Monday, March 15, 2010

Emerald Con 2010- a roundup

I spent a fabbo weekend in Seattle with all the guys at Boom! for Emerald City Comic Con.
I got to meet some folks and get some smashing art. I especially enjoyed meeting the fabulous Brittney Lee, who looks like she should have wings of gossamer, live in a toadstool house and sup the nectar of flowers.
I wanted to get Kate Beaton's book, but you couldn't get NEAR her booth for the crowds. This is what happens when famous webcartoonists offer post-it doodles for a buck.

Boom! had a fantastic weekend and I finally got to see my Monsters Inc. and Muppet Peter Pan trades. Looks MUCH nicer on the glossy paper stock and each book has a full cover gallery, so go buy 'em! By the end of the show we'd sold out of MI trades and only had 2 Pans left, so thank you everyone for stopping by and buying some fun stuff!

I didn't get to see much else of the con because quite frankly, I was SWAMPED all weekend by sketch-seekers and lovely people saying hello. Boom! had the prime anchor location right at the con entrance and I probably missed seeing SO much cool stuff because my head was bent over my sketchcards. I started by doing little pencil sketches for free with book purchase, but after a while people kept eyeballing a little rendered card I did of Kermit and asking if they could buy it. So after a while I decided to just take commissions for the sketchcards. Boy, did a queue build quickly and didn't diminish until the end of the con! But the response was fantastic, I got to make a bit of cash and Boom! moved a LOT of books that weekend with 3 artists in attendance (me, Toy Story artist Nate Watson and Cars artist Alan Gladfelter.
When you get bear-hugged by your CEO, you must be doing something right.

Animal was far and away my most popular request, followed by Kermit and then Beaker.
But one person got rather creative and started something...

He asked for Death as a Muppet. I can NEVER resist a mash-up ;)
I took a quick snap of it before he collected it and we went our merry ways. The next day someone came up to the booth saying 'I got word that Amy did a Muppet Death, does she have a picture?" He had not MET the guy who got Death, but somehow word got around. He was delighted and immediately commissioned a Delirium.
God dammit, I hate it when another series presents itself.

But my ultimate geek-out moment was this: There I was, sketching away and I detected someone looking on. I heard a cheery "hello!" and looked up to see a smiling lady eagerly beaming back. She said she thought my work was lovely and she was so thrilled to see the classic Muppets being seen and loved by kids again. I said thank you. She mentioned she'd just done a puppeteering workshop in Seattle. Something in my head whispered ''Old on... why does she look familiar?" It must have registered on my face because she said "I'm Karen Prell, I played Red on Fraggle Rock!"

(pen drops from hand, leaps to feet)
Amy: *breath* EEEEEEEEEEEE!!! OHMYGAHD SUCH AN HONOUR TO MEET A REAL OLD-SCHOOL MUPPETEER!!! (or rambling fangirl words to that effect)
She indicated the gentleman in the natty hat with her who again, looked vaguely familiar to me for some reason.
"Oh, and this is Jeff Pidgeon from Pixar Story Dept!"
Amy:(fangirl volume rocketing to eleven) EEEEEEEE! OHMYGAHD I'VE FOLLOWED YOU ON FLICKR FOR AGES OF COURSE I KNOW YOU!!
Camera came out in record time (Nate also dropped his sketches in a cloud of dust and came over when I told him) and we had a lovely chat about adapting Muppets and Pixar to comics and they went away well-stocked with Boom! Kids books.



So yes. Excellent weekend, I came away all fired up to make my trip to C2E2 next month even better. And more well-organised. My liver is glad to be home.

6 comments:

eyemage said...

i am so glad you had such a good time here in my town.

what fortune to meet such cool people.

James said...

holy wow!! that's so cool!!

mrs_danvers said...

Wow! What a cool experience. Thanks for sharing.

Tegan said...

It was great fun to meet you, and see that fantastic Death muppet sketchcard in person! I was the one with the Troll who suggested Doctor Who muppets...

Your troll pic is up at http://torvald.gjovaag.com/2010ECCC.html if you want to check out who else got Trolled at the con.

Bill the Splut said...

OMG MY BLUE SKY IS BACK!!!! squeeeee!

AHEM.
Grown men do not go "squee." That was typed by...a cat. And not even by one of MY cats!

May I link to here on my comments page, so that your old fans and fellow Phrack Whores know that you're back blogging?

So awesome that your career is doing so well! And your art just keeps getting more amazing!

Heidi D said...

SHUT UP!!! AWESOME!!!! Soooo jealous!

My girls and I were just watching Fraggle Rock yesterday. My youngest Lindsay was arguing with her older sister Abbey about the lyrics to the theme song. So, of course we had to pop in the DVD's.

I always called out "I'm Red!" when I was little. I don't know if you grew up doing that, but it was a staple to watching anything in my childhood.