Comic Con Report, volume 5

The solar system descends upon San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter on the last day of Comic-Con as a promotion for Neil deGrasse Tyson's sequel to Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

A lot of promotions for the Con leaked out into the city, from skyscraper sized advertisements to this Archer themed rickshaw;

I remember rickshaw guys years ago making fun of the people in costumes roaming the streets. Not so funny now, huh?

Of course, now what I hear when I walk past downtown San Diego locals is mostly comments about the thousands of girls in skimpy outfits. Speaking of which, I wish I hadn't lost the card I got from these ladies;

The one on the right does some kind of Sherlock Holmes burlesque show. I asked her who her favourite Holmes was and she told me Basil Rathbone. She even had copies of his films on 16mm. My respect was earned.

I suppose if I were Sherlock Holmes I could find her website somehow just from clues in the photograph.

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to the great fantasy artist Gerald Brom. You've probably seen examples of his art if you have any interest in fantasy--paintings like this;

Brom paints with paint, which, he explained, is kind of falling out of vogue. He's done some work for Blizzard's Diablo series but he's had a hard time finding regular gigs because he doesn't paint digitally. Which seems rather backwards to me as digital painting generally seems like it's attempting, and failing, to capture the look of oil paintings. But I guess the deciding factor is that working with oils takes a lot longer.

I bought a copy of his book Krampus: The Yule Lord--I actually had a little money on me for once at this year's Con and, since people have been buying my comic, I figured I'd check out the works of some independent writers and artists. I bought five or six comics, the best of which turned out to be a series created by another San Diego guy named Randall Christopher. His comic is Bear and Fox which is about a bird named Bear and a snake named Fox. See, it's already funny.

I also spoke briefly with Danni Shinya Luo, who makes some of the prettiest paintings of naked women I've ever seen;

To-morrow ought to be my final Comic Con post. I'm starting to get a big backlog of other things I want to talk about.

Twitter Sonnet #351

Caramel perpendicular beams grin.
Asphalt's punished by a wooden commerce.
Duck egg skies see blanket ale backers sin.
Yellow pizza has deemed gingham perverse.
Germane gyms to Germans gestate in Prague.
Ominous meads obfuscate crackling clouds.
Hammocks harbour quill boned men for the blog.
Sixties soirees simmer in bedroom shrouds.
Twisted towel rack trials burn the washcloth.
A tall animal may maul a short weed.
Ziplocked Zero pilots were never goth.
Khan's pant crotch did carry a real space seed.
Time caught turpentine waves with an old spoon.
Seashell horn sections proclaim a strange moon.