Remember that time...

In the last post, I said I'd spent a lot of money on stuff I didn't really need. Well at that point I didn't know what spending money on stuff I didn't really need actually was.

It was 1:30 on Sunday when I ran into Ed Brubaker on the floor. He signed a chunk of Gotham Central for me, and I asked him if Michael Lark (the artist on GC) would be signing anywhere. He told me Lark was in Artist's Alley. If you don't know, Artist's Alley is just what it sounds like - rows and rows of artists and independant comic makers. They spend the con in the Alley, drawing and peddling their wares and trying desperately to get people to so much as acknowledge their existence. I've found that, in order to survive Artist's Alley, walk in the dead center of the aisle and make eye contact with the artists at your own risk. It's harsh, I know, but it works. I absolutely appreciate what the people in the Alley are doing, and I wish I had a book of my own so I could join them. But still, there's something sad about the desperation that is apparant in so many of them. They're trying to live their dream to the best of their ability, and a lot of them just don't have the chops to do it. It's rough.

So I ventured into Artist's Alley, Gotham Central issues in hand, and made a bee-line for where I was pretty sure Mike Lark's table was (Brubaker told me Lark was near Michael Gaydos's table, which I had passed earlier in the day). I wandered a bit until I found him. He had a portfolio of original art on the table and was signing when I arrived. He signed my books, and I discovered why he left the title (and DC Comics) to begin with. Apparantly there were issues with the colorist not doing what Lark had requested on multiple occasions. And I'm sure Marvel offered him a boatload of money, too. But anyway.

Lark signed my Gotham Centrals for me, and as he did so, I flipped through his portfolio of stuff for sale. This was my first mistake.

And then I saw it. Gotham Central #15, page 20. The climactic page to the 'Soft Targets' storyline, and a page that would set up storylines for the next two years. Nevermind all of that, this page was just plain badass. There were two copies of this page in the portfolio. The first was simply the pencils to the page, which Lark drew on what looked to be a page out of a sketchbook; the second was the page inked by Stefano Gaudiano on bristol paper. So I asked how much it was. This was my second mistake.

Lark called his art dealer, who told him the pencilled page was $150, and if I bought that, the inked page would be only $50 more. It was announced on Friday that Michael Lark would be the new artist on Daredevil once Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev finished their run. I expect that, once he takes over art chores on that book, he will take off in popularity and the price for his original art will skyrocket. It was with that in mind that I told Lark I would think about the page and walked away from his table.

Twenty minutes later I went back and bought the page. Pencils only, no inks, although I'm thinking I should've bought those, too. Here it is...



Isn't that fucking sweet? This is the first page of original sequential art that I own; the other pieces of original art that I own are a Phil Jimenez pin-up of Linda Park, and a Flash cover that I commissioned from a friend of mine, Blake Wilkie (Atomic Pop Art is the studio he's a part of, they're pretty cool themselves). I'm thinking about another piece of Lark Gotham Central art, but for now I think I need to nurse my bank account back to health...

So yeah, the trip to Chicago cost me a total of $611 (not including ticket cost and a few dinners), but it was worth every penny.

Next stop: Toronto's Canadian National Expo. August 26-28.