Baltimore Comic Con Prize Pack

I did not make it to Baltimore Comic Con. I would have loved to have gone, but it is a long way off and well with a new baby on the way that kind of money just is not there to be thrown around.

One of the reasons I would have loved to have gone was because of the 2013 Baltimore Comic Con Yearbook they were putting out. It was to feature a series of artist doing their take of Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo. That was ok though, I found out my wife’s cousin was going to be there and she agreed to pick me up a copy if I sent her the money…

Then it happened. The wife’s car needed some repairs and all the extra money went the way of the Dodo. So I had to tell Katie “thanks for being willing, but is not in the budget anymore…”

So flash forward a couple weeks and the postman drops a box off at our house with all of this inside…

IMG_20130921_213131 Not only did Katie pick me up a copy of the book, but a bunch of other goodies to go with it!!!

An Sketch of Usagi and Autograph by Stan Sakai inside the front cover.

Autographs of all artist who contributed to the book attending the BCC. (28 in all) . Rich Woodall and Jason Copland shown.

My Art – Homage to Kirby with the Ducks

When Don Rosa makes an appearance at a convention he always has an assortment of prints with him.

A large number of these prints are famous comic book covers with the original characters replaced with characters from the Duck Universe.

I always loved that idea and one boring winter day I thought it would be fun to take a shot at making one myself. The cover I chose was Fantastic Four #49 drawn by the King himself, Jack Kirby.

The issue, “If This Be Doomsday!”, was the continuation of the first appearance of the villain Galactus in the the Marvel Universe. It is a classic comic in every sense of the word, and one of my favorite comic covers of all time.

In my version I chose to reverse the roles. Galactus and Silver Surfer would be Scrooge and Donald while the Fantastic Four would be filled by various members of the Beagle Boys Gang.

I really liked how the drawing turned out. If I could change something about it, I would change the Beagle Boys. They come off as being flat to me, and I would have liked them to be more dynamic, to actually convey a sense of movement and pop off the page. When I was done with the drawing, I scanned the image in and did some basic flat coloring. I never went back and did any shading on it though.

Art – Original Don Rosa Donald Duck Drawing

I have a small collection of original sketches by Don Rosa. This is my newest, a quick drawing of Donald Duck.

Comics – Meeting Don Rosa

Anyone who knows me knows I am a major fan of Uncle Scrooge McDuck, well all cartoon and comic Ducks but Scrooge is my favorite. So a couple of years back when I got to table at a convention sitting right next to Don Rosa I was ecstatic. Suffering from a major case of being star struck I did not manage to talk to him as much as I would have liked to, but I did manage to get our picture taken together! Couple years later when he came to the convention again I was able to get him to sign a copy of the photo for me!

Happy Birthday Donald Duck!

Donald Duck.

I love Donald Duck. I have never been a very big Mickey Mouse fan, in fact I would almost say I hate Mickey Mouse, but I love Donald Duck.

Donald Duck was the everyman. A little hot-headed, always having things go wrong… struggling to make it through the day. That is why I loved Donald Duck. Even when I was younger I found it much easier to like a character with real personality and faults.

75 years ago today a Disney short was released by the name of The Wise Little Hen. This short marked the first appearance of Donald Duck. Donald would have a long career at Disney, and would at times surpass Disney’s Mickey Mouse in popularity. Donald, according to the Disney Comics Worldwide site, has appeared in over 150 cartoons. That is a pretty impressive number in my opinion.

These days Donald and his family live on in comics. Living off of a rich and well built family and history created for him by the great Duck artist Carl Barks in the town of Duckburg and kept going by the equally as great Don Rosa and others.

In the United States Donald is not as popular as he once was, but in Eurpoe he continues to thrive. Each year Tons of new comics are released and the Duck’s adventures continue. While here his fate is up in the air for the time being. With financial problems sending Gemstone publishing the way of the DODO the future of Disney comics is up in the air… With a little luck another company with enough love and respect for the characters will pick up the liscence and do right by them.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISTER DUCK