ARMAGEDDON part 1

I have just had the biggest convention of my life. First up, I really want to thank Bill, the organiser of Armageddon, and Carissa, the guest wrangler.

When I heard of Armageddon, I sent Bill an e-mail asking if I could be involved. I showed him what I'd done, and he invited me along. On their web page I was placed on the Australian guests page and I was really excited about it.
(Here's me signing my first ever comic - Anthology. Photo by Scott Pollard)

Another huge thanks to Bill for sitting me right next to the special international comic book guests. I was really honoured. The guests on my left included:

Amanda Conner – Artist on Terra, Green Arrow wedding, The Pro, JSA Classified.
Jimmy Palmiotti – writer on Countdown, Painkiller Jane and inker extraordinaire.
Gail Simone – Writer on Wonder Woman, Deadpool, Birds of Prey.
Nicola Scott – Fellow uber-Aussie artist on Birds of Prey

To my right was Jason Rand writer of Image's Small Gods and Hellios. To his right was Doug Hollgate, artist extraordinaire. Another thanks to Jason Rand (Carissa's fiance) for his patience, support and cheerfulness over the course of the weekend.

As you can see, I was in some pretty esteemed company. I put up my HEROES artwork and a big sign that said, "Jason Badower HEROES artist: Free sketches" expecting the turnout that I did in San Diego. To be honest, I actually expected to listen to crickets while watching tumbleweeds roll by. I thought I would be flagging down friends to stand there and make me look busy.

I didn't really expect anything. In fact, I had no idea what to expect. For the Aussie fans I wanted to do something pretty special. So I compiled all my HEROES artwork as well as some other stuff into a 12 page 200gsm (card) sketchbook. The guys at Eplot printed up this beautiful booklet at the last minute. I decided to only get 50 printed. They weren't cheap and I didn't want to be sitting on a hundred booklets. What was I going to do with them? Put them under short table legs? Hold open doorways?

Above is the cover. It was twice as impressive in real life thanks to the beautiful printing. As I didn't own any of the printing rights to the artwork I sold it for $10 barely getting my money back.


No one expected, what came next.


My queue on Saturday was two and a half hours long. I was taking about six minutes per sketch. I started out on an A4 sketchbook with full inks. Eventually, I ran out of sketchbooks. I borrowed one of Nicola's and I finished that. I then bought an A5 sketchbook off a kind fan and almost finished that. I ended up totalling 76 sketches for Saturday. That's more than I did over the entire 4 days of signing at San Diego Comic Con!

Here's where I have to thank Carissa. Her job is to look after the guests. Especially the special international guests, including those four heroes of mine I listed above. At one stage, Carissa tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the huge line in front of me that was blocking traffic and asked, " When the hell did this happen? I am supposed to be looking after those guys!"

I just shrugged and said, "I have no idea, but it's awesome isn't it?"

She shook her head and made up a sign saying, "End of Line - come back at 2:30pm" which is when she decided I needed to have lunch. I think she needed a break as much as I did. I'd been there sketching solid since 9am. I took lunch at 2:10pm and was back at it at 2:30pm and finished at 6pm.

It was an incredible experience.

To those who missed out on sketchbooks, I will be printing more up for the Comics R Us signing on:

Friday the 9th November 12-2pm city (call 03 9663 8666)

Saturday the 10th November 12-2pm Chapel st (call 03 9510 1584)

Obviously, I will also be doing sketches on both those days. Matt, the owner of Comics R Us said that if there's a good turn out, he's happy to have me well after 2pm. So turn up, grab the new HEROES graphic novel and get it signed. It's filled with stories that are written by the show's writers and part of the continuity of the show. I drew about a quarter of them.

The first sketches had the widest variety for me. Most of my sketches were of HEROES characters, punctuated by some fun comic book stuff and portaits.

This Hiro is for Lynn (forgive me if I spelt your name wrong). Her partner, an old friend of mine, Chris and her saved my bacon on Sunday as I forgot my camera! They lept into the fray with their cameras and helped me out.

Next up was Killeroo. What a wonderful surprise to go back and draw this character! Now, I'm trying to remember, but this guy might have actually requested Superman rather than getting it pressed upon him by me. This kid asked me to draw whatever I wanted, so I asked him to guess. I had drawn about 3 lines (eyes and mouth) when he said, "Batman!". Damn little psychic! Another Hiro for this little dude. A similar shot to Lynn's as I really liked it. A Batman for this gentleman (new angle!). A very grumpy Captain America (he doesn't like being dead) a Super-Saiyan Goku (he brought his own reference - but I grew up on Dragonball). And then a mean ol' Sylar.