Dave DeVries - Hellboy @ Hasbrouck Heights Comic Show - May 31 2015

Once again it's been quite awhile since my last post on this blog - hard to believe it's been almost exactly one year since the last one! I hope to not go that long until the next.

Here's an awesome sketch by the incredible Dave DeVries of Hellboy. He drew this for me at the Hasbrouck Heights comic show at the Holiday Inn on Rt 17S, Sunday, May 31st 2015.

I also picked up a bunch more Bronze Age Marvel horror books which you can see here in the photo as well.

Dave is an extremely talented illustrator and is perhaps best known for doing a series of painted Marvel trading cards in the early 1990's. He's also known as being the creator of The Monster Engine, a book project and ongoing series of paintings in which he interprets a childs drawings and paints them in a realistic fashion. The results are always fantastic.

Besides the Hellboy, Dave also drew a really cool Sif for my good buddy, Evan as well as a cool Green Goblin for another fan.

New York Comic Con Special Edition Haul - June 2014

Had a great time at the inaugural NYCC SE, held at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC. This show was focused on comic books and their creators, rather than having a lot of the extraneous stuff such as video games, movies and designer toys that the regular NYCC, held in October usually has. That convention is much larger and takes up the entire Javits Center. This show was much smaller and held  in the Javits NorthWing, the space that has been home to the Artist Alley section of NYCC the past two years.

Half the space was devoted to Artist Alley and the other half to dealers of vintage and some new comics, as well as a few toy dealers. There was much less of a crowd than the regular NYCC and it lent to a more relaxed atmosphere. There was still a large list of comics creators, both new and legends in the field. I was able to score a few cool commissions and pick up a bunch of comics to fill in the collection. I picked up my usual assortment of Marvel 70's horror comics, as well as some Cap and FF to fill in spots. I also upgraded a couple of Spider-Man's. The big comics purchase was a very nice  (Fine+) copy of Fantastic Four #28, featuring an early X-Men cross-over. My FF collection is now complete from #19-#293. Of the early issues, I'm missing #1-8, 10,12,13, and 18.  Unfortunately, I wasn't as smart in buying those early issues back in the day, when they were much cheaper, like I was able to with my Spider-Man collection (well, thanks to mom, mainly!), but even still, those books were expensive back then, at least relatively speaking.

Besides the comics, I picked up a bunch of commissions and pre-drawn art from some great artists. Clockwise in the photo, we have:

Mark Texiera (Ghost Rider, Vampirella) Bride Of Frankenstein 11x17 on bristol..Mark really went all out on this drawing. It's amazing!

Michael Dooney (Gizmo, TMNT) Bride Of Frankenstein 9x12 marker rendering. Sweet!

Russ Braun (Batman:Venom, The Boys) Batman - a freebie by my friend in my 7X10 sketchbook.

Jacob Chabot (Mighty Skullboy Army, Voltron) Doctor Doom - 8.5 X 11. An awesome rendition of the King of Latveria. Really great piece.

Ben Caldwell (Dare Detectives) Hellboy. 8.5 X 11. This was a pre-done sketch in his portfolio. Ben had loads of amazing pencil drawings, brimming with imagination, cool characters and poses and gorgeous, flowing pencil lines. His work is superb!

Eric Talbot (TMNT) Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Also a pre-done painting in one of two large portfolios of Turtles art that Eric brought along. The framed cyclops silhouette robot Batman in the frame at top is also by Eric (the art is a print).  I really love Eric's work and see a kindred spirt in the art he does. He mentioned putting together a Kickstarter, featuring much of his sketchbook work that never gets to see the light of day. He was gracious enough to show me some of that stuff - and it was amazing! Hopefully he's able to get something together in the not too distant future and we can all enjoy it. Great art!

Jacob Chabot - Bride Of Frankenstein - in the middle, next to the Doctor Doom. This one is a cool companion piece to a Monster of Frankenstein he drew for me at NYCC in 2012.

All in all I think it was a great day. My pocket was seriously depleted afterwards, as is usually the case after NYCC...and now it's gonna be worse, since the next, even bigger NYCC is only 3 months away!

You can view scans of all the art at my ComicArtFans gallery here:

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=2246

Original Art Day

Came home from work to find two eagerly awaited packages had arrived.

The two beautiful ACEO sketchcards are the work of artist Asa Ishino from Japan. They measure 2.5" x 3.5" and are on bristol paper. The color piece is done in watercolors and acrylics, with a bit of colored pencil.  I purchased the two pieces at Asa's online shop, which you can find here:

http://asaishino.storenvy.com

The Batman vs Clayface pen and ink pointillism tour de force is by Erik Martinez, a Texas based illustrator with an eclectic body of work.  You can see more of his art here:

facebook.com/epikmoore

Marvel 70's horror!

Marvel 70's horror comics I picked up at NYCC. Most of these are reprints of late 50's/early 60's Atlas stories, with art by Kirby, Ditko, Ayers and others. Some of the covers, though, feature new artwork.

NYCC 2013 Art Pick-Ups

Some of the commissions I was able to score at New York Comic Con 2013.  Art by Simon Bisley, Adam Hughes, Adam Robinson, Dave Johnson, and Eric Talbot.

Asian Masks

Wizard World NYC 2013 Pick-Ups

Here are my pick-ups from Wizard World NYC, 6-30-13. The Big Daddy Roth style ape drawing is by Michael Golden and was originally commissioned at NYCC, 2012. To see a scan of it and read the back story behind this piece, please go here:

Michael Golden - Ape Rider

Also in this shot is a great Hellboy sketch by fan favorite Humberto Ramos. A scan of the piece can be seen here:

Humberto Ramos - Hellboy sketch

Also in this pic are more Marvel 70's horror comics, a couple of t-shirts and Humberto Ramos' 2012 art book, 'Sabotage.'