Quitely/Badower - Superman *faint*

A couple years ago - maybe it was 2 or 3... Mark Millar and Frank Quitely came down to Sydney for the con. Now this was when Frank was talking New X-men and Millar was well into his run on the Ultimates.

These guys are the party hard central, and incredibly cool dudes.

Highlights included:

1. Heading back to Mark Millar's hotel room for post pub drinks til the wee hours in the morning. Him buying the hotel out of overpriced beer to get us all drunk.

2. Rocking up at the hotel room to find Frank Quitely chatting to some nondescript dude in a suit and glasses. The guy had just closed his art folder and was leaving. I remember catching his eye and smiling as he left. Frank (Vincent) welcomed us into Mark's room as this gentleman smiled politely and quietly (no pun intended) left. I decided to pluck up my courage, "Vincent, that guy who just left? Who was he? Some art director?"

"No, aye. That was Brendan McCarthy. Grant (Morrison) said he'd come say hi and we should meet up."

I promptly crapped myself. I am a HUGE fan of Brendan McCarthy. (http://www.brendanmccarthy.co.uk/) Skin. Shade The Changing Man covers. Rogan Josh. To give you a scale of Brendan's talent, Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl and designer/creator/illustrator of the Gorillaz) is a massive fan of Brendan's work. I politely excused myself and rushed to the elevator to find Brendan had already gone. I returned to the room bewildered but jazzed at my brush with genius. McCarthy, Quitely, Millar. Hot damn!

3. Pulling an excited JAn off a terrified Mark Millar (who is a lovely guy but about 5'9 to JAn's 6'1 of massive polish farm boy genetic stock). It appears Mr. Millar doesn't have the same defence against the JAn arts as Mr. Morrison.

4. This picture. By the end of the weekend I finally gave into my fanboy urges and asked my favourite artist in the world for a sketch of Superman. I asked for a pencilled version so I could ink it myself. He drew a beautiful Superman that even Millar commented looked better than anything he'd done in JLA: Earth 2. I inked and coloured (ie. ruined) this baby and made prints and framed it for a couple of close friends for their last year Xmas presents.

Quitely and Badower. Man, I'd love to see those name in lights again together.

ps. Coloured it during my Luna Brothers phase. Was heavily into ULTRA at the time. http://www.lunabrothers.com/