{"id":142,"date":"2008-02-25T10:03:10","date_gmt":"2008-02-25T16:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/?p=142"},"modified":"2010-04-26T11:24:58","modified_gmt":"2010-04-26T17:24:58","slug":"130-empire-comics-grand-opening-and-signing-september-16th-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/archives\/142","title":{"rendered":"130. Empire Comics Grand Opening and Signing, September 16th, 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]--><o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">When Ben, the owner of Empire, emailed that he wanted me to sign for him at his grand-reopening sale, I was happy to do it.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He said Timothy Green II and Ron Lim had agreed to be there, and he asked if I knew any other local talent who might be willing to come in as well.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>I ended up emailing Ryan Sook, JH Williams III, Mick Gray, Sam Kieth, and Mario Hernandez, because they were the only guys who didn\u2019t live horribly far away, who I didn\u2019t feel uncomfortable asking.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>None of them were able to make it (and it turns out Ron Lim didn&#8217;t make it either, at least not while I was there), but JH (Jim) said he would have liked to have come out, because he wanted to meet Timothy Green II.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I thought that was nice, because I\u2019d been getting to know Timothy, and hanging out with him a little at some of the conventions.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019d done a signing at this very store some time ago.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Timothy told me of his Moebius influences, and how he enjoyed trying to draw machines that looked functional.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He said he studied pictures of machines or engines or whatever, just to understand them visually, for his crazy futuristic cars and machines.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>That stuck with me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">He\u2019d just done \u201cAeon Flux\u201d for Darkhorse, and issues of \u201cRush City\u201d were starting to come out.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>I guess Pontiac wanted to have a comic of their car, so that kids would think it\u2019s cool and want to buy their cars when they got older or something.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Of all things, I was watching the Daily Show, and Lewis Black did a sequence about advertising on his \u201cBack in Black\u201d segment, and sure enough, he made fun of this car comic, and there was Timothy\u2019s artwork, prominently displayed on the Daily Show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">So on the day of the signing, I was excited to tell Timothy about Jim wanting to meet him, as well as seeing his comic on tv.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He said that the editor on the comic was ecstatic, had contacted Timothy, and emailed him a link to the \u201cBack in Black\u201d segment.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>But although Timothy thought it was cool and all, he\u2019d never seen the Daily Show before, so I guess it wasn\u2019t as special to him as it was to his editor and me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">He wasn\u2019t familiar with JH Williams\u2019 artwork, so I poked around through the store, perusing the racks for awhile, and I found the first trade paperback of \u201cSeven Soldiers of Victory.\u201d<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Timothy really took his time flipping through, and was really impressed with Jim\u2019s work.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He picked up right away on the Moebius \u201cBlueberry\u201d influence\/homage of the Western scenes.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>I get the feeling Timothy could be on his way up in the comics industry.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He\u2019s been landing work pretty steadily, and seems to be getting quite well-paying, high profile gigs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">He said that the sales of his car book haven\u2019t been particularly good, but that he\u2019s still happy, because they paid him a lot to do them.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He said DC Comics, who published the book, is happy, because they were paid a lot by Pontiac for the licensing. And the greatest part is, even though sales haven\u2019t been great, Pontiac has been excited to see their Solstice GXM prominently in action in comics!<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Talk about a win-win.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Supposedly the car company is even talking about doing a sequel!<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Timothy said the challenge with this comic is that so much of it is a drawing of a person sitting in a car, talking on a cell phone.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>So Timothy has to keep coming up with new angles and ways of showing this exact same image, panel after panel, and somehow keeping it interesting.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He said he needs pictures of more different kinds of cell phones too, because he has one, and his girlfriend has one, and he doesn\u2019t want everyone in the comic to have those same two cell phones.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Funny to listen to the kinds of dilemmas different people have on their different projects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">For this signing, no one bought any of my comics, and I think I talked to two people, but one of them was a guy I had just seen over at the A-1 signing a couple months before.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He was at both signings because both stores had had sales on their back issues.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">That\u2019s exactly how I was, about ten years ago, where getting a good deal on back-issues was all that really mattered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Still had a nice time, and I\u2019d be happy to do it again, any time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Ben, the owner of Empire, emailed that he wanted me to sign for him at his grand-reopening sale, I was happy to do it.\u00a0 He said Timothy Green II and Ron Lim had agreed to be there, and he asked if I knew any other local talent who might be willing to come in 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it.\u00a0 He said Timothy Green II and Ron Lim had agreed to be there, and he asked if I knew any other local talent who might be willing to come 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