Friday Night Videos

Al Williamson 1931 - 2010

In the last few months, we have lost some true legends in the industry, but none hit me harder than the loss this week of Al Williamson. I never had the honor of meeting the man in person, but his work has been a constant presence in my life for as long as I can remember. It was his version of Flash Gordon I was introduced to first. When I fell in love with Star Wars, he thrilled me with a daily dose in the funny page of the newspaper. In the 80's and 90's, he was hard to miss inking such greats as Curt Swan, Mike Mignola, Rick Leonardi, John Buscema, John Romita Jr., Erik Larsen, Mark Bagley, Lee Weeks, Gene Colan, Bret Blevins, Pat Olliffe, and many others. Over the last ten years, I enjoyed his work on Spider-Girl and only recently have I made an effort to discover his earlier work. In fact, it was only one week ago that I was in a comic store looking over the new collection of his Flash Gordon work and wished I had the funds to take it home. It will be mine someday!

Whenever I have sent samples of reference concerning the space-opera that I am writing, I have made sure to include some Al Williamson art in the hopes that it will inspire the artist as much as Al's work has inspired me. Below are a few personal faves, but I strongly suggest seeking out more. I have posted a few additional pieces on the Invisible Scarlet O'Neil blog, and, as always, a great resource to view his work is the Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog.

Friday Night Videos - E3 & More

SciFi Summer Con

I am pleased to report that a great time was had at SciFi Summer last weekend! Especially the comics roundtable panel featuring Bobby Nash, Kyle Puttkammer, Peter Cutler, and myself. History was made as I was featured on a panel for the first time ever! The audience was small, but they had some good questions about how to get started in the industry. Bobby represented the "old timer" (hee hee), Kyle the present, while Peter and I were the "new kids on the block." No we did not sing and dance, but hopefully we were entertaining nevertheless.

Peter, Me, and Bobby begin the panel.
Bobby is captivated by my panel skills.
Kyle arrives to present issue #3 of Galaxy Man.
Panel over already? But I was just getting started!
The Sorcerer Supreme left his Sanctum Sanctorum to witness my debut.
I would like to thank my fellow panelists by giving them each a plug!

You can follow the wonderful world of Bobby Nash at his blog - Nash News.

Kyle owns one of the greatest comic shops on the face of the Earth - Galactic Quest.

Peter Cutler has some of his incredible art on display at his deviantART gallery.

Thanks to Theresa for the photos! See more of the con at her SmugMug gallery.

And many thanks to the folks that came to the panel, Chis and the SciFi Summer staff, and all the other guests and attendees for making me feel welcome! Let's do it again next year!

Friday Night Videos

SciFi Summer Con

I am looking forward to appearing at SCI FI SUMMER CON this Saturday.

Hope to see y'all there!

Heroes Con 2010

Slowly but surely, I've been recovering from the awesome craziness that was HeroesCon! It is easily my favorite convention of the year and I strongly suggest placing it on your schedule for 2011. I did not have a booth (next year - definitely!), but spent the weekend visiting with various fans and pros. it was great catching up with folks such as Francesco Francavilla and his wife Lisa, Jim Cheung, Jeremy Haun, Keith DeCandido, Nathan Edmundson, Stephanie Gladden, Kyle Puttkammer, Allen Belk, Jamal Igle, Rob Jones, Nathan Massengill, Chris Walker and all the HeadHunta Studios crew, Susan Soares and the Sky Pirates of Valendor guys, Chris Moreno, Dave Wachter, Jeremy Bastian, Steve Niles, Kelly Yates, Joe Staton, the CGS geeks, Shawn Pryor and his PKD Media posse, Roy Thomas, Bernie Wrightson, and for little more than the blink of an eye and click of a camera, Bobby Nash.

I also met some folks for the very first time. Some true headliners - Mike Mignola, Tim Sale, Brian Bolland, Jim Starlin, Christopher Moeller, Adam Hughes, Bill Willingham, Ben Templesmith, Kevin Maguire, James O'Barr, Scott Hampton, Steve Lieber, Greg Horn, Rick Leonardi, Todd Nauck, Jim Mahfood, John Beatty, Chris Giarrusso, Stephane Roux, and John Van Fleet, each generous with their time and in some cases, their talent.

But in the midst of all this name-dropping, please allow me to highlight two talented individuals. Van Jensen, writer of the newly released graphic novel, Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer. I picked this up because of the CBT and expected it to be a novelty with a few chuckles. However, this book delivers the concept with some depth and respects the original tale. He also had a life-sized Pinocchio at the con table which was very cool!

In addition, I was also impressed with the work of Chrissie Zullo. I have seen her gorgeous covers for the Fables: Cinderella mini series, but her entire portfolio was chock full of stunning pieces as well. I anxiously await to see her sequentials in an upcoming arc of Madame Xanadu!

And of course, I added some more images of Kit Fisto to my collection!

Christopher Moeller

Todd Nauck

Andrew Charipar

I also added another sketch to the Visions of Scarlet gallery at the Invisible Scarlet O'Neil blog.

I would like to thank Shelton Drum, the hard working con staff, all the guests and attendees and my fellow NLP founder Bill for a wonderful weekend! Let's do it again next year!

Friday Night Videos