later than I normally would, so I got to be present when the traditional bottle of wine was cracked open to end the long day. It was a nice end to my summer stay there at VisArts.

My stay isn't close to being over, so expect more bitching, whining, and apathetic posts on the matter.

Huzzah for internet communication!

My eyes are melting

Silly webhosting service, not allowing PHP scripts are you? Making me redo the whole thing are you? Well, pptph.

I'm tired. I finally got the design and layout all fixed and lookin' pretty. I need D to look at it on her IE6 browser (I upgraded to IE7 a while ago and never looked back), but it looks perfect on Firefox.

The design is simple, but nice looking. Perhaps it's because I've got a widescreen monitor that it seems so...empty to me, but on a 1024x768 screen, it's good.

Anyhoo, tired of this. Tired of tweaking CSS and html. Tired of having my images randomly disappear when the site is reloaded (I don't change their URL or anything, they just disappear!).

But it's a happy kind of tired. I know now that I have my code all figured out and all I need is to change the images/text for every other page. Which should go much faster.

Hopefully.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Ah, yeah, this should have occurred yesterday but I was busy celebrating the birth of a grandmother and driving while tired. Today was spent being a Marylander and having a crabfest. First time ever for me. There's ever so much work involved in getting to less than an once of crab meat.

This is another strange picture to show I guess, it's a preview of the header for the new VisArts website:



A Rainbow of Ribbons.

It's a working image, not quite sure if it'll look like this once the website is up but well, there you go for now.

This will be the header of VisArt's homepage, which at the moment looks quite brown. The titles will lead to individual subsites for each department.

Any suggestions for making this header rock are quite welcome.

Rainbows and Ribbons

Today went by surprisingly fast. I can't believe it's already close to 6:30.

Well, it's official. Another intern (D) and myself are going to revamp, rejuvenate and reorder the VisArts website. The current site is all kinds of ugly, and the fellow who worked on it before seems to be code-tarded. He has a good 20 lines of empty tags, that when removed collapse the whole site. Infact, when D tried to load the site into Dreamweaver, it crashed.

Future webmasters take note: Having your website crash DREAMWEAVER because it's full of dumb code is bad.

Whatever, we're starting from scratch and I'm pretty excited to start working on it. Our new design will be ever so colourful. I'm looking at intertwining ribbons of several different colours.

I'm not even going to be modest about this. When D and I are done with the VisArts site, it's going to rock. Hard.


And then I spent a good hour or more working on importing my boss's Outlook contacts into another one of her email accounts. Normally this wouldn't be so hard, but this particular email client sucks and made me define and edit my CRV file. Gmail was a hell of a lot easier to use and didn't muck up her address book.

Far, Far too long

Whoo! It feels like it's been forever since I last posted. The correct adapter finally arrived and now I have time to post. This'll be a biggie.

Most importantly, ZAPP! our Comic-Con is now listed on Comic Book Conventions.com.

Click the add to go to our flier:



Hooray! We're a real convention now!

Also, I have the exhibition website up, but it's not quite ready for human eyes yet. A few more pages need to be tweaked and added. I'll obviously post it when I'm done though, same with the comic-con site.

I've been asked, along with another fabulous intern, to redo the VisArts website. So that's another thing that I'm helping out with.

So far we have the support of some wonderful comic artists and industry insiders. At the moment we're hoping to score Dark Horse for any sponsorship or even support they could provide. *crosses fingers*

Last night I finished the t-shirt design for our con. I'll post the artwork once I know it's been approved...and uhm...looks fabulous.

If any readers here are from the east coast I highly suggest you come to the convention and exhibition. We're really planning some great workshops and activities for kids as well as adults. The convention will be rather small (first time out, y'know?) however we will still have a masquerade contest as well as talks and featured artists.

I'm really looking forward to seeing this whole thing come together.

__________________________________________________________________________

Now for something unrelated:

A while ago I was tagged by the wonderful Kate to do the Eight Things Meme. If my computer were alive I would have completed this on time, however considering the circumstances this is the earliest I can fill it out.

