San Diego Comic-Con 08 Part One

Charlie and Aly are back from the madness and horror that is San Diego as they spent time in The Devil's Candy Store booth with Leslie Banks, Kevin J. Anderson, Dean Haglund, and many more assorted creators. But Aly actually spent some quality time with a very happy Wookie.



More convention news and photos to come. Like this one from the X-Sanguin VII Ball where Aly actually met said Wookie. Trust me, gun-toting elves ain't the half of it.

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X-Sanguin VII

The Devils at San Diego Comic-Con 08 This Week!

Come on by The Devil's Candy Store booth #1704 this week at the San Diego Comic-Con. We'll have L. A. Banks in our booth signing Vampire Huntress merchandise created by our own devils.


Dave Dorman's cover art. © 08 Dave Dorman.

Plus, you can pick up "Sex. Death. Art." t-shirts:



And Zippos™:

Dave Stevens - An Inspiration

Dave Stevens passed away yesterday. May he rest in peace. Dave will always be an inspiration.


© 1983 Dave Stevens

The First Fear Lives

It has been an exciting 2008 so far. I started with ConceptArt.org's Revelations art orgy in Seattle, did 8 large paintings and a big sculpture for the play, we opened The Great God Pan, in connection with that I interviewed Clive Barker and seem to be starting a biz relationship with Weird Tales magazine. Sue had her baby! We got a visit from Donna. The Devil's Candy Store is ramping up again. And...

I'm back on The First Fear story. I have a beginning, middle and end. I have a cast of characters and I have scenes. I have themes and character arcs. I will soon have sketches and dialog. All the research and all the sketching and thinking and writing came together this weekend.

What did it? Imagining how I would do it as a play in a little blackbox theater with a small cast and limited resources. The blessing and the curse of a comic book is it's limitless potential. You can have millions of characters, endless scenes, thousands of costume characters and it can go on for decades. A two hour, low budget play is quite another story. I've always worked better under restraints (or is that - in restraints?) and thinking this way is just what I needed.

more soon...

Happy Birthday to Me

Well, I got a nice little birthday present today. There is an article in Animation World Magazine (AWN) on comic books and computers. The author, Joseph Szadkowski, was nice enough to mention that Shatter was the first computer-generated comic book and throw in some quotes from me.


One of my pieces from Shatter (First Comics)

Happy Birthday Chicago Artist Forum

Chicago Artist Forum in action

A year ago, Denise Dorman put some ideas into the head of one, Kevin Sandstrom of Dick Blick Art Stores. Next thing you know, a place for artists to gather, show off portfolios, and generally talk shop and fun was born in Wheaton, Illinois. It has now grown to a nice little event that brought out about 30 artists in 0º Chicago weather this past Saturday.

The artists range in experience from 30+ year veterans to folks in their freshmen year in art school. But all of them love to draw and respect the craft, which makes for great discussions and plenty of learning and networking opportunities.

The CAF will have a website soon that will list the upcoming presentations and events. I just did a slideshow/talk on what I learned at the Revelations Symposium in Seattle and coming up are Ray Frenden demoing Manga Studio techniques, Joe Lester on sculpting monsters, and Dave Dorman on traditional painting. Plus, live models!

In the meantime, check out their CAF MySpace page.

Happy New Year 2008!

To all three of you who read this blog - Happy New Year!


My much better half, Julienne, and moi.

2007 was quite a treat in Burning City's life:
- San Diego Comic-Con
- The Devil's Candy Store
- Los Angeles Movie Studio Trip
- My father's 90th birthday
- My 50th birthday (and Sputnik!)
- Many family visits!!!
- My sister's wedding!
- Sue's wedding!
- WildClaw Theatre company
- Many, many great new friends
- My new Electra bike
- Working out with a freakin' trainer
- Regular pickup basketball games in the park with the Comix Revolution guys
- The official start of The First Fear comic book production
- And much more... all worthwhile.

2008 should be quite the rollercoaster. I'm starting it off with a bang at the Conceptart.org Revelations Symposium in Seattle this week. And to help start your year off right, I'm going to remind you of the one-day Comicraft Font sale that only happens on January 1.

Revelations Symposium

I'm excited! I'm going to the Massive Black/ConceptArt.org Revelations Symposium in Seattle this January. Four days immersed in making art and watching some of the best in the business doing it. Can't wait. Gotta go, there's a pencil and sketch paper waiting for me to come over and play.

24 Hour DUX

This week, Marc Rettig and I hosted a Tutorial for the DUX 2007 Conference entitled, "24 Hour Comic Session". DUX stands for "Conference on Designing for User Experience" and my connection to it comes from my days at HannaHodge as a Business Strategist. Yes, a Business Strategist.


It was my big shoulders and Marc's big shoulders that they counted on.

This was suppose to be a literal 24 Hour session ala Scott McCloud's challenge, but turned out to be 7.5 hours. Go figure. Marc and I made some adjustments and were very fortunate to get 8 people attending who were of good heart, sound minds, and full of energy and creativity. They finished a ten page comic book that they wrote, designed and produced. Very cool.

