San Diego Comic-Con 2012 Final Post: The Loot!

For my final post on San Diego Comic Con 2012, I am sharing some of the fantastc "loot" that I acquired!  This drawing above is my most favorite thing, an original "Fat Freddy's Cat" by Gilbert Shelton (which I would not have gotten if my wonderful sister had not gone and waited in line for me since I was stuck at my table when he was signing)!  He is one of the great underground cartoonists (one of the great cartoonists period), right up there with Crumb, and since he lives in France it is super hard to get a sketch from him...this is the greatness that is San Diego Comic Con!!  My terrific brother also gave me a signed copy of the "Freak Brother's Omnibus"...I am a spoiled little brother of course.

Ramona Fradon is a phenominal artist and draws just as good today (if not better) than she did on her incredible runs on Aquaman, Metamorpho, Plastic Man, etc!  She was doing these incredible drawings for only $25 a piece (the best deal in the con for sure, and from a member of the Will Eisner Hall of Fame 2006 no less)!  I had her add in the caption "I'll Always Love You, Olivia" to this great Aqua Lad drawing for my daughter (21 mos old) to go with a drawing we got a few years back of Aquaman (my wife Melissa was in "love" with Aquaman when she was a kid, ie the Aquaman on Superfriends, and I had Ramona inscribe her drawing as if it was an old boyfriend of hers).  Now Melissa and Olivia have matching professions of love from the 'Aquateam' :)

I bought the Artist's Edition of Groo the Wanderer  by Sergio Aragones in San Diego (cover above), at only $100 it was a steal and Sergio was signing them with awesome drawings as usual (below)!  You need to have this in your collection, these Artist Editions are awe-inspiring and seeing Sergio's artwork at full size is humbling & inspiring at the same time!  12 x 17 with four issues reprinted from Sergio's original artwork, plus the remake of Groo's original appearnce by Sergio in the late 80's (the original artowrk was lost at some point), and a section of Sergio's rough layouts that go with a few pages printed in the book! 

The PEANUTS booth is always a favorite stop at SDCC, and this time my brother picked up this great shirt (above) for my daughter Olivia, they always have the greatest retro artwork on their product exclusives (from the 50's and 60's).  Below is a terrific felt banner I bought for my daughter, it also came with 5 buttons to place on the banner (in the star sections) showing diff characters in sports action poses.  For $20 it was a bargain since I had been wanting to buy an original felt banner from the 60's but they tend to go for a lot more than this on Ebay!

Finally I am caught up with all I wil most likely post about San Diego Con...next up I will be at Sac-Con in Sacramento CA on Sept 30 2012 with a table and doing my lecture on "How to Successfully Pitch an Animated Cartoon," and hopefully if I land a table I will then be at APE con in San Francisco Oct 13-14, 2012...I will keep you posted!