I’d really like to attend Comic-Con this year but will have to skip. It’s not exactly a cheap trip for me to take. There’s the flight, the hotel, the admission, the food, and the $200+ I usually wind up spending on art books. Then there’s the hidden cost of lost time from freelance work.

Although the first time I attended (in 2003) I made a connection that eventually led to my current Penguins gig on NBC. So in that sense the ‘Con has paid for itself and then some.

In my two previous trips I’ve also picked up great tidbits from the seminars, and incredible inspiration from the talented artists I’ve met and chatted with. Each time I’ve come back a little poorer financially but much richer professionally.

Unfortunately I’ve just got too much going on this year to attend. Besides Penguins I’m designing a corporate mascot, illustrating some spanish curriculum, illustrating a humorous self-help book, creating a dog character for an ad campaign, and doing artwork for Flash-animted web game. Whew!

I’m also afraid that if I attended every year the Con would start to lose its luster and feel too much like just another business trip. So if I can make it down every two or three years, I’ll be happy.

To all who are attending (from the sounds of it, that’s a lot of you)….have a blast!!!

Like many artists, I was an avid comic book reader growing up. I started reading Superman and Batman when I was about ten years old. I lived in a small town where comics were not readily available, so I couldn’t believe it when someone told me you could actually subscribe to a comic book! I got a paper route so I could pay for my subscription to Superman. I think it was $9 a year, with a cover price of 75 cents.

I didn’t just read comic books, I studied them. The line work, the anatomy, the poses all fascinated me, and I sometimes copied the art into my sketchbook (John Byrne and Curt Swan were my favorite artists to emulate). My drawings never turned out as well as I hoped but I sure learned a lot. Here’s a photo of me on a fishing trip to Canada. Guess what I did all day while everyone else was out in the boat?

I continued to collect comics into my college years (early 1990’s). By then comics were getting darker and more “adult”, which offended my conservative sensibilities and made them less enjoyable for me to read. Plus, my interests were drifting to other things.

I’ve held onto my collection of over 1,000 comics, and I still occasionally visit the local comic book shops and buy an issue or two if the art really strikes me (although I don’t usually read them). I’ve kept my comics this long with the hopes that they will one day be worth some moolah. My plan was to wait thirty years, sell my collection for a large sum, and maybe buy a new car or help pay for my daughter’s college tuition.

I’ve come to accept that it will never happen.

My dad collects comic books from his childhood (the ’40’s and ’50’s), and they are worth real money because they are rare. He grew up in an era when Congress was having hearings on the dangers comic books posed to society, and many parents were chucking their kids’ comic books into the trash. The idea that comic books might one day be valuable didn’t even occur to most readers.

Not so for my generation. I collected most of my comics at the height of the “comic book bubble” (late 80s-mid 90’s). Comics were all the rage and collectors were snatching up issues ten copies at a time in the hopes of one day selling them and getting rich. Often publishers couldn’t keep up with the demand. The problem is, collectibles (be they comic books, stamps, or beannie babies) are only valuable if they are rare. It’s simple supply and demand.

Unlike my Dad, as my generation gets older this glut of comic books will follow us into old age. I could pass them on to my kids or grandkids, but they won’t value them much because they didn’t grow up with them and therefore don’t have any emotional or sentimental attachment to them. My comic book collection will simply never be as valuable as the comics my Dad collects. (Star Wars action figures on the other hand…)

So, I’ve decided to start weeding through my comic books and selling the issues that don’t have either great art or deep sentimental value. I’m finding a lot of them aren’t worth anything. In my first box of about 200 comics, I only found 12 that were worth more than $5 each (according to comicspriceguide.com), none of which were printed after 1985. Most of my collection is only worth $1-$3 dollars an issue.

Getting someone to pay the full price of what they are supposedly worth is not always easy, and certainly not worth the hassle just to get a dollar here or there. Who’s going to pay me $4 in shipping on ebay just to buy a $2 comic book? Even if one does sell, subtract the ebay selling fee (85 cents) then factor in the time it takes to package up the comic and drive across town to stand in line at the post office, and it’s just not worth it.