Pink Raygun Interview

Pink Raygun came by the Rolling Thunder booth at the San Diego Comic-Con where The Devil's Candy Store was hanging our shingle and did a fun interview with Denise Dorman and myself. Lisa Fary and John Dallaire of Pink Raygun were very cool.

Wizzie World ChiTown-style 2007

Tricia Helfer of Battlestar Galactica

To be honest, I went to the convention in Chicago this year for one thing and one thing only. To meet Tricia Helfer of BSG. Number 6.

She was great. After many hours of signing everything people put before her and sitting for every photo possible, she was still the sweetest, charming young lass from Alberta that one could ask for. And yes, she's that tall and that beautiful in person.


Alex Wald manning our Artists Alley table

Oh yeah, I was in Artists Alley, too. Alex and I were hawking our wares with Alex being the much more successful one. Things are looking up lately for Alex. He is the colorist on a new Star Wars book, among many other things.


Bill Reinhold


Alex, Linda Lessmann, and Leanna


Leanna's New Tattoo (she designed it herself)


Linda Lessmann


Mike McCormick, formerly of First Comics

Mike was my BSG pal at the con. He was kind enough to wait in line me for Tricia Helfer's autograph. And if you have ever waited in line with me, you know what a sacrifice that was. Thank you Mike.


Serena Guerra

Serena and Jeff were at the table next to Bill and Linda, along with fellow artist, Dave Kovacs, and were part of our little Alley community.


Dave Kovacs


Lydia Burris

Lydia made the rounds of the tables like a trooper. New to comics and the big city, she is taking on comic books with her own work. Her enthusiasm reminds me of Willow Dawson.


Black Canary and Batgirl

Wizard World Chicago - Pre-show Press

Alex Wald and I were interviewed for a nice little piece by Michael Bonesteel of the Pioneer Press. Just in time for the old Wizard World. This link will take you there.

SDCC 07 - Meet the Convention

A spot of color in the darkness


Jabba the Hut and Denise make nice


The Joker and Harley at the Rolling Thunder booth


Blade Runner everywhere


The Batmobile - no matter how many times I see it, I love it.


Denise, Tony Swatton, and a Pirate Lass


SciFi Channel Mind Control Device


They're alive!!! And invading Alex's personal space.


Sunday afternoon. I know the feeling.

See you next year!

SDCC 07 - Meet The Devils

San Diego Comic-Con 2007. Exhausting, exhilarating, ass-kicking.

One of the best things about Comic-Con this year was the chance to meet a lot of the people involved in The Devil's Candy Store adventure.


Stormtrooper Elvis, Jack, Denise, and Dave Dorman

My new business partner, Denise Dorman, and her husband Dave Dorman made this an exceptional trip. Their friendship and con experience made this event happen in all the right ways. Thank you, Denise and Dave. It was a pleasure to meet Darlene who took care of Jack while we took care of business.

Denise and I also did an interview with Lisa Fary and John Dallaire of Pink Raygun.

And now, in no particular order, the Devils and some friends:


Mark Nagata and Alex Wald

Alex Wald, The Devil's Candy Store Art Director, met up for the first time in human form with his longtime pal, Mark Nagata of the Max Toy Company. Alex will have some work in a show Mark's putting together at Chicago's Rotofugi called Toy Karma.


Christopher Moeller


Craig Elliott and Amy


Batgirl and Jon Van Fleet


Scott Hampton


Durwin Talon


The lovely Kristina, Stephan Martiniere, and Donato Giancola

We had the good fortune of having our portion of the booth directly across from Donato's booth where we got to know Donato's beautiful and charming helpers, Christina and Rocky. They shared their space with Cathy and Arnie Fenner of Spectrum.


Jon Foster and Denise Dorman


Mike Kennedy and his fiance, Liz


Tom Baxa


Joey Wester and Christopher Moeller

Joey is this dazzling redhead whose work you've seen many, many times, but just don't know it. Joey is the premiere painter of those paintings you see in television and movies in the characters' surroundings.


Denise and Dave Dorman and Clydene Nee

Clydene was instrumental in many good things to come our way and we thank her for it.


Jack and the Chocolate Box


Beth and Phil Burnett

Phil was my fellow BSG geek and thankfully one of us made it into the panel. Of course, this meant that Beth had to sit through four hours of geekville and Danny Bonaduce questions.


Dean Haglund and Patti (and the Joker)

A big surprise was meeting Dean and his beautiful girlfriend, Patti, who turned out to be excellent dinner companions. Both were charming and funny and Dean had stories that ranged from Buddy Hackett to Ur Castles and beyond.

Others in The Devil's Candy Store circle that were a joy to meet were Tom Carroll of Rockstar Games, Kevin Anderson, and Rebecca Moesta.

We also ran into Howard Chaykin, Brom, Olivia DeBerardinis, Geof Darrow, Peter Kuper, Tony Akins, Joshua Ellingson, Alice Bentley, Bill Reinhold, Peter and Anya from the Blick Forums, Mitch O'Connell, and Steve Rude, among others.


And Kathy Tanaka came to visit!!!