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.
