It's actually been a few weeks now since my trip to Paris and I'm sure everyone on the entire Internet has been waiting with bated breath to know how my trip went? Well un-bate your breathes because it's time for my full Comic Con' France report, complete with photos and my commissions! Plus I have an extra bit of something as a bonus. So strap on your strap-on's and lets get this party started.
First things first, my fight to Paris was shit. I had a layover in
Atlanta, GA. that went from being three hours to being twenty four hours
when the plane wasn't working. I won't bore you with my airport
woes. It happens. But instead of having an extra day in Paris I got to
spend a day in the Atlanta airport, and I don't know if it was because
it was a holiday or something but that airport is crazy.
So I arrived in Paris only a few hours before the
Convention began and I hadn't slept on the plane. I have real trouble
sleeping on planes. It's not because I'm scarred of flying. It's exactly
the opposite. I've flown in planes countless times but I still am excited to be flying. It's still fucking amazing to me. Anyway,
so I'm completely exhausted. Turns out my luggage didn't make the
flight. It was on a different flight and wouldn't be arriving for
another 2 hours-- maybe. They weren't sure. So I took a chance and I hung
around. It did come, even later than it was supposed to, of course. I
was supposed to meet my ride but I didn't see them, I thought I was too late, and my phone didn't work. I ended up getting to the hotel
on my own, and by the time I did, I felt like I was loosing my mind. I
quickly showered and called the organizers of the show to send a car to
get me.
I will say that the Comic Con' France is the most
organized convention I've ever done. They had a whole team of people in
artist alley in case you needed coffee or water or food or to act as a
translator. They had guys who's job was too just take the guests out for
diner after the show each day. They had cars always ready to go for
getting you around. It was great.
So on that first day I got to the show and I was in a
fog. I wasn't sure how I would make it through the day, and the first
thing they had me do were interviews. I did three back to back
interviews where they mike you and have a camera on you and everything,
in a room with chairs and a little table. I have never done an interview
like that. I would have been more nervous about it if I wasn't so worn
out. It was actually not bad at all. Each group that came in to
interview me was really nice and felt a good rapport with each of them. I
might have been rambling but I think it went alright.
After that I was encouraged to get some lunch. They
had a whole restaurant dedicated to providing food for the guests. So I
did that. All the while I was getting more and more concerned about my
commissions. As anyone who's seen me at a convention knows, I do my
commissions while I'm sitting there. I don't come to the show with any
finished commissions. I'm counting on my time sitting at my table to be
able to get done all of the commissions that I have agreed to do. So the
longer I'm not at that table, the more afraid I am that I won't get my
commissions done.
When I did finally get to my table there was a group
of people who had been waiting for me all morning and several of them
wanted on my commission list-- the list that I had filled up before the
show even started. But how could I turn these guys away? They had been
waiting for me... I ended up taking on four extra commissions!
On that first day, as I put pencil to paper I saw my
hand shaking like I've never seen it shake before. It was probably all
the caffeine I was running on.
I learned this about French conventions. Apparently the idea of paying
for commissions at a Con wasn't a thing people did until just recently.
Before that it was expected that anyone could go through artist alley
getting free sketches from the artists. But artists started saying that that wouldn't come to the shows if they couldn't make money doing commissions. So as a compromise they ask
artists to do an hour each day where they will draw sketches for free.
This is a fine idea. I don't mind it at all. The only problem I had with
it was that my free sketch hour didn't start till three and people
would start lining up at the beginning of the day... I should have just
figured out how many I could do in that hour and then have the people
put there name on a list so that they wouldn't have to sit there the
whole day. I guess I'll do that next time.
How bout some commissions? Here's what I did in the first two days.
On the second day I was on my first panel ever. Here's a photo.
Check out how big that scene from SHIELD is!
So
this was a panel all about Marvel Now. The guy all the way to the left
is Xavier Fournier who is conducting the panel. The next guy is Jeremy
Manesse, who I believe works for Panini translating Marvel comics to be
published in Europe. The next guy is me. After that are artists Mike
Deodato Jr. and Steve Epting. Then at the end is our
translator.
It was an interesting experience. Having to do
everything through a translator made it all feel disconnected. You
couldn't read what people were thinking of what you were saying as you
were saying it. Ultimately I think i did alright, though it made me
really wish I could speak French.
