joltman

I wanted to share a quick story so I thought I'd make a catch-all thread for anyone else that wants to do the same. I hope there wasn't already a thread like this, I searched around but didn't find anything.

Anyway, I just met Peter David! He was at a book store here in York, PA for their annual 'Sci-Fi Saturday'. I bought his book Artful (I might not get around to reading it, but I wanted to support him for coming out to little York) and he autographed that as well as my 1999 Captain Marvel #1 I brought along. I wanted to bring my original Spider-Man 2099 #1, but somehow I lost my old Spider-Man 2099 comics I talked with him a little and he seemed really nice and friendly!

The Valeyard

That's awesome. Don't think there's a dedicated thread but there's plenty of stories sprinkled throughout this portion of the forum.

My most recent brush with comicdom has been taking comic legend Russ Heath to lunch once a month for the Hero Initiative. At 88, he's still sharp as a tack.

I also met with Dark Horse Comics at the Licensing Expo in Vegas to discuss work stuff.

majorjoe23

I've met more than I can count, and just met a few more at a con this weekend (Mike Zeck, Arthur Sundyam and Neal Adams for the second time).

My favorite was probably Jim Steranko. I brought a Nick Fury trade to be signed and he said he didn't sign that addition because Marvel had used some loophole to avoid paying royalties. He apologized for not signing, but I ended up enjoying he conversation way more than the signature.

kodave

He's free to do whatever he wants. But that's kind of shitty to do to fans if he's putting himself in a situation where he will just sign things that are brought up to him (as opposed to say, only signing a certain print at a paid ticketing signing or something), regardless of whatever the problems are between creators and corporate. And it's not like he has a large library of comic work for people to get signed. But I guess he has enough "status" that he can pull that.

danfindlay

Dude, Joe! You live in Des Moines? I just met Neal Adams, Sundyam, Tom Cook and James O'Barr this weekend too! Very nice guys all, met Mike Grell too but was out of money by the time I got to him so I didn't get a signed Longbow Hunters cover print from him like I'd have liked to. Got three real nice prints from Neal, that was awesome.

Mike Long

Took my daughter to her first con last year. We stopped by Skottie Young's table so that I could get a few things signed. My daughter is an artist and she'd never seen the sort of paintbrush pen which Young was using, so she asked him about it. He explained how it worked and then he gave it to her. Very cool.

majorjoe23

I am! It was cool having a big con in Des Moines, but I wish I hadn't had to buy prints just to get my book signed. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get some sort of use out of those.

danfindlay

The event is set to return May 13-15th 2016 at the Iowa Events Center.

Dexter Douglas

I've met Neal Adams a few times, but nothing could match a few weeks ago at Denver Comic Con. I finally tracked down a copy of Adventures Of the Fly #4 and he was absolutely thrilled to see it. He told the story of how it was printed (also told in his episodes of Fatman on Batman) and it was really cool to see him in his own personal Way Back Machine and reminisce about those days.

majorjoe23

I'll be curious who they get for next year.

Paul_SD

Most of the artists I've met in my life have been at conventions.
The one time that sticks out most to me was a Chiller Theater convention in NJ about 15 years back. I had just parked my car and was going into a side entrance when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of this tall, frizzy haired fellow making for the same door. I had a second to think "wouldn't it be cool if that were William Stout" and as he got closer I saw that it actually was him. He was then and still is one of my all time favorite artist/illustrators and I actually had no idea he was a guest there that year. I held the door for him (I think he was carrying stuff) and got a chance to introduce myself and tell him how much of a fan I was before we hit the din of the convention area. I'd heard nothing but good things about him and he was everything people said. They set him up in a smaller room with Bernie Wrightson (who I would have normally been gushing and fawning over if Stout hadn't been there) and Basil Gogos who was also a real trip to meet after growing up with countless issues of Famous Monsters and his awesomely gruesome cover paintings.
Artist wise, that may be the best con I ever went to.

