I did it.
With my small team of fellow art-fans, we loaded up into my car and went to the Comic Con in downtown Phoenix.
the portal
We then got into a line that was long and snaky, like a mini-Amazon river, but with costumed people all around us.
the looong line behind us...
People chose to dress up as their favorite comic book characters, anime people, cartoon characters, video game characters… the list goes on. Some of the costumes made me scratch my head in wonder. It was really fun to see. Here are some of the costumed fans below.
little clone trooper...
really sweaty Batman...
Master Chief from Halo...
Master Obi-Wan
Mandalorian couple...
Final Fantasy ppl...
Pokemon !
One of the big draws to a convention is the famous people that show up. The two main people that I wanted to see here I totally got to see. One of them was really close to me and my friends. Here are the pictures:
Stan Lee. The creator of Spider-Man, the Hulk... and many more comics! He was shooting the breeze with friends and we took a bunch of pictures of him!
Leonard Nimoy... better known as Spock from the TV series (and movies) Star Trek. He was really funny, and had some humorous stories to share.
The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, from the movie Ghostbusters. He was not as cranky as I thought he would be.
The other thing about a comic book convention is getting to meet the comic book artists themselves. I met a bunch of cool people, and bought some great artwork. For the right price, these guys will actually draw something specifically for you. The artists who were locals, I actually left them my information in case they wanted to come to our school and give some tips on drawing. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Here are some of the artists I got to hang out with:
Andy Carreon. I hope his name sounds familiar to you, he is the husband of our own Mrs. Carreon, and as you can see, he is very talented gentleman.
Mr. Ryan Winn is a comic book 'inker'. Inkers are the people that take a rough drawing and sharpen the edges with blacks and other effects (like crosshatching? 
). He wanted to show us what he had recently done in his work for DC comics.
A close-up of the comic page Mr. Winn has worked on, featuring Batman. Look at all of that detail !!!
Here I am with Ryan Benjamin. In the next few images, you will see him draw a picture of Batman for me in just a matter of minutes. He's an amazing artist !
He laid out his picture with a red pencil, now he goes to work with markers.
You can see Batman's face coming together...
Now some finer details are added with a smaller tipped marker...
Finishing the bottom of the drawing...
Lastly, a gray marker is used to block-in the background. Amazing !!
There were other little things too, and here are more pictures that I wanted to share.
Amazing art in a booth...
Star Wars LEGO's !!!
A large sculpted foam frog !
My son poses with Stormtroopers and a scary green boxy-head guy.
Fantastic art of Greg Ham. A personal friend, and fellow colleague from my Fox days.
Well, I hope you enjoyed my reporting of these events from last weekend. The Comic-Con happens every year. The last two years it has been in Phoenix, and kids 12 and under get in free with a paying adult. It’s a total blast, so save up your allowance money and you can come away with some inspiring art, most of which is one of a kind. 
Tags: artists, comic book, comic con, fun, inkers, lego, professionals, star wars, unique
