The art is broken down into two major sections: commissions (and one print) of my favorite character, Harley Quinn, and commissions from Robert Wilson IV.

Harley Quinn

The pieces in this section: (click the artist name for a closeup)

• Upper Left – Jeremy Dale
• Upper Right – Josh Howard
• Middle Right – Brian Shearer
• Middle Left – Colleen Coover
• Lower Right – Mike Maihack (print)

Robert Wilson IV

As you can tell, I am a huge fan of Robert’s artwork. I love his style and I think that he has an excellent grasp of anatomy in his drawings. I have a feeling that my collection of his work will continue to grow.

• Upper Left – Jeanette from Secret Six (HeroesCon 2011)
• Upper Right – Starling (NC Comiccon 2011)
• Lower Middle – Harley Quinn (HeroesCon 2010)

If you followed any of my HeroesCon Coverage and Images you know that a number of my convention sketches were of Harley Quinn. She has, for quite some time, been my favorite comics character (even if she debuted on the stellar Batman: The Animated Series instead of the comics. Her origin episode, which was also made into a book, is called “Mad Love”, hence the title of this post). This particular image came from the other day when Aperture was running particularly slowly; I was bored and had my camera in my hand. Since Colleen Coover’s black and white sketch of Harley came out so awesome, I figured I’d make my picture the same (and by the same, I mean B&W, not necessarily awesome)..

Oh, and Adam Hughes’ Harley Quinn statute comes out in September…which happens to be the month my birthday is in. I’m just saying…

As I was walking down Franklin Street last night, I saw what looked like a particular blue-haired girl a little further down the street (okay, a chalkboard drawing of a blue-haired girl…work with me here). I turned to Elyssa and, with probably a little too much excitement, said “That’s Ramona…Ramona from Scott Pilgrim”. “Ahh..yeah, that is a comic book store” she replied. She asked me if I wanted to go into the store. “But I’ll feel like I’m cheating on my comic book store” I said, and then went in anyway. The store was quite different from Ultimate Comics, where I normally do my comics shopping; it seemed like this store’s focus was much more on graphic novels than individual issues. There was one thing I did notice as I was looking at their comic wall and observing their staff picks: “Alicia” (whoever that is) really knows good comics.

The first such instance was a follow up I received from Mike Hipple on a post I made about an over aggressive copyright holder who filed suit against Mr. Hipple. To me, it was a situation that appeared to be a clear example of fair use of a copyrighted work by Mr. Hipple. In order to support his legal defense, Mr. Hipple has recently created a book that he’s selling to help pay the attorney bills. Photographers out there looking to support a good cause (namely, a photographer’s right to take pictures in public places that have art work displayed) would be advised to check it out.

The second occurrence came when Joel Watson, of the hilarious web comic Hijinks Ensue, recently sat down to talk with NYU student George Rohac about issues involving copyright, web comics, and technology. Though not a hard core legal analysis by any means, it was insightful to hear Mr. Watson’s take on copyright issues from the perspective of an artist.

Finally, I was tipped off by comics news blog Bleeding Cool about a podcast featuring a discussion about comics and copyright termination that featured David Nimmer (who needs no introduction in the world of copyright law). This discussion was more about the technicalities of the law than the previous item, and really laid out the various ways that copyright can be terminated under both past and present copyright statutes. Additionally, I am now subscribed to the IP Colloquium podcast, since their show archive seemed to cover topics such as the first sale doctrine, Bilski, and derivative works. For anyone in the intellectual property law field, I’d rate the podcast as somewhere between “really informative” and a “must listen”.

Coming Soon!! (Hopefully Wednesday, maybe Thursday…probably Saturday or Sunday…)

In the meantime, my individual day recaps:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

and my individual Flickr sets (which are still in progress):

Flickr – Day One

Flickr – Day Two

Flickr – Day Three

Flickr – Sketches

Another HeroesCon is in the books. Between travel and getting ready to head back to both work and school tomorrow, this is going to be a short write-up. I didn’t have any sketches today, but I did want a few things signed. Finally got around to talking to Bill Willingham, who was quite nice. I also got a couple of books signed by Jeff Parker, who even did a quick Cyclops sketch in my copy of X-Men: First Class (scan coming). I had Steve Lieber sign my copy of Whiteout, and he did a “doodle” in what I think was pen. It was pretty sick (yes, yes, scan coming). Finally, I got my copy of Ms. Marvel signed by Rebekah Isaacs, who seemed incredibly nice. I told her how much I wish she had been able to do more issues on the book.

