Ok, I'm back from Pittsburgh Comicon and it was way cool, you should all go. It's a small convention, as they go, and we went on the first day while a lot of people were either in school or at work, so it was pretty slow, which allowed us to meet and talk to a lot of people.

I got to hang out with Brad Guigar of Evil INC and pick up my very own copy of How To Make Webcomics!



It's a great book if you, well, want to make webcomics. Not so much if you, say, want to make custom kitchen cabinets or or learn how to hotwire a Russian MIG-29, but great for making webcomics!

Anyways we had a lot of fun and you should all go buy a whole bunch of his stuff to make up for the fact that I could only buy one book from him, that book being the most self-serving thing I bought at the entire con.

Well, apart from the giant pretzel. That was pretty self-serving too.


I also met, and got to talk extensively with Brian Pulido, formerly of Chaos! Comics, and creator of Lady Death, Evil Ernie and Chastity the Vampire among others.




I was initially attracted to this next one because it has a kick-ass cover shot of Matt Wagner's Grendel, one of my all time favorites, but I bought it because the proceeds go to the Hero Initiative.



The Hero Initiative creates a financial safety net for comic creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. Since inception, the Hero Initiative has been fortunate enough to benefit over 40 creators and their families with over $400,000 worth of much-needed aid, fueled by your contributions! It's a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment.






I've been following Jay Brant and his kinda quirky artwork on Deviant Art for some time now and was thrilled to see him at the con as well. He had lots of cool stuff for sale, stickers, tiles cards and buttons. I was only able to buy this Hellboy button, but believe me, I was tempted to walk away with a lot more. This piece is going on my Halloween Costume (which you'll be seeing pictures of shortly). Check out his work and if you see him, buy something!







Then I got to meet Ken Haeser who gave me a great deal on the first 9 issues of The Living Corpse which, as the cover proclaims, is soon to be a CGI motion picture from Shoreline entertainment.



Haven't got to read much of it yet, but the artwork is pretty fucking cool. Speaking of artwork, since I got the entire catalog I got a free sketch of whichever character I wanted. Not knowing much about the comic yet, I went with the sexy(?) Bride of Frankenstein character.



The sketch is amazing and well worth what the comics cost by itself. I think I benefited greatly by hitting him right at the end of the show, because he got to spend quite a bit of time on it. In short order it will be framed and hanging in my studio.

Oh, I met George Kosana who played Sheriff McClelland in the original 1968 version of Night Of The Living Dead. You might remember him as the guy at the end of the movie with the cigars in his hatband who says "Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up."

Yes, he had the hat AND the cigars.

Also on hand from Dawn of the Dead was Leonard Lies, AKA the 'Machete Zombie' and Sharon Ceccatti Hill who played the 'Nurse Zombie' in Dawn and 'Blonde Nurse' in Hellraiser III.

We got to speak with the good people at Planet Saturday Comics, who were cool as hell, as well as Illustrator Kevin R. Leen (whom we'll be seeing again at the Columbus Comicon next month) and the guy from The Guns Of Shadow Valley which is another that I haven't read yet, but it looks really good.



And as if all that wasn't cool enough, I, and my sidekick Remdog, got to have dinner with Chris Flick from Capes & Babes and the very lovely Danielle Corsetto from Girls With Slingshots. Some of you may also remember her as the second artist on The New Adventures of Batboy which was featured in the Weekly World News.





This was mainly pulled off because Rem knew both of them beforehand (he was actually Danielle's RA in college if you can believe that). Dinner and drinks were had and despite Rem's steadfast refusal to tell Danielle all about how I'm the greatest guy in the world (it's not like I was asking him to LIE or anything...) I still think we got along famously.



So yeah, the con is on for two more days. Go if you can, it's well worth it. Stan 'the Man' Lee will be there tomorrow, but if you want to see him you'll have to buy a $40 ticket on top of the $18 that gets you in the door and last I heard there were only 6 or 8 spots left.

So, yeah, I've been awake for about 36 straight hours now, so I'm gonna go pass out for a couple days. More when I awaken from my unholy slumber to feast once again on the squishy brain-parts of the living.

And for god's sake, if you see any of these people BUY SOMETHING!

Or I suppose you could just throw money at them, they seem to like that too. Just remember, they're making a living off this stuff which is something I hope to accomplish myself one day, so PLEASE support the artists!