2000 My First San Diego Comic-Con

In 2000 my wife and I decided to attend the San Diego Comic-con with my buddy Dave and his wife. I had been fair response to my mail-in samples, but they were brief. We had always wanted to attend the big con and so I drew these pages.

First I showed them to Mark Chiarello of DC comics. He had a notebook with examples that he used to illustrate his advice. For example, one thing he told me was my backgrounds looked faked and he showed some examples of cityscapes done right from his notebook. He told me I had lots of work ahead of me, but I had potential.

Then I signed up for a portfolio review from Marvel and Chris Claremont and Len Wein looked at my pages. They were encouraging, but like Mark they told me I had a lot of work ahead of me.

After the con I was approached by a former coworker who was working for a place that did 3d animation. He tried to get me a job there so I spent over a year learning 3d animation and trying to get a job with his company. While I kept drawing comic samples periodically, it was a distraction that never paid off

Which is too bad because things were starting to get good.