Sister Claire

Yesterday I went to my first comic convention as an artist rather than a fan. (Although I haven’t been to many conventions, in general.) It was great!  As I expected, this was less of a convention than a small gathering of comic artists and dedicated Belgian fans who came out to the relatively remote location to meet us, buy books/posters, and request sketches. The building (which turned out to be a local pub/BBQ restaurant) was located out in the Belgian countryside, and took about an hour to reach from Brussels.

I was expecting to be greatly overshadowed by the established (and already published) artists/authors there, but much to my surprise I was treated like a celebrity!  After gratefully scarfing down the barbecue lunch, I found myself rushed for requests for drawings.  They have a very different system of comic conventions here in Belgium, it seems.  Rather than me sitting at a table and trying to hawk my goods, fans have to first buy a poster/book of yours, and then they get a ticket with which they can request a dedication and a sketch.

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I was pleasantly surprised that rather than ignoring me as a relative unknown artist, the people who attended were extremely curious about Sister Claire after seeing it announced on the Club’s website. I’m also fairly sure they have never had such an exotic, American visitor at one of these small gatherings. Apparently all the mystery and hyper surrounding me garnered an interview for their local newspaper!  Hey, not too shabby for my first ever convention.

At first I was nervous about doing drawings for people, because all the other professional artists next to me were so much faster and used to this whole process.  My hand was shaky on those first several drawings!  Unfortunately my brother didn’t manage to get a photo of the first ones I did, but they ranged from mermaids to a sexy pinup of Gabrielle on a cloud, enjoying a glass of Holy Water.  I’ll probably redraw that last one for a wallpaper someday. =)

Getting interviewed!

I did get SOME photos of sketches I made, though.  This is the one I made for the BBQ place that hosted the event.  I put extra effort into it, even though my hand was really killing me at the end of 6 hours straight of drawing.  I was told they wanted to put it up on the wall, so I wanted it to look decent. =)

Here are a few more samples of sketches I made for people:

All in all, it was an exhausting but wonderful experience, and I plan to go again next month! =)  Club BD Collines is run by my friend Dominique, who in many ways reminds me of my late professor, Jeremy Mullins.  I wish my professor had lived to see me go to my first convention, I would have loved to tell him all about it.  Going there gave me a renewed optimism and confidence… I feel that my professor was there in spirit.  This was the sort of thing he would have loved to be a part of, and I’m sure if he was still with us, he would be happy to see me going out there and doing my best to spread the love of comics in another country. =)