The rules are:

The rules are simple…Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Here we go:

1. Fact: I have only been on a private boat once in my life and never on a cruise.

2. Habit: I love to rub my fingernails against hems for some reason. I don't know why, I guess it's quite comforting. It's hard to explain but I get a little jolt of happiness when my nail gets slightly caught along a hem.

3. Fact: Of all the people we know who are in our age group, my boyfriend and I are winning in the long-term relationship competition. Okay, it's not really a competition, but whenever we learn how long another couple has been together we turn to each and proclaim that, "we win" because we've been together longer. 4 years is a long time for young adults, and each year becomes another notch on our long-term belt of win.

4. Habit: Sometimes when I'm eating I'll hum. I never notice myself humming but other people do. It's very odd.

5. Fact: I cannot ride a bike. I learned years ago but gave up for a more sedimentary lifestyle.

6. Habit: I always paint my fingernails and toenails. and they always have to be at least two different shades/colours.

7. Fact: I can't draw superheroes to save my life. Any man of steel that I attempt ends up looking 12-years-old.

8. Habit: I can't go a day without spending time online. I'm an internet addict and proud of it! Someday my retinas will detach and melt out of my head but at least I'll be entertained with net nonsense!

Hrm...it seems like everyone I was going to tag has already done this meme. In which case, if you would like to participate leave me a comment with a link to your entry and I'll link your site here!

Golden, Silver and Bronze

This past week my boss was on vacation, which meant I got to work from home. I prefer to work from home, it's where I'm most comfortable and probably where I also get the most work done. I'm such an anti-social homebody.

Among my tasks to complete/work on this week is to compile a very thorough Excel chart listing:
-artists
-writers
-editors
-publishers
-t.v. shows
-movies
-collectors/historians
-Theatre
-books

from the Golden, Silver and Bronze age of comic books. At some point I'll tackle Modern age too, but that's a whole other issue. It's quite a task.

So far I've easily been able to compile lists of authors, writers, t.v. shows and movies from each age. What I am having trouble with is theatre, publishers, books, collectors, and editors.

Do any of you know of a good website that might have a listing of these things relating to the 3 ages of comics?

Wikipedia entries excluded unless they are comprehensive. I already have their Gold, Silver, and Bronze pages included as well as the lists for t.v. shows and films based on comics.

*Let's not ask why I'm not to look for the extremely interesting underground comic books. This exhibition is pretty family oriented (dern), so sadly R. Crumb and the rest of his crew get left out.

Everything's Gone

Everthing's out of the old building. We're moving to the new one this week, even though next week my boss is on vacation so I get to work from home (yes!). It's quite excellent.

Today was a mess of running around between the movers and seeing what was free to take and what we should trash/take to the new office.

I made out with a free printer, some sparkling cider and various art supplies.

Hooray.

Now I'm somewhat tired, but happy that that's all done and I'll get to use my fast little laptop instead of the dinosaur of a computer I've had to use.

Oh also, we have to create a book that will be published that's related to the exhibition. In about 4 months. Sounds...not really feasible.

Whoooooo!

I have officially finished the press release for our September exhibition!

That along with the mailings of con-fliers to people means that we are actually producing work!

This makes me rather excited. It's much more thrilling than emailing and searching online for contact info.

Intern away!

A small update on the internship that will be taking up my life as I know it for the next few months.

It's going well I'd say. So far I've done little more than help find contact information for potential sponsors as well as guests for the comic-con. That'll be quite interesting if we actually get any responses.

I've also got the great duty of creating a website for the convention. I'm rather excited about that. It's another thing to add to my web-design experience!

It's not that large of a building, I kind of wonder what will happen if for some strange reason we get a ton of people wanting to attend.

Oh well, guess we'll just have to sit back and see.

exhibition excitement

So paying money to study comics seems to have paid off before graduation.

I landed a lovely little internship with the local arts center, helping them out with a comic exhibition that happens in September when they open their new building.

No idea what the hours are, seems I make my own. However, the woman I talked to seemed rather excited to work with me, so that's a good sign.

heh, I wonder if I can use the contacts (some comic book publishers)to my advantage XD