ECCC 2010 Wrap Up

Where do I even begin, since there was so much that happened over the weekend. I've been attending ECCC as a fan for the past 7 years, but this was the first time I attended as an artist. It's been an amazing run for me personally since I've started the Spokane Comicon [link] back in 07 because of all the great people in the industry I've gotten a chance to know. Two of them are artists Levi Skeen [link] and Ben 1314 Hansen [link] Both are crazy talented and invited me to join them along with the rest of the Sketch Crew [link] at ECCC. I graciously accepted as I could help promote my con and do my art thang.
Right from the get go when the trumpet blared on Saturday I was instantly busy selling prints and doing commissions. I don't think I took my first real break until 3pm. It was really cool besides seeing many of the pros I've gotten to know over the years, but also friends from all over Washington who came by and said hi. I was also amazed how many people where from the east side of the state and where also stoked to see me cross promoting for the Spokane Comicon
On Sunday I had a girl come up to me and look through my portfolio and said she was looking for Punisher prints, which I didn't have. She commissioned me to do a color/inked piece of the Punisher that she would then take to Thomas Jane to sign, no pressure. Some other commissions I did were Deadpool, Clone Trooper, Batman, Poison Ivy, Catwoman just to name a few (pics coming soon).
My personal favorite part of the con was being able to get into the con an hour and half prior to the doors opening. This gave me a tremendous opportunity to talk to fellow artists and vendors. My personal agenda was accomplished by getting to talk to (name dropping time) Tim Sale, Greg Rucka, J.H. Williams III, John Layman, Matthew Southworth, and Dustin Nguyen to name a few. I got some prints, signed comics, a few sketches and talk Spokane Comicon boo-yah. Fingers crossed that maybe we might see one of those guys come to the Inland Northwest some day.
I am looking forward to doing Jet City Comicon in September (new sister con to ECCC) and returning to ECCC in 2011. I took lots of notes on how to improve and I can't wait for the next con. I only wish I had time to do some sketches at my own show, but I'll be to busy making sure things are running smooth.
Talking with a few friends considering how well I did at ECCC they are trying to tell me I should start doing commissions on Deviant art here. Anyone want to give me their thoughts?
A couple other notes to wrap up my thoughts on ECCC. One, was that I debuted my first 3/5 guest comic panels to Monster Commute [link] artist Daniel M Davis. Daniel really liked my interpretation of his characters and thought I captured the essence nicely. For those of you who don't know Daniel asked me to be a guest artist for his Monster Commute web comic so while Daniel travels to cons in the summer he can run the guest artist strips.
The other second item worth noting was on Sunday when creator/writer of Image Comics Chew came by my table. I've had the please of having a few conversations with John prior to ECCC so he knew who I was, plus he will be coming to the Spokane Comicon [link] as a guest. Anyways, he checked out my portfolio and commented that he liked my Chew tribute drawings. John then asked me if I've seen the latest issue of Chew. I said no not yet, and he said "well you should, you're in it!"
"what do you mean?" I asked."I published one of your tribute drawings in the back" he said. I think I swore to some degree in my ecstatic state of mind. For the record I think it's in Chew #8, because that's the only issue I don't have, and it's not in #9. Go me. UPDATE! I got a scan of it and it was in issue #8.
Anyways, thanks for reading. It was great being surrounded by so many talented people and I am still on an emotional high from the entire weekend. I came home on Monday to read this [link]Cheers