New York Comic Con (part 3)

There are so many vendors and booths at the NYCC that it is hard to take it all in.  One consistently awesome contributor is the Vanguard Publications booth.  I have had the pleasure to meet and talk with two major influences on my love of art, James Steranko and Basil Gogos, at the Vanguard booth.

James Steranko

One of the reasons I was so excited to attend this years New York Comic Con was the appearance of pop-artist Ron English from my alma mater the University of North Texas.  I know we have a mutual friend so I was hoping to find where he was signing his art and meet him.  On my way to his signing I looked over and there he was walking across the floor to his appearance.  I sneakily sidled over to his location and did a glance-double-take exclaim in a half familiar way "Ron English?"  "Yes" he replied.  "Randall Ensley blah, blah, mutual friend, blah, blah, street art..." I blathered on starstruck but so happy to have a ten minute conversation with him which covered numerous topics.  I considered this the main reason for attending the show.  I'm a big fan of street and pop-art and Ron English is a master and original thinker in both areas.

Ron English

I knew comic artist Dave Gibbons would be appearing at the Madefire Booth throughout the day.  Madefire is a comic app for tablets and smartphones which gives the viewer an experience of motion comics.  Dave Gibbons, most famous for his art and contribution to Watchmen, also drew many British comics including some 2000 AD, where I first became acquainted with his art.  I brought a copy of Harlem Heroes, which is a serialized collection of the exploits of an Aeroball team in the MegaCity universe of Judge Dredd and sundry other British sci-fi comic denizens.  I was a big fan of Harlem Heroes and more explicitly its sequel series INFERNO (with art by Bellardinelli.)  Anyway, I got to meet Dave Gibbons and got his autograph in the Harlem Heroes book.  Cool!

Dave Gibbons

Dave Gibbons