Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Batman Saves the Weekend!

Last weekend I manned the C.L.A.W. table at an interesting event: The Northwest Pinball and Arcade Convention. I have to say right off the bat that the show was not very busy for us non-game related vendors. I got two commissions my entire time there and even my friend Mark Monlux had difficulty raking in customers!! But it was still pretty cool, although I'm not much of a gamer--but I DID get to see the Flintstones prop car from the movie, courtesy of the LeMay Car Museum, which is also here in town.

So here's a pic of me trying to look busy and important, alongside the caricature of Mark Monlux, fellow CLAW member and purveyor of "cartoon reviews of movies" in his "The Comic Critic" books. I did the drawing as an enticement to passing customers to get their caricatures done.


I did finally get two commissions from a very nice couple who wanted me to do fun sketches of their boys. The older boy was actually a Magic fan and wanted me to draw him as an MTG style goblin. The parents asked me to portray the younger son as a flying monkey because he liked my drawing on the CLAW banner. I added the soccer ball because he was wearing a soccer jersey. They seemed to be really happy with them, which always feels great. After that, though--it was dead! I sold a couple of prints and that was it for two days! *Sigh*


Since the second day was a complete bust, I decided to put my time to some use by working on the "Batman '66" sketch-cover comic I had acquired. I worked on it most of the time I was there and went WAY too overboard on it, but it came out pretty snazzy. I wanted to do something sentimental to honor my youthful appreciation of the old series. When I was a kid--Adam West was Batman to me. (Also, I got an enthusiastic buyer for the piece, so it sort of salvaged things for me!) So, thanks once again, Batman!


So while it was the most unsuccessful weekend I've had at an event in some ways, I got some good things out of it. I probably won't do the event next year...but one can never say what the future might hold.