Besides, no matter what the Price Guide says the true value of any object is whatever you can get someone to pay for it. The few comics that do have some real cash value I’ll try selling on ebay (I’ll post a link once they are all listed.) I might try selling the rest in “lots” on ebay (i.e. 5-10 at a time). If that doesn’t work, I’m putting my comics in a box and driving them down to the local comic book shop. Maybe I’ll get twenty dollars a box for them. We live in a modest home, and frankly I need the storage space more than I need the extra $100 I might earn from holding on to the comics for another ten years.

For Father’s Day my wife bought me “Superman in the Eighties” and “Batman in the Eighties“, each a fun collection of reprinted stories. For the most part, I’m content with that.

I got a call on Friday for a rush project that is due tomorrow. Since I was out of town all weekend at a cabin for my brother’s bachelor party, I’ve got a lot of work to do over the next 36 hours. I’ll be pretty much chained to my drawing board with my wife bringing me meals, an occasional backrub, and if necessary energy drinks to get me through the night. Jennie, you’re the best!

I’ll also be out of town Saturday through Wednesday of next week with two back-to-back family get-togethers, which means I’ve got a lot to catch up on before I leave. When it rains, it pours. Thankfully having a Macbook Pro and a Wacom tablet allows me to take my work on the road. I can’t draw nearly as fast on a Wacom as I can on my Cintiq, but it gets the job done. Also, my iPhone allows me to check e-mails pretty much anywhere, anytime (the other day I answered three e-mails while standing in the checkout line). Now all I need is a Modbook (a tablet Mac) and my studio will be completely portable. (I don’t mean to sound pretentious, I’m just a techno-geek).

My goal is to try and post something on this blog every weekday. That’s going to be tough this week, but I’m sure gonna try. I need to come up with something clever like Tom Richmond’s Dreaded Deadline Demon. In the mean time, thanks for your patience, and check back tomorrow.

Here’s a few recent doodles from my pocket sketchbook. As I thumb through it’s pages, I realize that I’ve drawn a lot of faces lately but very few full-body poses. That’s not good. Faces are easier for me to draw than the rest of the body, so I hope I’m not getting lazy and only drawing what I’m familiar with. The more my skills improve, the stronger the temptation for me to do easy sketches that look “professional” rather than awkward, messy sketches that reveal my weaknesses. But those ugly sketches can be the most important. How else am I going to keep learning and growing if I don’t wrestle with the hard stuff? If I ignore my weak areas and just start “coasting”, in the long run I’ll wind up stunted. Next time I go out sketching it’s gonna be full-body poses.

I can now reveal the name of the hush-hush project I’ve been working on: 3-2-1 Penguins!

Penguins is the number one rated show on Qubo, the Saturday morning cartoon block on NBC. It’s a fun, quirky series from Big Idea Productions (creators of VeggieTales) about four penguins who travel the universe along with two young children, Jason and Michelle. It’s a fun show with snappy action and lots of humor. Here’s a description of the show from the official Big Idea website:

3-2-1 Penguins! is a video series that tells the story of two young kids (Jason and Michelle) and four out-of-this-world penguins, as they explore the galaxy — and learn important, Bible-based lessons and values along the way.

Starting this fall Penguins will be getting it’s own weekly slot on NBC with brand-new episodes. I’ve been hired to design characters for several of those episodes, and I feel very honored. It’s long been a dream of mine to do work for Big Idea, and there are a lot of super-talented professionals working on this project (including Tom Bancroft, Rob Corely, Tod Carter, Eddie Pittman, John Pomeroy, Tony Bancroft, Mark McDonnell, Tim Hodge, David Nethery, and many others). Each team member has a very impressive body of work, so the bar for me has been raised pretty high.

Balancing this with my other freelance work has been a challenge, but I can’t remember when I’ve had more fun working so hard.

For the official announcement about the new show, click here.

To learn more about 3-2-1 Penguins!, click here.

Today is a busy day with deadlines for several projects all converging between now and Monday. So no time to post. But there are a bunch of very talented artists listed to the right, please check them out!

Also, on Tuesday I will be sending out my quarterly e-mail updating past clients (and potential new ones) about my latest news and projects. If you would like to join my mailing list, click here. I send out one e-mail about every 3-4 months, and a piece of “snail mail” once or twice a year.

Have a great weekend!