THANK YOU to everyone who showed up for Big Fun Signy-Time Goodness yesterday. It went even better than I hoped, and the time sort of just zipped on by. (Was it really two hours? It couldn’t have been two hours….)

Photographic evidence of my existence (and that of Ms. Gofflin and her big pillowy home-made troll doll, Toofus) can be found on Alakazam’s Facebook thingee RIGHT ABOUT HERE.

And thanks again to Holly, Will and Marco at Alakazam for organizing the event! God, that store is just BLEEDING cool… Nicely designed, well-stocked, not a single CHUD hiding in the corners… Honestly, if everyone in the comic industry had the same enthusiasm, creativity and commitment to detail these Alakazamians have, our business would be bigger than Moving Pictures. We need loads more people like that, so please, if you live in the SoCally-type area, show your support! (I hear they might have some extra signed copies of my books, if you’re into that sort of thing…)

And now a small story…

The first time I ever approached someone with the specific intention of obtaining their autograph was when I spotted Siouxsie Sioux at O’Hare Airport in Chicago eight years ago. We were both waiting for the same flight to San Francisco, and we had a LONG time to wait, so I had PLENTY of time to sit and squirm and just generally work my stomach into thick, twitchy emotional knots over whether or not approaching her would be “the thing to do.”

As we were about to board the plane, I sprang into action:

“Excuse me, I’m, uh… I’m a big fan of, uh, yours… Would you, uh… would you mind, uh, signing… uh, something… for me?” (12 additional “uh’s” removed for clarity.)

“Well I don’t know. What do you have for me?”

NOW. One way of interpreting this question -the normal, not-insane-person kind of way- is that she’s asking me for some specific object upon which to write her name. A sheet of paper, say. Or a Compact Disc. Perhaps even a boob.

I, however, chose to interpret the question as a request for a trade: “I will give you my autograph, strange twitchy kid who’s been gawking at me for the past hour while I discussed Coen Brothers movies with my fellow Banshees, provided you have something of equivalent value for ME.”

I glanced down at my clipboard (the VERY ONE YOU SAW YESTERDAY, assuming you were at the Alakazam signing, which you were because you’re awesome-sauce).

“I um… I could give you this, um, lovely… drawing here.”

She took the clipboard from me and did her swirly little name thing right under the top-most drawing.

“THANK YOU!” I said (probably). She smiled and turned to get back in line.

“THE TRADE, YOU FOOL!” my brain shrieked at me, in the style of Ralphie from A Christmas Story. “YOU’VE FORGOTTEN THE TRADE!”

Thinking fast, I unclipped the drawing -the very one she had JUST SIGNED- and tried to hand it to her. “I was serious, you know! You, uh, you can seriously have this drawing!”

She didn’t even look confused. She just smiled again, said “Not with my name on it,” and strolled onto the plane. I got on a few minutes later and tried not to make eye contact as I looked for my seat.

NO, THIS STORY DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE.

But it does explain why I have, on my wall right at this moment, a framed printout of Mary Ann Mirolette signed by Siouxsie Sioux:

Why did I tell that story? Well, if you are a fan of Serenity Rose or my stuff in general, there is a greater than 50% chance that you are sort of introverted. You’re a shy person, like me. Not the type to go up and talk to one of your favorite artists at a book signing or a comic convention or, y’know, just out on the street. Maybe you’d really LIKE to do that kind of thing from time to time, but you just feel too… I don’t know, intimidated or whatever.

But you shouldn’t feel that way.

I’m the guy who tried to pay Siouxsie Sioux for her autograph… WITH HER OWN AUTOGRAPH.

And I’m not the only artist with a story like that, either.

I’ll see you at the next signing!

Every so often I mention doing various “freelance” jobs here and there, just to get the bills paid and so forth. This might strike some of you as somewhat mysterious, since I never post any examples of this so-called “freelance” work. “Is he ASHAMED of this work?” you might ask. “Is it nothing but Smurf pornography and ‘peeing Calvin’ decals?”

The answer is no, it’s not ALL “peeing Calvins.” In fact, there’s some really cool stuff in there! I just don’t do a tremendous LOT of this kind of stuff, is all (I should do more, but I don’t). And quite a bit of the work I DO take on is concept design for various animated projects that don’t end up getting, y’know, made, and are therefore relegated to The Island of Misfit Copyrights forevermore. It’s sort of frustrating, actually. There’s a lot of work piled up on my hard drive I’d like to dust off and put on the site.

Not EVERYTHING gets locked away in the development basement, though. For example…

LYLIAN:

This here is a series of webcomics I wrote, penciled, finished, and colored as sort of a promotional tie-in for a PC game currently in production (check out the cool trailer dealie on the site). Lylian is about a wee kid trapped in a filthy, monster-filled insane asylum with nothing but the whippy arms of her straightjacket to protect her. Each page I’m working on has to do with a different hospital inhabitant and how they may (or may not) have gotten there. Not sure how many of these things we’ll do, but the plan is to put one out every other week or so for a little while, at least. There are two up there right now.

Go check ‘em out, eh? (Lower right hand corner, innit.) They’ve been lots of fun to work on so far.

Three cheers for projects you’re allowed to see!