On Day three I had my ART BATTLE with Mike Deodato! I
was pretty nervous about it. Mike was really nice and seemed just as
uneasy about it as I did, but he was totally game for having some fun
with it. We pretended it was like a boxing match. He played the part way
better than I did.
Here are some pictures followed by the description Comic Con' France has on their sight.
"Dustin Weaver, the challenger, and Mike Deodato Jr, the elder, clashed
during a draw battle you may not have seen on the Comic Con' stage. Too
bad, but here is a follow-up session!
A bit younger in the field, Dustin Weaver himself confessed that he was quite nervous about challenging Mike Deodato Jr. And indeed, once the theme unfolded - which was Wolverine in Paris - Mike Deodato Jr. quickly tackles the task and directly places some shades after only a few strokes! Then taking the time to make some cutting remarks to his opponent, he observes Dustin Weaver's level-headed work. And thus starts to take fright.
The nice thing was once I started drawing it was like "oh, this is just like drawing. I know how to do that." Then it was easy.
Here are commissions from day's three and four.
That last one I actually finished up at home. I tend to
want to do a little extra for the people who have to wait for me to
mail it. So I added some color. I still actually have a few more commissions to get done. So look forward to me posting those.
Yes I did see the Eiffel Tower. Walked under
it, got a good look at it, but I didn't get to go up it because I
was to late. I also saw the Arc De Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, and
the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, which was particularly cool
to me because I've had Moebius's drawing of it on my wall for so long
it's burned in my mind. I only had time to do a kind of superficial tour
of Paris. We drove around The Louvre but didn't go in... Some other
time, I suppose. One thing we did was one of those boat diners on the
river and that was really great. I really recommend that. It made me
think of the movie Charade. Also, yeah, I had escargot and it wasn't bad
at all. I liked it even.
Here are some photos.
So there you go. That was my trip. I do have some observations
about my internal reaction to being in Paris and being around almost all
French people. As someone who's barely been out of the U.S. it was a
new experience and one that revealed some things to me about myself.
Perhaps I'll get into that some other time. This entry is long
enough....
Actually, there is more!
You
know how I mentioned that I can't sleep on planes? Well, about a half
an hour into my flight out of Portland I decided that i would use all my
time in the air to draw a comic. I had nothing prepared. I just started
making it up almost a panel at a time. Between my flight there and my
flight back I ended up with 12 pages.
The comic is called AMNIA CYCLE. I'm going to start posting it here on this blog, two pages each week.
See you back here next week for the first installment
Blogged and Blogged
CHAMP!
ReplyDeleteIt's true. I am the champ. I just hope I didn't break his spirit to much and that he's able to continue on.
DeleteLOL....Heavy is the head the wears the crown
DeleteGosh I'm proud of you. Everything about this post is impressive. First of all, there you are on a comic panel in FRANCE under a gigantic display of one of your pages. Then you proceed to kick Mike Deodato's ass in an art battle. Then you've got all these impressive commissions that you just sat down and drew for people. There's some really nice details in there too, like the exploding planet in the Pheonix sketch, and that Magneto sketch is pretty nostalgic. But most importantly of all, you then drew an entire comic book on your flight back! Looking forward to the Amnia Cycle posts- the folks out there are in for treat. You're on FIRE right now!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Hopefully people will like these comics that I'm creating on my own. We'll see...
DeleteIncredible play by play!! I may never have the chance to attend Paris or any other con outside the USA, so this is great to hear about your experiences in great detail. And taking down Deo in a battle royal??? Cmon! How exciting is that? Was there any "fan boy" moments for you? Anyone you finally got to meet that you had been dying to bump into all these years? I must say the commissions you show here are just staggering...especially with the backdrop of all you had to deal with during the trip. I think some fans expect too much sometimes from artists...they think they can churn out art like machines. I hope those fans can appreciate the artist interaction as much (if not more) than the finished piece.
ReplyDeleteKudos to you for going above and beyond!!
Thank you! I'm glad you liked this entry.
DeleteUnfortunately, I didn't get to meet any personal heroes. I'm not sure if there were any of my personal heroes at the show. It's just as well though. I didn't have even I small moment to leave my table. I didn't even get to see much of the convention, which was huge.
Those commissions, those Captain America pics! That battle! Wish I had been there!
ReplyDeleteditto to what D.J. Bryant said, this was so exciting for me to read!!! Super crazy proud of you!!! Amazing!!!! France, What?! I love that you are writing and creating your own work now too, we have to catch up at some point but jeez super cool!!!
ReplyDelete