I also remember a summer NYCC around 2003. I was talking to a poster dealer asking if he had any prints of Enoch Bolles, and the portly, white bearded gentleman the dealer had been schmoozing with corrected my pronunciation of his first name (E-nick, not E-Knock). Then he and I started talking about Bolles and golden age illustrators in general. Like Stout, I had a pretty good idea who I was talking to and it did in fact turn out to be Michael Kaluta. It was cool to be having a conversation with an artist I liked that wasn't actually about the artist, but solely about a mutual interest. Before we parted ways, I did tell him I was a fan and all that and then asked why The Studio had never been re-printed. He said it was all BWS's fault. The other three wanted to put it back in print, but Smith had never been happy with the book, so that was that.

Also, I guess something that kind of/sort of qualifies as a meeting would be when I applied to the Kubert school back in the late 80's. At that time, part of the vetting process for applicants involved a one-on-one phone call with Joe K. Looking back, I think the call must have lasted 30-45 minutes. I do remember the time flew by and I was surprised how long the call actually had been. But it felt very relaxed and I loved the ability to talk to him outside of a noisy and hectic social event and get into substantive shop talk, even just briefly. I'm sure he had other calls to make that day, but I never once got the feeling I was being rushed or that he was trying to break off the call too quickly.
At that point I had recently discovered Toth and was talking excitedly about that as well as complimenting him on a certain sequence in his Jewels Of Opar adaptation which I had recently re-read in a large treasury edition. There were several pages there that still to this day I think are as great an example of storytelling as anything anyone has ever done. It knocked me out then and still does. I like to think he was impressed that I was taking the art form as seriously as I was and concentrating more on the nuts and bolts of storytelling rather than just wanting to draw cool looking splash pages- but I could have just been projecting. In any case, he was great to talk to and I really do treasure that memory.

movieguru

Last year I was able to do two private signings with Stan Lee at his hotel room after his con appearances. The first one I did was early in the morning and it was kinda rushed. The second one was later in the summer and it was done after the Saturday con in his hotel room. There was me and one other company there getting items signed. The other company had a huge stack of comics and prints. On the very top of the stack was a Hulk #1 in at least mid to high grade. She probably had about 100k in comics there.

He was very entertaining that day. Even though it was a private setting, you couldn't have a serious conversation with him. Every answer was his usual sarcastic style that you get at Q&A's. I managed to get one item signed for myself there. A SDCC 2012 McFarlane Spider-man guitar with "Excelsior" written on it. Looks really cool.

dishpan

of the tons of creators ive met at cons and stores, theyve almost all been super nice and friendly. too many to list here but some standouts that come to mind are jimmy palmiotti, brad meltzer, and larry hama. lots of people have had good convos with me but theirs were the longest. if you get a chance to see them, go for it.

not to name names but the person ive least enjoyed meeting was adam hughes. ive met him twice and both times were the same. basically a grunt and no interest in speaking when i tried to chat him up about his work, which i love. maybe hes an introvert and doesnt enjoy it, which is fine, i'm not mad at him. but i skip his table now.

movieguru

I've met Don Rosa a number of times. Love his spoof cover prints. He always seams nice and genuine and if he's no busy usually have long conversations with him.

matrixrok9

Read a news article with a boy having cancer. He said his favorite hero was Batman. There was a comic con that weekend. I brought the article and asked several artists if they would like to draw a Batman sketch for him. The artists surprised me as they did 20-30 minute sketches. I thought they'd spend 5 minutes max. The artists were:

Philip Tan
Mark Brooks
Simon Bisley

I got their business cards and made sure to put it in each sleeve. I also bought several prints from them to show my gratitude, except for Bisley, he didn't have anything. I contacted the kid's mom and I gave all the original sketches to the kid. Local comic shop also donated some comics. I think the kid is doing well now and his family started a 5k run to benefit a cancer organization.

cultshock

I met Art Baltazar (he does kids comics for DC) a couple weeks ago at a toy show/get together in Chicago. He was a really friendly, fun guy, I got a real kick out of him. Alex Ross was apparently at the show too (not as a guest, he's a toy collector) but he was recognized by a couple people and got spooked so unfortunately he left after 20 minutes. Poor guy just wanted to come in to buy and talk toys, but I guess that's the price of fame.

I think my favourite encounter was meeting Al Williamson at a convention in the late 80's. He was really friendly, signed a pile of comics for me, and talked about his days at EC Comics, which I'm crazy about. The only EC artist I ever had a chance to meet unfortunately.

