I got some great artwork this year. Katie Cook was there, which was huge for me. I made a beeline to her table as soon as I got there on Friday night and asked her to do a comission of Pallas fighting Darth Maul with her pink lightsaber. (Today she decided that now she has a purple lightsaber, so next time I'm at comic con and get someone to draw her fighting Darth Maul to make sure I get that right....) It turned out perfect! Katie can be found here. I also made sure to stop by Drake Tsui's table and get him to another one for me- Valkyrie, currently of Secret Avengers:
 

And I stopped by David Joyce's table, since last year he drew Caiera for me, and then on his blog he made me a sketch of Hulk aka the Green Scar (from Planet Hulk) and this year he did another of the Incredible Hulks, Jenn Walters. The Sensational She-Hulk, of course.
 

So I went down to Calgary for my 3rd Calgary Expo in 4 years. Took holidays from work for it, bought my pass months in advance, but due to extremely poor planning on their part, kind of had a mixy matchy weekend. By the time I got there on Friday there was only an hour left, since the doors closed at 8. 8! What kind of convention ends at 8?
Saturday was the big day, the entire cast of The Next Generation was reunited for the first time in over 20 years. It was announced that the fire marshal stepped in and shut the doors and so thousands upon thousands of people, those with passes or without, it didn't matter, were stuck outside. I had been inside for about an hour but stepped off the floor to have a sandwich before going to a panel (Robert J Sawyer was doing one on writing believable science fiction- and after that I was heading to the costume contest) and was then SOL for the rest of the day. Luckily I still had a great time talking to many many other convention-goers who were in a similar situation. ie I made the most of a shitty situation but it wasn't the day I paid for. I spoke to many, many people who weren't very happy at all- some had, like me, traveled from elsewhere, gotten hotel rooms, paid almost $500 for a photo with the Star Trek cast, and because the Expo organizers oversold, they were stuck outside with no apology. Even, in some instances, attitude from the volunteers. Calgary Expo, via their social media feeds, seems to have chosen to not acknowledge any error on their part, insisting that it was all the fire marshal's fault, and indeed, us convention-goers' fault for showing up all at once instead of in nice and orderly groups of two or three thousand. Today on the CTV News there was a report that the fire marshal has denied any involvement in shutting the doors, but I can't find a news article online to confirm, yet. Here's my photoset, though, got lots of great photos with all the other attendees who were stuck outside.
Sunday was a bit better, I got there early and stood in a crazy long line that went alomst the entire way around the convention grounds, and that was just for us pass holders. They cut off the door-ticket-buyers at 11 and many got sent home.

Back. Tired. Started to upload some photos but going to bed. Lots more to say tomorrow.

I'm heading to the Calgary Expo tomorrow!  I'm gonnabe ascited! Here's some of the geeky things I'm into lately.
Game of Thrones season 2, of course. Who isn't into that?
The Legend of Korra is finally here, and cheers to Nickelodeon for making the episodes available online for free, even for us Canucks. Sometimes we have a hard time watching tv shows from American websites, something to do with CRTC rules or something. (but wait, didn't you say you were watching Game of Thrones....) Korra kicks ass!  Worth the wait (it was announced at SDCC 2010, though I wasn't in the room at the time of the announcement, I think I was just down the hall...). A perfect show for Pallas, at least as far as having strong female protagonists to emulate. We like to fight bad guys, Darth Maul being a particularly persistent foe, he shows up several times a day to get his butt handed to him. By a 3yo girl!
Darth Maul shows up in the current season of Clone Wars, looking forward to seeing that on DVD. The Cartoon Network being one of those networks that don't let Canadians watch their shows. But that's ok, I have the entire original Marvel Star Wars series in Omnibus form! Finally finished reading it. I think it's really cool that the final (and my personal favorite) run was done by a female writer and penciller, Jo Duffy and Cynthia Martin. For the mid-80s that was a rarity. Hell, it's a rarity now.
And I'm rereading Perdido Street Station, this time for book club. Loving it just as much, maybe more, this time around.

Here's the artworks I commissioned at the Calgary Expo:

A couple of years ago, Fiona Staples drew me this Star Wars sketch at Free Comic Book Day, so I thought I would get a companion piece, and she chose Aurra Sing:



And remember when the Hulk went to Sakaar and got married? HIs wife's name was Caiera. David Joyce drew her for me:



And Drake Tsui did this Harley Quinn for me, all Arkham Asylumed up:

Uploading the photos now... might be a while. It was a good weekend. I'm glad I went all three days- Friday was great because it wasn't busy at all, so you could go and actually talk to artists and merchants at their tables. Saturday was way busier, but still not San Diego crazy, so that's not so bad. Michelle enjoyed the panels but walking the floor really isn't her thing, so we didn't stay too long. Especailly since the Alberta Browncoats were all out of Jayne toques- they were knitting more on the fly! I got her one the next day- in fact, the very last one, she tweeted so as she sold it to me. Sunday there was a roller derby game put on by the Calgary Roller Derby Association, super heroes vs zombies. Everyone won! Sunday, of course, is the day all the dealers try to get rid of their inventory so they don't have to carry it back with them, so I got some good deals on comics and graphic novels. A Longshot hardcover! And many others. Had to make a couple of trips to my car, as I was having trouble managing everything and taking photos too. Here's some:

CCEE- the artists

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to the Calgary Comics Expo was to meet some of the artists I know or know of through deviantArt. Given that we were only there for a few hours, I didn't get to meet them all but I met the best ones!
First up, Amy Pronovost, the artyewok. Not only does she draw great Star Wars stuff, but she also specializes in flying bears! She drew us a little baby ewok in her sketchbook that bears a passing resemblance to Pallas. Plus I got one of her Star Wars Galaxy 4 base cards as well as sundry other swag. Thanks Amy!
I also had the opportunity to meet the artists of Imaginism, Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera. Lovely people, both of them. I purchased their beautiful Waterworlds artbook as well as this print from that book:

Also quick shout outs to Virge, Laurie B, Johnny Luu and Miriam Libicki.

PS- Happy Miner's Day! Make sure to buy the miners in your life lots of presents!

CCEE- Battlestar Forum

I was a little surprised that Michelle wanted to come with me to the Comic Expo, but she was excited about seeing Tahmoh Penikett, Battlestar Galactica's Helo. Then they added Kandyse McClure (Dualla) and we were in BSG heaven. While we were standing in that crazy line to get in, the lady in front of us mentioned that Edward James Olmos was a late addition to the guest roster. This is akin to being Catholic and going to Mass and being told that the Pope would be presiding. Mr. Olmos walked by us twice during the course of the day, once with Kandyse McClure. Which is good because in the very crowded forum room we were in the very back, with a crying baby girl and her stroller.
Anyways, for whatever reason Tahmoh never showed up for the forum, maybe he wasn't even at the Expo but it didn't matter. Admiral Adama and Lieutenant Dualla were there! The two of them sat down and just talked for an hour, answering questions and joking around. Remember when Billybob was a billlyboob to Jian Ghomeshi? Olmos and McClure were the exact opposite, classy and gracious, generous in their answers and incredibly passionate about BSG.
ONe of the better questions asked was, if they had to choose a different character to play in the series, who would they choose? Kandyse chose Tory of all people, and Starbuck as a backup, and Olmos picked Colonel Tigh. Ooh- and he also mentioned how mad Michael Hogan was about . . . you know (for the sake of spoilers I won't say exactly what). We were mad about it too. Anyways, at then end EJO shouted out a "So say we all!" and we all answered in turn.
So say we all!

Back from Calgary! The Comic Expo was fantastic. I think it will take me several posts to get through all the stuffs. So I thought I would start with the things that were lame about it, since those are very few and then I can get on with the things that were great.
Lameness #1- it seemed to be poorly organized. We bought tickets in advance and still had to stand in line for about 35 minutes to get in. I feel bad for the people who bought tickets at the door and had to stand in line twice. And later, we were standing in line for the BSG forum, but we were never 100% sure we were even in the right line. A simple sign might have solved that problem. At least we got in- the people who were already in the room for Ray Park but wanted to see the BSG forum had to vacate the room, go all the way to the back of the line, and be told it was overcapacity and that they weren't allowed in. Ouch. It sounds like there was a shortage of volunteers so maybe they did the best they could.
Lameness #2- this one is all my fault and no one else's. I took hardly any pictures! When you are busy buying stuff and pushing a baby stroller pictures take a backseat, but I wish I had taken more, since the ones I did take didn't even turn out very well! Here are the two pics I took that turned out half-decent:



But look- a baby wookie! Well, we thought about dressing Pallas up but I was at work all week and we ran out of time. It was quite hot in there anyways and she just would have been unhappy. As it was she did really well.

OKay I know I sorta promised but the truth of the matter is that I have nothing- at least as far as hockey/mining analogies that aren't totally dumb. Though it would be fun to play some sort of hockey type of game with the heavy equipment. So on to something else.
Next week we will be going to the Calgary Comics Expo! The last comic con I went to was in 1989, I think, shortly after I moved to Edmonton. Todd McFarlane and Stan Lee were there! But I don't really remember that much about it. Hopefully this one will be more memorable. A lot has changed in 20 years. One interesting trend lately has been "covering" covers. In the same way musicians will cover favorite songs, artists who grew up on comics are covering their favorite covers. Incredible Hulk #340 is one of the classic covers of all time, and there have been a few takes on it, including some zombified versions. Here is the original, and then the zombie version that appeared in Marvel Zombies:


Personally I like Josh Medors' zombied-up version:



Shaun Ward has been doing a series of classic covers, including Hulk 340 and Spider-Man #1 (both McFarlanes):



And House of Duck posted 12 covers that he hopes to cover in his own cartoon style, so far he has one. You can do it!