Torch Tiger tales

Cover painting by Paul Felix

Last year the story department at Walt Disney Feature Animation put together an amazing book, "Who Is Rocket Johnson?" just in time for the San Diego Comic Con. It sold out in very short order, and remains a bright gem of a compilation. Utterly unique and as representative of the talents at work at Disney as anything could be. One should never miss the chance to see--and own--the personal work of men and women like this-mostly story, a couple of directors and animators in there too-who are at the top of their game.

No sooner had he pulled the first copies of Rocket Johnson out of the box than the chief instigator of the project, Paul Briggs, laid plans for this year's book: "What Is Torch Tiger?"

Well, the books have arrived and as was done last year, Briggs and the gang are kicking off its official debut with an Ebay auction for a special copy of this beautiful book-signed by all the participating artists, as follows:

Steve Anderson
Aaron Blaise
Paul Briggs
Kevin Deters
Rob Edwards
Mike Gabriel
Nathan Greno
Don Hall
Byron Howard
Trevor Jimenez
Mark Kennedy
Joe Mateo
Nicole Mitchell
John Musker
Jeff Ranjo
Aurian Redson
Jeremy Spears
Lissa Treiman
Josie Trinidad
Chris Ure
Mark Walton
Dean Wellins
Stevie Wermers
Chris Williams

And as if that lineup isn't enough, there are also some pin-ups by:

Andreas Deja
Andy Harkness
Jeff Turley
Jin Kim
Shiyoon Kim

Remember, all these artists have signed the special copy now on auction at Ebay. The actual book itself doesn't otherwise go on sale until Comic Con opens next week, so if you can't make it to the Con and would like to both snag a lovely, brilliantly produced book and have every penny of your bid go to a worthy charity--the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, click on this link and give it a go. I did last year--and was outbid. Well, try, try again. You won't be sorry and you can write off your winning bid, both feeling good and having something rare and good to read at hand.

Torch Tiger Signed edition plus extra goodies Ebay Auction

I haven't seen all the stories, but since I did see this one and I can't help embarrassing him I want to add that it'd be worth it for Jeremy Spears' story alone. He did a wonderfully atmospheric tale with appealing characters and fantastic staging, completely lovable.
Now multiply that times 30 and that's Torch Tiger. They've each put their hearts and souls into their own versions of the theme and always, of course, had to navigate their day jobs at the same time, with the redoubtable Briggs cracking the whip and wrangling the printers on top of everything else. What's that bit that Bud Plant always adds? "Highest Recommendation"

Comic Con 2008 wrap up

this year's haul

Well.

It was two years ago that I first blogged about my San Diego Comic Con experiences. I've just reread that old post. It's odd how quickly the time's passed, and how much has changed since then. I'd been writing The Blackwing Diaries for nine months in July of 2006, along the way reaquainting myself with some old friends as well as meeting new ones via comments and cross-postings. It was when the bunch of us doing story on a certain project decided to pool resources and do a single book together in time for the 07 Con.

Two years later:

"Scrambled Ink" creators Ennio Torresan, Dave Pimentel, JJ Villard, Ken Morrissey and me

This year all of us(with the exception of Keith Baxter away in Canada, and David Derrick-on safari in Africa)came together to sign our books at the Dark Horse booth. The Con was the "official" debut of the book and the first time we'd seen it on a retail shelf(I was relieved to see that Amazon too finally has it listed for sale after eternally showing a "pre-order" listing. One thing, though: Amazon mistakenly has the book listed as paperback-that's wrong. It's only been published in hardcover).

I've never done an event like the signing thing before. Very surreal to see a little line of people with books in hand for us to draw in. Dark Horse unfortunately ran out of books to sell midway through our time slot, but we carried on signing and drawing on some cover flyers. Best of all was meeting and chatting with the people who came up to the table.

Actually, finally in print and for sale

It's easy for me to forget that anyone reads this blog--especially when I've let so much time pass without posting as I was wont to do a year ago; to have people tell me they read and enjoy it is more gratifying than I can express.
The time passed in a blip, and we had to make way for Mike Mignola--Mignola! of course I had to shake his hand and tell him how much I admire his work. I think Scott Morse introduced me to Hellboy back in Turner development days--and speaking of Scott--I made a beeline to his Red Window booth, shared with another old friend, Jeff Pidgeon and Bill Presing, with the work of Don Shank, Lou Romano, Emma Coats and a few others also on display and for sale. Emma's done a wonderful sketchbook, Bill has topped himself with the beautiful binding of his bookplate art, "Bookplate Betties", and Jeff had fun new Happy Beaver merchandise--I picked up a watch and tshirt. Ditto Bill's and Emma's books, an 11x17 original by Don of his Kurt character, and not least an assortment of the riches Scott provides every year. This guy keeps busy! How he has time for a life I can't say, but I imagine that it must be a case of each passion fueling the other--work and life.

