THE SIMPSONS NEWS

So the Simpsons Movie is out and the response from most everyone has been real positive. According to The Numbers and Box Office Mojo, it made $74,036,787 the first weekend and it’s up to $97,222,671 as of the time of this writing, which is really great. And that’s just the domestic gross. As an artist, any successful animated movie is good because it means more work for us. But of course this one means more to me personally because I worked on it. In any case, we are very happy about how the film is doing. Although, as of the time of this writing, no one from my family has actually seen it. I have had friends that have though, and they tell me they enjoyed it.

As far as work on the show goes, it’s not going well at all. The movie really did a number on the shows. We are very behind on many of them. The retakes department is flooded with work that needs to get done. Retakes is a department that deals with fixing thing on the finalized color version of a show that comes back wrong from Korea (where they do the final animation). They also rework scenes that have been rewritten. On Tuesday I was one of three crew members that got taken off Lance’s crew for the rest of the week to help out the retakes department. Needless to say it’s a bit annoying for all of us. Especially since I was going at a decent pace on Lance’s show. Lance’s show is now going to be late because of this. This is really bad. It means everyone will be working late to try to catch up to regular schedules. Like I said in my interview on The Catholic Insider, things sometimes get very stressful. To make it worse, the last retake scene handed to me has a crowd of kids in it. MAN, I hate drawing crowds!

COMIC CON

My trip to Comic Con began badly. Taking care of my baby daughter in the morning before I left made me a bit late. I left the house thirty minutes after I intended to leave. It was going to be a two hour drive to San Diego and I wanted to get there when the doors opened so I could get my on-site professional registration done and over with quickly. It took two hours and thirty minutes to get there because I ran into some random traffic. Once at San Diego, it was hell on earth just to find parking. San Diego has all these one way streets that, if you don’t know the city well, can get you really frustrated. The traffic was horrible in the city, EVERYONE was looking for parking. Luckily, I remembered I found parking five years ago south of the convention center so I headed in that direction and I found a place to park. This took about thirty minutes. I got to the convention center an hour off schedule.

Once in the convention center I stood in line to register at the professional’s booth. Usually I pre-register and get in for free, but this time I had forgotten to do so, so for the first time in thirteen years of going to the Con I paid to get in. While in line I found out that the water I had set aside to bring along with me wasn’t in my backpack. I realized, to my annoyance, I had left it at home. The Con has drinking fountains but I was stuck in line, so I couldn’t get a drink and I was really thirsty. An hour and a half later, I got my badge and drank some water at a drinking fountain (I refused to buy a bottle of the ridiculously overpriced water they were selling) then I went inside to walk around.

As it always does, the Con overwhelmed my senses as I walked into the Dealer’s Hall. Geekiness oozed as far as the eyes could see while mobs of the geek elite walked purposely from place to place. I happen to enter the Con right by the Wizards of the Coast (WoC) booth. I saw a line where people were rolling a giant 20 sided die in order to win a free WoC product. One of my personal favorite WoC games is Dreamblade. I saw they were giving some boosters away so instead of starting my quest for art items I could only get at the Con, I thought I’d stand in the small line to try to get a Dreamblade booster pack.

The line was short and after about ten minutes it was my turn. Unfortunately in order to roll the die, you needed to have been shown a demo of one of the games that the people at the WoC booth were trying to sell. Since I hadn’t participated in a demo, I couldn’t get an item. The guy, told me if I participated in a demo I’d be moved to the front of the line when it was over but I just didn’t have time to do that so I just left. So far my Comic Con had been really annoying and tiring.

I then started my trek through the Con. As I always do, I started at one end and walked up and down the rows till I got to the other end. It took about five hours I think. I saw so many interesting things. In all the times I’ve gone to the Con I’ve always forgotten to bring a camera. It’s so annoying. I always remember when I see something I would like a picture of. Like some of the sculptures of movie, game, and comic characters. Or the crazy colored Darth Vader helmets or the crazy colored Bart Simpson heads. Then there was that awesome life size Adam Hughes drawing of the Star Wars Legacy Jedi on the Dark Horse booth. There was a giant Voldemort statue on top of another booth and a life size Optimus Prime in another. That’s only SOME of what was there and I don’t have pictures of any of it. Aaaaahh!

On my trek through the Con, I passed my friend Aimiee’s booth and I took some of her postcards that she had out for free. I bought a few books of sketches from different artists and I paid very close attention to how artists promoted themselves and their comics (for when I have to do it). The whole time I was there, my main goal was to look for anything I might get inspiration from for my web comic. I passed by a section that had all web comic artists but I didn’t introduce myself because I had nothing to show them. Besides, I’m an introvert and it’s not in my nature to go up and approach people. I did pay attention to what and how they sold their things. One of the booths I’m glad I stopped at was the Alcatraz High booth. I met the writer/artist Bobby Rubio and bought the books that he had there. His drawings are great. His comics where one of the few comics I got at the con that really made me start thinking about how I was going to approach my web comic. Bobby Rubio is a storyboard artist at Pixar and also worked on Avatar: The last Airbender along side my friends Kenji Ono and Tomi Yamaguchi. He signed my books. Thanks Bobby!

Finally, as I approached the other side of the Con I reached the Stuart Ng booth. Stuart Ng sells European comics and I was in heaven. Problem was I only had a little bit of money left. Last year I spent a lot of money there. This year I only had enough for four books. The agony of choosing was almost unbearable. There were a lot of French comics there. You see, the French, like the Japanese, take their comics seriously. There have been many influential people that have talked about French comics as another serious classic art form. It’s difficult to argue against the fact that these comics are, by far, some of the best in the world and here I was trying to pick only four. Well, I chose my four. I was sooo happy with the comics I bought there. They are so INSPIRING! I’m so glad I got them. I’m so glad I went. I didn’t know I needed the inspiration until I left the Con and really took a long look at what I bought. It was a great ending to an irritating day.

MY WEB COMIC

I finished the first draft of my web comic story. Finally the hard part is over (getting it all down from start to finish.) After I read the draft I said the same thing my friends said when they read the first draft of the Simpsons Movie. “It’s terrible!” Hopefully, now that I have it written down I can start working out the kinks. I hope the revisions will be successful. The story needs to be rock solid before I start drawing. Otherwise it’s just a waste of energy.

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