A friend of mine posted the video “Germany on the Rise!” by comedian Jan Böhmermann on Facebook and I just have to do my bit to keep it viral.
It’s the irony of doing an optimistic message in the style of Death Metal that makes it work for me.
Well the rest of Emerald City Comicon went okay I guess. Regrettably I got called to help a friend moving a whole lot of stuff to a Boating swap market on Friday afternoon and having to be at the swap market starting at 5:00 Saturday morning and then took everything we couldn’t sell over to Goodwill.
I finally arrived back at the Convention Center at four o’clock and frankly I was running on fumes and really wasn’t doing any of my best work. Sunday afternoon was a little bit better.
All in all I can’t say this went quite as well as other conventions I’ve done the park scene with. None of the Cosplayers were really “hanging out” the way they did in Sakuracon so I was only able to get a “bead” on a small handful of them, and even when I did most of them left before I could flesh out any of the gesture sketches I had begun.
Still the people watching was enjoyable making for an entertaining weekend.
A grownup Aang, A Unicorn wearing a Gasmask and the Skeksis Chamberlin.
An adorable Spartan Warrior from Halo and a unicorn.
Some Harley Quinns
More Harley Quinss
Another Harley Quinn, some Fauns and the Queen of Hearts
Poison Ivy, Deathstroke the Terminator and the Joker hangout.
As many of my friends may know, I kind of got priced out of the Emerald City Comic Convention three years ago… and while I’ve been able to kind of attend by helping friends I kind of came to the conclusion that it wasn’t a good professional investment for me due to the focus being superheroes and not slice of life webcomics with a tiny fanbase. Besides, the place has become such an overcrowded madhouse you can’t even network properly because all of the people you want to contact have to focus on the people and are wiped out after hours.
But one thing I learned from the last couple of years of Sakuracon, that doesn’t stop me from hanging around the convention center with a sketch book. Anyway for the con’s first Thursday opening and, while the pickings were slim, I think I did okay. There weren’t that many people so I just spent about two and a half hours before going to the Pioneer Square Art Walk.
A good start I think.
Pikichu and some Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Raven texts and has coffee, a girl with an amazing smile and some cosplayers checking out their picture.
A Succubus takes a smoke break.
For this week’s selection I finally went with something I’d been wanting to do for a while, Rogues, but couldn’t find an appropriate partner to go with the film that inspired me to go this way in the first place. When I finally thought of what I’d go with it was painfully obvious.
I first heard of the gentleman crook Arsène Lupin through the classic manga Lupin the Third by Monkey Punch. It would be years before I actually read the manga let alone see any of the anime (Miyazaki’s Castle of Cagliosltro is a long time favorite of mine but) but before that I was curious enough to check out the original material by Maurice Leblanc. It was okay, though I never got past the first book. But Lupin was an interesting enough character to maintain an interest. For film versions I had two choices, unfortunately the recent remake was only in PAL format so I had to settle for the original 1932 version starring John Barrymore. Based on a play based on the book this is a fun barebones production as a lot of this filmed plays were. It pretty much consists of Lupin hiding in plain sight disguised as a count seemingly committing crimes more to troll his primary police advisory, Detective Guerchard, than anything else. Barrymore puts on a fun charismatic performance though there is to it. It has it’s moments though, My favorite being when Lupin manipulates his appearance so the description that witnesses give are identical to Guerchard’s.
From there I went with the film that started it all this Danger: Diabolik. Danger Diabolik is a Dino De Laurentiis adaptation of the Italian Comic Diabolik.
Diabolik, played by John Phillip Law is a mysterious and ruthless thief carrying out brilliant heist after brilliant heist accompanied by his beautiful partner and lover, EvaKant played by Marisa Mell. From here the movie features an episodic cat and mouse game between Diabolik, the police and criminal rivals with Diabolik always coming out on top, even when he seems to have lost.
This was a fun and trippy piece of sixties psychedelic camp. I kept imagining it as an evil version of Adam West’s Batman, except Diabolik takes itself seriously which makes it a guilty pleasure even at it’s dumbest.
For this week’s rhapsody we have the Rhapsody for Piano and Bass Trombone by Hidas Frigyes.
I spent my Sunday afternoon at the Zoo… not my first choice for good drawing time but it was a nice day so why not. Regrettably when I got to the Orangutan exhibit I heard that the male Orangutan, Towan, had died of respiratory problems the week before. He was 48 years old.
I feel just a little bad that the last time I sketched him, really was the last time.
