Sandy What?

This time last week, I was expecting to be spending the rest of July drawing the next issue of the Muppet Show comic, writing the upcoming Pigs In Space one-shot, and generally having a quiet time of it. Since then, things have been moving at whiplash speed behind the scenes and it turns out that, despite my best efforts to stay away from it this year, I will be attending the 2009 San Diego Comic Convention. If you're going to be there and you want to track me down, I'll be spending 90% of my time at the Boom! Studios booth, sketching, signing and making an appalling nuisance of myself. (I'll also be doing the occasional panel - full schedule below if you're interested, to be updated as I find out where I'll be and when).

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SDCC 2009 - Where to find Roger Langridge

Wednesday, July 22 - PREVIEW NIGHT

6:00 - 9:00 PM - At the Boom! booth during these hours except when the following commitments drag me elsewhere:   

6:00 - 7:00 - Exclusive Disney Hardcover signing at Boom! booth

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Thursday, July 23

9:30 AM - 7:00 PM - At the Boom! booth during these hours except when the following commitments drag me elsewhere:   

11:00 - 12:00 - Exclusive Disney Hardcover signing at Boom! booth

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Friday, July 24

9:30 AM - 7:00 PM - At the Boom! booth during these hours except when the following commitments drag me elsewhere:   

11:00 - 12:00 - Exclusive Disney Hardcover signing at Boom! booth

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Saturday, July 25

9:30 AM - 7:00 PM - At the Boom! booth during these hours except when the following commitments drag me elsewhere:   

10:00 - 11:00 - Exclusive Disney Hardcover signing at Boom! booth

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Sunday, July 26

9:30 AM- 5:00 PM - At the Boom! booth during these hours except when the following commitments drag me elsewhere:   

10:00 - 11:00 - BOOM! Muppets  Panel - ROOM 32AB

11:30 - 12:30 - Exclusive Disney Hardcover signing at Boom! booth

And still they come!

On a similar note to last week's post, I thought I'd run these this week - this is a selection of sketches I did a while back when I attended the APE convention in San Francisco. My daughter was 2 at the time, so it must have been four years ago. I think these were scanned by the gentleman who took them away with him, and the scans sent to me after the show. That's what my foggy memory is telling me, anyway. I think most of these are fairly self-explanatory.

What can I tell you, it's been a dull week.

Return of the Sketch

Since last week's post-Heroes Con report, several people have sent me photos or scans of the sketches I did for them, which was really nice. I'm going to run those this week. Nice easy post!


This one was hand-coloured at the show by Laura Martin. Lovely idea.


The Escapist, er, escaping.


The Good Doctor...


My favorite super-hero...


The Batusi as performed by Alfred.


Cheesy hero/villain trying to carry off the "gay porn star" look, Vartox, from 1970s Superman comics.


Tom Waits. It's bloody Tom Waits, all right?


Darn those Yancy Streeters!


And Sandman as a Muppet.

Will Sketch for Chips

Phew! What a weekend. Heroes Con has now come and gone, and I had a fantastic time. A quick thank-you to everybody who stopped by my table, to all the people I met who made it so much fun, and most of all to the organisers, those splendid chaps at Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, who made the show go smoothly. It's like watching a swan sail across the surface of a pond - it looks so easy and moves so gracefully, but you know it must be paddling like hell under the surface to do it.


Did lots of sketches! Oh yes! And by the end the requests for Doctor Who/Muppet mash-ups were coming thick and fast. Unlike many previous conventions, I didn't get to bring a slush-pile of unwanted sketches back with me, but I reconstructed this one from memory on the plane home.

A few highlights worth mentioning:

* Alec Longstreth insisting I experience a Dairy Queen to get "a taste of the real America". (Clockwise from top left: Me, Greg Means, Alec, and Mr Phil of Indie Spinner Rack)



* Spending time with super-nice, super-good cartoonist Chris Schweizer (left to right: Gentleman whose name escapes me, Chris, Kevin Burkhalter, Drew Weing, Joey Weiser, another gentleman whose name fell out of my brain sometime between hearing it and now - my apologies!)



* Getting to experience Muppet Madness close-up! Over in the land of not-allowed-to-import-it, I've been a bit sheltered from all of that up until now.



* The effervescent Dustin Harbin - the only photo I got of him this year was a piss-poor blurry shot from Saturday night's auction (red t-shirt). He's not usually that blurry.



* Talking with Ben Towle, Jim Ottaviani, Craig Fischer and friends after the auction and totally forgetting to take any pictures

* The after-show party at the Heroes store. A very civilised way to end the show. Here are some of the people I got to hang out with:

Ed Brubaker and Jason Lutes...



... Joey Weiser and Mike Maihack (that's me on the end looking vaguely camp)...



... Jason Horn, Rosemary Van Deuren, Guy Davis and Paul Maybury



I had a long flight home on Monday with a stewardess who talked to us all like schoolchildren and inserted announcements about "remembering our boys in the troops", which could have been funny if it wasn't so annoying. Then home to family, kids, cuddles and sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.

HEROES!!

Only a couple of days now until I get on the plane to go to Heroes Con, and very much looking forward to it. For those of you attending the show who might want to track me down, I'll have a table at the Indy Island section, and will also be doing a panel on Saturday at 12:30pm, Making Comics for All Ages, with Jeff Smith, David Petersen and Chris Schweizer ("and more", it says on the schedule - possibly Don Rosa, who will be attending the show? Fingers crossed!).


Now, who can spot the difference between the cover above and the published version? Any ideas? Check out the audience members four rows back, between Gonzo's arm and his head. Yup - Bert and Ernie. I'm not allowed to use Sesame Street characters on the Muppet Show comics, but at the time I drew this cover I wasn't aware of that, so I tried to sneak 'em in. But I got busted! Still, makes a nice little curiosity for the old blog.

On the subject of Muppets, there's a chat online with me at ToughPigs.com about the third issue you may like to check out. And I spoke to Comic Geek Speak on Sunday for their pre Heroes Con show, so I imagine that will be up before the weekend. Their focus was mostly on the Muppets, although they very sweetly took the trouble to mention Fred the Clown a few times and ignored my Marvel work entirely. Did I mention I'll have Fred the Clown for sale at Heroes Con? I'll have Fred the Clown for sale at Heroes Con.

One more thing about Heroes Con - I will be sketching! Yes, I will! I'm going to try an experiment this year and have a Tip Jar, the idea being that you pay me whatever you think your sketch is worth. So everybody can afford one - no excuses!