One of the big debuts this year was undoubtedly the "Who Is Rocket Johnson" booth

These gentlemen and a host of their colleagues did a beautiful job. Next year: "What Is Torch Tiger?" Paul Briggs (the guy in the hat) was a powerhouse for shepherding the project to fruition. A free button to whoever can name the others present here(just kidding).

Every year more artists who work in animation are publishing. For many of us the Comic-con has become a one stop shopping mecca where we drop in on Stuart Ng's booth and those of the individual artists to pick up the riches. There were so many that next year I've got to do two days just to make sure I can visit them all--I missed E-Ville press, JJ's booth and too many others due to a lack of time and the plain old difficulty of hacking and pushing my way across the endless convention floor one more time.
For all its unwieldy size, San Diego is really a must if you care about animation art and the people who produce it. They're not all there, but plenty of them are and it's a rare treat to get their work straight from the source.

Con Again

I've been out of commission the last few days but this week is-finally-the 2008 San Diego Comic Con. I can't remember everyone, so forgive me as this is done on the fly, but off the top of my head here are some booths and people you've got to visit if you don't know them already. Since you're reading this blog, you probably do. But nevertheless a good cast bears repeating, as Universal(or was it RKO?)used to say at the end of their films when they ran the credits.
So here are:

Conduct Happiness: Joe Moshier and Chris Sonnenburg

Red Window: Scott Morse, Don Shank(absent in the flesh, but art will be there!), Lou Romano, Bill Presing and Jeff Pidgeon, Booth 4800.

"Who Is Rocket Johnson?"-the epic book with an incredible array of talent inside--and on--the covers. Front cover: Paul Felix. Back cover: Glen Keane. About 24 guys in between. Think you'll be visiting them? Yeah, I thought so. They're at booth 2302.

Chris Sanders will be there again, I believe.

Red Tango is run and designed by an old friend of mine, Cynthia Petrovic. She's a huge Fred Moore fan too. Booth 4201.

Donnachada Daly is a super talented animator from Eire who's at Dreamworks; he'll have his new book at booth B8 of the exhibitor tables.
Incidentally Donnachada(pronounced "Dannika")is also represented in the niftiest art show/auction in a long while, the Totoro Forest Project, which you all must go read, drool and dream about right now.

E-Ville Press manned by Ted Mathot and Derek Thompson from Up North, will have things you won't want to leave without. Booth 1534

Dan Goodsell, he of the inimitable Mr. Toast and an amazing amasser of the most fun stuff ever, will be at booth 4831.

Of course this is far from a complete listing; the above are mostly friends and people whose whereabouts are immediately known to me so I can post their booth locations. I've left out some obvious stops like the great Stuart Ng, Bud Plant, Super 7, Fleet Street Scandal, and Graphic Collectibles...but it's late, so before Hulk smash! and Jenny crash! I'll put this post to bed.

artwork copyright Dan Goodsell 2008
Have fun!

Our Comic Con book signing: Friday 7/25 1-2pm, Dark Horse booth(you can't miss it)

Here's a detail taken off the Dark Horse website:

FRIDAY, JULY 25:

11:00 - 12:00 Matt Wagner: Grendel

11:00 - 12:00 Mike Kennedy: Aliens Vs. Predator

12:00 - 1:00 Jim Hardison: The Helm

12:00 - 1:30 Yoshitaka Amano: Vampire Hunter D; Shinjuku (*ticketed event: See Dark Horse employee for details)

1:00 - 2:00 Scrambled Ink: Dreamworks Animators - Ken Morrissey, JJ Villard, Ennio Torresan, David Pimental, Jenny Lerew

2:00 - 3:00 Mike Mignola: Hellboy
(*ticketed event: See Dark Horse employee for details)

3:00 - 4:30 Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day
(*ticketed event: See Dark Horse employee for details)

5:00 - 6:00 Yasuhiro Nightow: Trigun (*ticketed event: See Dark Horse employee for details)

6:00 - 7:00 David Lloyd: Kickback

New York Times writes about the Comic Con's relations with Hollywood

Normally I'd eschew a post of this kind--there's not much that's news in it--but this year the animation-to-comics quotient is going to really spike, and moreover while I'm a longtime daily reader of the New York Times and enjoy it, although occasionally their take on the doings of our west coast seem, well...a little clueless. Late to the party as it were.

Case in point: today there's an article that deals with Hollywood studios' presence at the annual San Diego Comic con. While the piece is titled "Comics Convention Beckons Hollywood"(click the title to read it in full), the print version adds a sub-header: "The film business grudgingly courts fans in San Diego". The internet version looks even more askance, using this: "Hollywood still leery of Comic Convention".

Really now?

It's exactly what you'd expect. No cliche about unwashed bodies goes unused. One of the accompanying photos online (there's none in the print version) shows an overweight, bespectacled teenager sitting cross-legged on the floor engrossed in his reading material,paper receipt dangling from his mouth. Reference is made to something called "Con crud" which it's suggested is either a common cold or an STD. Ugh(I suspect that the Con magazine that offers numbered "tips" and cites the aforementioned "crud" is probably meant to be a little more humorous in tone than the Times presents).

