I moved to Manhattan from Brooklyn last month. Still feeling like I was fresh out of college and grossly underestimating how much crap I had accumulated, it was a colossal pain in the arse. My friends came by and really helped out. In less than a month, I went to California twice. Opening at Copro Nason Gallery in LA where I had a piece in a group show. fharper.com for the type of work I show in galleries. (warning: it’s not work safe!) Spent a week in New York finishing the packing and doing a deadline. Then to San Diego for the Comic Con. Came back to NYC and finished moving what I couldn’t fit the previous week! Plus more deadlines. Not every piece I did fits what I focus on, but here is a few…

Cover for The Week Mag. Obama tries to bail out the sinking healthcare reform.

See, not what I usually do, but fun and challenging any way! Cover for The Week Mag.

The people and things you see here were just a tiny percentage of the bizarre and interesting sites to be seen at Comic Con. All perfectly normal in the world inside the con. In the back ground of a nice hotel or in any of the restaurants, bars or coffee shops, it can get goofy to very surreal. I loved it all.

I had my picture taken with Ray Bradbury. I wasn’t sure if I should look at him or the camera as he looked very frail. He was mobbed by almost everyone. He seemed in to it and was happy to pose for photos. One kid leaned in to Mark Texiera’s booth where I was sitting and asked who that old guy was that just rolled by. Mark told him. Next question, is he somebody famous? Mark went into a rant that ended in a nice line that went something like, “READ A FUCKING BOOK!!!” or something very similar.

This might be a couple of parts. Last week I was in San Diego for the big Comic Con. It was definitely great for recharging the creative batteries. Change of environment, people, and monsters. I’ll start this part with the illustration I did for Sports Illustrated. I sat in a coffee shop right across the street from a beach. My friend Patrick occupied his time snapping photos, telling stories and bringing me espresso. Patrick is in a band with his friend Chris and we were listening to their new CD that just came out on Earwig records. In my opinion it’s a fantastic CD!

SI was about Iraqi athletes being barred from competing by China. Boy, they really get the concept of the Olympics, eh?

Check the date, I saw Tropic Thunder on Tues afternoon. I liked it!  My friend CJ had an extra pass to see a preview of the movie. I saw a little trailer a few days earlier and I knew Ben Stiller was in it. It is pretty dark, but they left a light on. Everyone in the cast was great. I think my favorite was Tom Cruise. Since I really laughed hard through a lot of the movie, it probably won’t do well. My parents don’t go to movies and if they saw this one I think they’d swear off on seeing a movie ever again. They tend to be more in touch with the rest of humanity than I.

Just to get things out of the way. I was in San Diego for the comic convention. It was nice. The after parties were fun. I still did an illustration for Sports Illustrated, and still have a few bugs to work out when illustrating while traveling. My buddy Patrick and his best friend Chris put me and my girlfriend up the last night. They acted as tour guide and couldn’t have been better hosts. They let us drag them to expensive bars and finally to the Dark Night movie. It was pretty darn good! We then hauled ass over to the airport and just made our flight. So the entire flight I had Batman movie scenes going through my head as I half slept on the plane

Here is last week’s Sports Illustrated. Barry Bonds (The current home run king) waiting for the call at the baseball All-Star break.

I think I’m almost completely mobile. I’ve drawn out sketches in coffee shops. I’ve actually painted finals in coffee shops. Painting outside is cool on a nice day in a park. Intersections might be a problem. I just bought a small Wacom tablet that fits in a book bag easily. I have a big digital camera. My only technical difficulty is lighting. I’m hoping for nice sunny weather and shooting in the shade. Carrying lights would be a pain. I’m off to San Diego this weekend for the big comic convention. I told Sports Illustrated I’d be out this weekend almost 2 months ago. They seemed reluctant to hire someone else for this week. I got the impression it would be bad for me to take off, so I figured I’d try and make it work. Now I’m mainly concerned about flight delays since I’m coming back Sunday night while the final is due Monday. I hope to have the final done before I go home.

Three covers for The Week and a portrait of Felix Dennis, the fellow who owns The Week. I really like the diversity I get to paint for them. It’s a great challenge to produce images that have been done a zillion times and try and stay fresh for it.

This was just the BACK entrance!

Notice where we waited to get in.

If you ever go to big comic book conventions, you’ll mostly notice the publishers. Artists lucky enough to have a popular style may be found at these publisher’s booths for a few hours during the day to sign the latest issue of whatever. Well there are lots of other styles that one can find appealing.The convention organizers, realizing that people attending the con, might actually want to meet these talented folks, have (my impression) begrudgingly set aside an area commonly called artists alley. Artists alley is usually an after thought in most conventions. Artists tend to just scrape by. I think people who create underground comics are lucky to even scrape by, they are sneaking by. Maybe even burrowing by! Then again some are doing quite well. But the majority can barely afford a table at a comic convention. So they get a discount. And as it’s true, “you get what you pay for”, they get stuck in basements, corners, and completely different floors that are hard to find unless you are looking for them. Not so true at MOCCA! I heard someone explain MOCCA as one big Artist Alley. Although bigger this year, it was more intimate, well run and almost relaxing compared to the New York Comic Con.

Some friends stopped by, Steve Ellis, Travis Louie, Dan Springer, Dave Elliot, Irene Gallo, Gregory Manchess, and a bunch more. My girl Molly Crabapple had a table next to mine. I had quite a few people who read The Week Magazine who stopped by. Lucky for me they all seemed to like my covers. I had a caricature portfolio and a black and white fantasy portfolio out on my table. Molly’s friends Kate and Ben stopped by. Ben comissioned a convention sketch. I did a portrait of him. He was my only customer as I think my prices were too high. Just as well. Sports Illustrated called with my next assignment so I started doing sketches.

Lady J watching Molly’s table.

Of course as I was going to transfer the pic I took of my sketch for SI from my camera into my laptop, the fire alarm went off! 2 hours before the con was over, they kicked EVERYONE out of the nice air conditioning and in to the 6000 Kalvin degree temperatures on the street while the fire dept. made sure no one was on fire INSIDE the building! Surprisingly, it seemed just as busy after they let us all back in 20 minutes later. Art Spiegelman stopped over at Molly’s table and had a good talk with her and Joe Stanton stopped over and talked to me before we packed up.