Dimension X

I love EC Comics. I saw Al Williamson at a con, along with Joe Orlando and Marie Severin, some time in the '80s. Then, a year or so later I was at a really small comic show (I wouldn't call it a convention) where one of the guests was Bill Gaines(!!). (Jim Steranko was the other guest (!!), and I doubt there were even 100 attendees.) Many years later, I saw Al Feldstein. They were all great people.

Edit: A little Googling tells me I saw Gaines and Steranko in Greensboro in 1990 (the others were all in Charlotte). Apparently, even though I remember next to no one being at that show, they did them yearly through the '80s, and I missed Harvey Kurtzman and Joe Kubert the year before.

madcougar

I met John Romita Jr. many years ago at a convention in Houston. He was the absolutely nicest artist I've ever met. He happily signed my pile of books and personalized a few for me.

I met Neil Gaiman at a convention in New York in 1993. I had the leatherbound edition of Season of Mist for him to sign. He went out of his way to draw Morpheus on the front flap as I gushed about how much I loved Sandman. A year later, Kelley Jones was in Houston for a con. He opened the book and saw the drawing by Gaiman. Not to be outdone, he drew a super nice Morpheus on the back flap for me.

Matt Wagner was sitting next to him. He'd drawn an issue of that story. He looked at me and laughed and said "Yeah, I'm not drawing for you kid," and just signed his picture in the creator portion of the book.

The Valeyard

I'm hanging out with Russ Heath again tomorrow afternoon. Lunch then helping him pick up some groceries and stuff.

majorjoe23

There's a comic book artist who lives in Des Moines, Ron Wagner. He was never McFarlane level, but he has some fans thanks to his work on GI Joe, Morbius and a bunch of other stuff.

I would see him around town, but one day as I was moving into my apartment, he walked in. I realized we had been living in the same building for years.

If not friends, we've at least become acquaintances. He illustrated a bunch of murals for a local restaurant, Zombie Burger. The other day he showed me scratches for a mural at a second ZB and there was a zombie me in there. That made my day.

majorjoe23

I met Jim Steranko again today. His line moves like a glacier because he talks to every person for about 10 minutes.

I've also won the trivia contest at this con for the last few years. This year I missed out on first place by one point. The guy who beat me was comedian Timmy Williams from the sketch show The Whitest Kids U Know. I'm a fan, so if I had to lose at least it was to someone funny.

I also met Paul Ryan (Squadron Supreme artist) and Rick Burkhett, the artist on a lot of DC animated comics.

Neitzl

About a year ago at C2E2 here in Chicago, I was in line buying a few prints from Neal Adams. I get up to him and he looks at me and says "Man you have a lot of hair". His assistant from behind chimes in, saying "Yeah, he even has more than you do". I'm laughing along with them. Then Adams asks what my name is as he's about to sign my Green Lantern print. I tell him, actually can I just have your signature. He wants to personalize it for me something fierce that he makes up a story about why I should have my name on the print. He goes on to say how we're friends and he wants the print to be special for me. I say since we're friends lets go have a drink! He smiles, thanks me and says he can't. I tell him my name finally, and ask him if he ever found his portfolio he lost in a NYC cab. Unfortunately he hadn't at that point. :-( Very nice man.

I'm usually terribly shy around artists. I never really know what to say to them, and will just say "Hi, love your work" and move on. Even when I buy some original art, I won't say much except "How much is this"?

Dexter Douglas

I got to meet George Perez this weekend, and that man was the definition of class and grace. The fact that he only charged $40 for an inked sketch flabbergasted me. Then he made an announcement at the beginning of the con that not only will he not charge for autographs, but he'll sign as much stuff as you brought, "so empty out your bags!". He also took pics with everyone.

The icing on the cake, though, was what he did with a family whose first con it was. After doing the sketch and signing stuff, he took a pic with everyone including the six-month old dressed as Wonder Woman. Once the group photo was done, he stopped them from leaving and said "Wait! We need one with Wonder Woman!" He grabbed the cosplayer with a fantastic WW costume at the table next to him and he posed with a picture of the six-month old and the cosplayer, which just absolutely made that family's experience.

ntnon

Every part of that story makes me happy.

Hoping to meet Mr Perez one day - and very pleased to read such nice words.