I lucked out and acquired free Sunday passes to the East Coast Comic Con in New Jersey this year. My boss at the comic book store received five tickets, so I kept three for myself, my dad, and my friend Andreas as a birthday gift. We went on May 19th, 2019.
Now keep in mind this isn't a very big haul. It was only one day at an out-of-state comic show, plus I don't have as many sketchbooks available as I usually do. And then we ended up leaving earlier than I planned when I noticed my book bag was starting to tear at the bottom and I was afraid it would fall apart. It's a good thing we left when we did, as an accident on the George Washington Bridge made the trip back to the Bronx TWO HOURS LONG when it took a half hour to get to the convention.
It was still a nice trip. I did some back issue shopping and was able to find the penultimate Sandman Mystery Theater arc I've spent years tracking down, and I got to meet Diane Pershing who did the voice of Poison Ivy in Batman: The Animated Series. Miss Pershing was really sweet, and was so touched I had one of her romance novels with me she signed it for free. I had her autograph a print out of one of my Multiverse designs.
I acquired six Legion pieces at this show. Three head sketches and a small full body sketch in my smaller book, a full body sketch in my bigger book, and a design commission I set up before the convention.
You may recognize a Legion veteran among the artists in this post.
Saturn Queen by Howard Chaykin: This first piece is a Silver Age Eve Aries. Howard is one of the first people I commissioned when I started regularly collecting artwork back in 2009, so he seems to know who I am. I thought he'd be a good fit for the original Saturn Queen and her Joan Crawford hairstyle.
As Howard was working on this I mentioned I ordered a trade paperback collection of his "Power & Glory" miniseries. Since this is the Dynamite Entertainment edition, that briefly got us discussing how awful it is that Dynamite's working with that racist hack Ethan Van Sciver.
Theena by Barry Kitson: A lesser seen Legionnaire whom most Legion fans don't really discuss, to which I say COWARDS, ALL OF YOU!
I haven't gotten a sketch from Barry in years, the only one so far a headshot of Umbra, so I took the initiative for the sake of this post. Despite Theena's relative obscurity and how she pretty much vanished after Mark Waid left the Threeboot Legion, I really do like her for her unique appearance. I feel that if she'd been properly utilized she could've been used as a P.O.V. narrator, offering her perspective and thoughts on the Legionnaires throughout the different stories.
It sucks she didn't even warrant a mention in Legion of 3 Worlds, but maybe that was for the best after what Geoff Johns did to the Threeboot Legionnaires.
Laurel Kent by Franco Aureliani: Franco's one of my con regulars and he always delivers cute, affordable commissions.
I have this weird little theme with him where I've been trying to acquire sketches of the different kids of Superman throughout the various continuities. I thought Laurel would be fun since she's Superman's descendant AND TOTALLY NOT A MANHUNTER ANDROID IN DISGUISE NOPE SHE'S NOT CHRIS ROBERSON CONFIRMED IT IN SUPERMAN/BATMAN AND I WON'T HEAR ARGUMENTS TO THE CONTRARY.
Stool-Shadow by Russ Braun: I wanted to add some sketches of characters from the different Legion homage groups to the post. I had with me a number of comics for references, EGOs, The Quantum Age, The Boys, and Big Bang Comics, but this was the only I could get. It was actually the last sketch of the show.
I talked about Stool-Shadow in my post about Superduper, the Legion parody found in The Boys. She was basically the stand-in for Phantom Girl, but due to her lack of control on her powers she kept walking into stuff.
I got this from Russ because he did the artwork on the later half of The Boys and hadn't drawn any of the Superduper kids before. That said, I prefer Russ' artwork on the series far more than Darick Robertson's or John McCrea's because Robertson's stuff was so off-model and inconsistent.
Lightning Lad by Sean Dillon: Yes I'm capable of getting regular artwork of Lightning Lad without making him heavyset, shut up.
I met Sean at MoCCA Fest 2019 back in April, and I wanted to get something from him then but I didn't have the time or the money to get one of my books to him. I felt like I yanked his chain or something when I mentioned wanting to get something from him then, so I made it a priority to get a piece from him at this show.
I love the use of inks on this piece, and he threw in coloring for the lightning bolts for no extra charge. I'm definitely going back to get another piece from him at future shows.
Titan Queen Design by Afua Richardson: This is probably my crown jewel of the East Coast pieces and one I'd set up in advance.
This is a design commission for my version of Saturn Girl from that DC Multiverse concept I've been trying to flesh out for the past four or so years. "Titan Queen" is a version of Imra Ardeen from a Titan that was colonized by African settlers, and is one of the founders of the "Vanguard of Tomorrow" alongside Space King (Rokk) and Storm Lord (Garth).
I long felt Afua Richardson was the one to go to for this design because of her work on Black Panther: World of Wakanda. I believed she could give this version of Imra an appropriate afrofuturist appearance. I emailed her weeks before the con, explained what I wanted, and paid half for the piece. She worked on this during the convention and while she finished it up I talked to her about meeting Diane Pershing earlier in the day and gave her a recap on DC's abomination Heroes in Crisis.
I couldn't afford to get in this color and hadn't properly figured out a color scheme anyway. My only specifications were mainly Titan Queen should have short hair and her costume's not a suit, NOT a rehash of the Grell bikini. I really think short hair works best for Imra.
That's it for this con. Hopefully I'll be able to add more of these posts this year if my wallet and schedule permits it.
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