The overall slant is that a motley, frighteningly crowded contingent of cosplay folks and "fanboys" are "grudgingly" catered to by an unwilling Hollywood. It bemusedly describes things that go wrong (example: Joel Silver was actually kept waiting last year while star Kate Beckinsale claimed to be held up at a railroad crossing-no doubt the gospel truth as anyone knows who's been to the Con and tried to cross the street when the crossing arm goes down; the thing seems to take a minimum of 35 minutes each time). You'd think from the overall tone-studio people are desperate to get in and get out as quickly as possible-that the City of San Diego, is, well, perhaps a little plebian.
Actually the downtown area that surrounds the convention center is a Seattle-like, revitalized district featuring a lot of great restaurants and pubs and an enjoyable sidewalk scene not often seen in Los Angeles save for a few blocks of 3rd street, Robertson, Melrose or the Grove-familiar haunts of Business players(and I daresay Times scribes).

But back to the picture painted of ComicCon: while we get the travails of this or that company and their booking acrobatics, no mention is made of the extent that arguably the most powerful(certainly the most world-famous)director in Hollywood, Steven Spielberg, went to last year to do a live feed to the convention from the set of the then-filming "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". The SRO crowd was treated to a meet & greet with not only all the principals- Harrison Ford, Shia LeBeouf, Ray Winstone-but the confirmation by Spielberg officially for the first time the casting of Karen Allen. No, in lieu of any of that proof of ComicCon's importance we get a focus on a production company called Summit Entertainment-an outfit with a slate of titles I've never heard of. They're probably niche fan properties.

Neither was there any mention that "Iron Man" was represented last year by stars Robert Downey Jr. and Gywneth Paltrow and director Jon Favreau, all of whom have been to the snarkily compared Cannes film festival many times also, I'm sure.

No mention of "Hulk" star and writer Edward Norton, prince of the Serious Acting school of critics(with whom I agree-he's good) who also deigned to go to San Diego for his Con appearance and panel in '07.

No Pixar, either, although as far as I am aware Pixar for years has maintained a strong presence there, planning panels featuring its most well-known artists and directors, plus peeks and premieres of upcoming work.

I wonder how much more significant contributing film honchos could get than Spielberg, Lasseter, Bird, Lucas...yet none of them are mentioned. Nor is there a mention of Matt Groening, Bill Plympton, JJ Abrams, and a host of others I can't think of off the top of my head. Not chopped liver they. Remember, this is all just last year I'm citing, not a 10-year span of attendees. One year.

The fact is, for a lot of people who aren't your sterotypical comics geek the Con has become cool; it's a place to gawp, buy, and party-and not at Ralph's either(another mention in the article presumably showing how low-rent the affair skews).

I'd bet writer Cieply has never attended San Diego himself. He seems to have approached this article armed with a dated, preconceived notion of what a crowd attending something called a "Comic Con" would be like-and he was only partly accurate.

How much more intriguing if he'd been aware-and related to the readers-how a humble, standard annual comics show became over 20 years a mega-marketed, serious venue that makes clear the reality of pop culture's cross-pollination in its most egalitarian and visible form?

Instead it's merely a brief story about the supposed discomfort that Hollywood must endure to market to the sorts of people who buy tickets to "blockbusters". Sure, there are plenty of sweaty bodies-I'm sure I've been one since the heat is fierce in San Diego every year and the Convention Center main exhibition room always seems overloaded with attendees. Yes, there are people in costumes, which I always thought were great fun to look at. Yes, the Con is a ridiculous, hot, impossible to navigate, frustrating carnival of giant Lego Chewbaccas, crazy walkaround things, killer backpacks on oblivious collectors, nerdy crazy people, cool crazy people, artists, scenesters, lots of camera crews and a terrible din of a million people all talking at once. It's terrific fun.

But what's also there is is an every-growing contingent of film professionals-mostly from animation-who are presenting their own work alongside the huge players, offering self published books and toys as well as other merchandise they've designed, some of which are substantial businesses; former and current Disney, Dreamworks and Warner Bros animators' companies such as Conduct Happiness, Electric Tiki, Red Window, Red Tango all selling, networking, and in general having fun amid all the chaos; it's been one of the places that, love it and/or hate it, is a place to see and be seen and meet up with old colleagues.

some of last year's haul, and a big part of why I and my friends go to the Con

Given the people I know of this year presenting their own books, prints and wares there's a good article to be written about the crossover between the graphic books of the past and present and the people whose graphic work is usually employed in big-budget "Hollywood" animation doing their own small-press thing.

And you know, all of us are geeks if by geeks you mean lovers of cool stuff yearning to see new and exciting work of all kinds-be they filmed, drawn, sculpted or written. In that sense we have a lot in common with the non-pros sitting cross-legged on the floor. By the way, I confess I've done that myself as have most of my (adult) friends. That's because there are no other places available to sit in the Convention Center.

Michael Cieply-why don't you come on down? The train is a great ride.

See you in San Diego.

"Comics Convention Beckons Hollywood", by Michael Cieply 6/21/08