On the panels front, I stuck my head on a panel featuring Tim Sale on painting and storytelling in comics. The costume design panel was also quite interesting, featuring Adam Hughes and Riddle giving their takes on costuming in both comics and the real world. Finally, I finished off the day (and the convention) by listening to a small panel featuring Jonathan Hickman and Jeff Parker.

I have only had a bit of time to put the first group of photos in my Day 3 Flickr set, but you’re going to want to see what had to be the talk of the day in the cosplay realm: Dazzler.

Jim McCann and Me

HeroesCon Day 2 was a whirlwind. I ended up picking up sketches from Brian Shearer, Jeremy Haun, Robert Wilson IV, and Robert Ullman (scan coming). As I mentioned in my Day 1 write-up, I was out to get sketches of Harley Quinn this year (if you couldn’t tell). I spent a few minutes talking to Danielle Corsetto from girlswithslingshots.com, who turned out to be a whole bucket of awesome. Also, I attended panels with Mike Mignola, Mick Foley, and a bunch of Marvel writers (pictures yet to be processed). I’m a little further behind going through the hundreds of pictures I took, since  I ended up going out with the creator of Hijinksensue.com and some of the other fans of that comic that were in town. Not sure why I thought late night karaoke was a good idea, but it turned out to be a pretty solid cap to the day.

Here’s the link to my Day 2 Flickr set, and direct links to the Hawkeye and Mockingbird, and Zatanna that were probably the cosplay highlights of the convention.

HeroesCon Day 1 is in the books. I was really looking forward to this convention and so far I have not been let down. I picked up a killer Harley Quinn sketch from Colleen Coover that look just awesome (scan coming). I also met Joel Watson from Hijinks Ensue, one of my favorite web comics, who drew a picture of Walter Bishop from Fringe showing off his new talent…jazz hands (Once again, sketch coming). Both Tom Fowler and Chris Samnee drew quick sketches in books I bought that featured them as the artist (yep, you guessed it, scans coming).

On the panels front, I got to listen to Bill Willingham and Matt Kindt talk about world building, IDW discuss their digital comics plans, and then watch the guys from Comic Twart sketch Luke Cage with varying levels of speed.

Oh, and I took a bunch of pictures. My Flickr set for Day 1 of HeroesCon is now up and starting to grow.

Looking forward to Day 2…

HeroesCon Banner

One of my personal highlights for 2009 was attending HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC. I spent three days in the the Charlotte convention center, attending panels, getting sketches, and just talking to some of my favorite comics creators. I met some of the titans of industry such as Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker, got sketches from artists like Georges Jeanty and North Carolina’s own Kelly Yates, and long conversations with brilliant creators like Ivan Brandon who put out amazing work in 2009. It was an absolute blast.

Recently, as I upgraded to Aperture 3, I managed to delete nearly all of my photos from Flickr, including my sets from HeroesCon 2009. Using this mishap as an excuse to do a little photo processing, I went back through all the photos I took that weekend and reprocessed them before uploading them back to Flickr.

HeroesCon 2009 Flickr Collection

Day One:

All-Star Panel

For the first day of the convention, I really didn’t know what to expect. I sort of roamed around aimlessly and then stumbled into a panel. Luckily for me, the panel I stumbled into featured Matt Fraction (not pictured), Ivan Brandon, Brian Michael Bendis, and Ed Brubaker.

Flickr Set SmugMug Gallery

Day Two:

A Wasp and a Witch

Day two at the convention was jam packed with creator conversations, panels, and a whole lot of fun. One of the most popular convention goes at HeroesCon 2009 was the Scarlet Witch. Here is a photo of her posing with The Wasp. Since photos of the Scarlet Witch were some of the most highly viewed in my HeroesCon collection, I created a special Flickr set for them.

Flickr Set SmugMug Gallery

Day Three:

Chatting it Up

Day three at HeroesCon felt a little sad. Not because I didn’t have a great time, but because it was all coming to an end. Still, I managed to stick around for one last panel featuring Matt Fraction and also talked with Brian Michael Bendis and Ivan Brandon for awhile.

Flickr Set SmugMug Gallery

Artwork

I got three piece of artwork while at the convention: “Doctor Who” by Kelly Yates, “Baroness” by SL Gallant, and “Dark Willow” by Georges Jeanty. I love all three pieces and all three creators were thoughtful and appreciative when I interacted with them.

Flickr Set