A Dwayne McDuffie memory

I was already a fan of Dwayne McDuffie’s writing for comics and animation when he attended the convention I helped start, CONvergence, as a Guest of Honor in 2009. I got to interview Dwayne for a panel, escort him on a tour of the convention parties, and spend some good time with him over the weekend. It wasn’t until the weekend was over that I showed him some of my own comic art, which included art from The Batman Strikes, the series I had been drawing at the time. He said some complimentary things as he flipped through the binder of art, and then upon getting to a page with a streamlined silhouette of Batman said “Yeah, you GET IT.” That made my weekend.

If I’d been a fan before of Dwayne’s work, that weekend made me a fan of Dwayne. His warmth, humor and generosity really blew me away, so I was glad to have played a role in creating a warm welcome for him.

First of all, I had done the badge art you see above. I do custom badge art for all of CONvergence’s guests. Dwayne’s badge featured a face to face meeting of the comic book and animation versions of Dwayne’s signature Static character.

I also play a role in crafting what goes on at the convention’s opening and closing ceremonies. In researching Dwayne to plan for his time at CONvergence, I came across this “ProFile” of Assistant Editor Dwayne McDuffie from a 1988 Bullpen Bulletin page from Marvel Comics.

In the questionnaire, Dwayne said “The reason I got into comics” was “So I could hit Wolverine in the face with a pie.” This was too good to pass up.

At Closing Ceremony when Dwayne was brought up on stage to say goodbye to the convention, we brought up this ProFile and this quote, and told Dwayne that CONvergence was the place where dreams come true…

I would have preferred a volunteer Wolverine cosplayer, but you work with what you’ve got, so I brought out a color marker drawing of Wolverine I’d done on foam core board and Dwayne was given a cream pie to use as ammunition. I was half-expecting that the pie was going to hit me rather than the 2-dimensional mutant, but Dwayne took careful aim at Logan and nailed him square in the puss.

After that, Dwayne left the stage and as I went backstage with the remains of the comedy bit, I heard our next Guest of Honor horror author Brian Keene say “That’s funny. I got into writing so I could hit Chris Jones in the face with a pie.” Before I finished laughing, another pie had been readied and was being delivered to Brian and I dutifully marched back out on stage for the sake of comedy. But that’s another story.

I still have that rather smeared Wolverine drawing. I also have the copy of Dwayne’s script for the Justice League episode “Epilog” that Dwayne had donated to our charity auction, which features an original Bruce Timm Batman sketch on the cover page!

I’m happy to have those treasures but I’d rather still have Dwayne around. I miss you, Dwayne!

Welcome to Mars!

In honor of Curiosity’s successful landing on Mars last night, I thought I’d share this piece of artwork. This was originally done as a Souvenir Program Guide cover for CONvergence, back in 2006 for the convention theme of “Boldly Go.” It features the CONvergence mascot Connie and a few familiar friends. Can you identify them all?

Congratulations to everyone at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on this fantastic accomplishment!

CONvergence 2013 – The Key!

CVG 2013 Ad

CVG 2013 Ad – Key

If you were at CONvergence last weekend, you probably saw this promotional art for next year’s convention and it’s British Invasion theme. I wanted to post a key to the references it contains for those that might not have gotten all of them.

1. Connie as Emma Peel from The Avengers
2. Professor Max as John Steed from The Avengers
3. Connie Mark 2 as Nathan from Misfits
4. That Smiley Planet Guy from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
5. God from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
6. The Liberator from Blake’s 7
7. Starbug from Red Dwarf
8. Harry Potter from… uh… Harry Potter
9. An alien walker from John Christopher’s Tripods
10. Thunderbird 1 from Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds
11. The TARDIS from Doctor Who
12. Graffiti from V for Vendetta
13. A Triffid from Day of the Triffids

Not numbered, but visible in the background: The London Eye, Big Ben, and a Double-Decker London bus.

I considered adding a reference to The Prisoner or Sherlock Holmes or James Bond… but I didn’t want to over-clutter it. There’s a whole year ahead to reference the works of H.G. Welles, Sapphire and Steel, 28 Days Later, Quatermass…

Greg Weisman talks Young Justice while I look sleepy

Here’s a transition from all my CONvergence posts back to Young Justice:

It’s a short clip from CONvergence 2011 of Greg Weisman talking Young Justice, while I sit next to him looking very sleepy. Yep, I’m a born entertainer.

CONvergence 2013 is not yet imminent…

CONvergence 2012 is over, and my thanks go out to everyone who helped make it such a fabulous success yet again. The metrics are that total memberships rose to the staggering number of 5,980, with a little over 5,600 members actually managing to attend and occupy the building (AKA the “warm body count”).

The true measure of the convention’s success any year isn’t in those numbers or even in the money that is generated for our non-profit parent organization Convergence Events, but rather in the anecdotal stories of the experiences had by our members. Here’s one official photo gallery, but there are plenty more out there if you search for CVG2012 or #CVG2012. That #CVG2012 hashtag will also lead you to an epic number of CONvergence-related tweets on Twitter. If you’re wanting to get over the post-con blues by immersing yourself in all things CONvergence, the following links should help:

Official Page – http://www.CONvergence-con.org
CONvergence YouTube Channels – http://convergence-con.org/media/videos
Facebook Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2204992216
Connie’s Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/CONvergenceCon
CONvergence on Twitter – https://twitter.com/convergencecon
And finally, the epic video teaser for CONvergence 2013

So for my last batch of images for CONvergence 2012, here’s a little more artwork I did for the convention this year.

Here was the cover art for the Souvenir Program Guide. The Kill Bill image seemed like a nice alternative to the omnipresent Wonder Woman imagery for our 2012 “Wonder Women” theme, and I knew there was going to be a Kill Bill-themed sketch at the Opening Ceremony. I didn’t realize there was ALSO a Kill Bill sketch being organized by a different group for the Closing Ceremony. Maybe that’s Overkill Bill.

As a companion piece to that cover featuring CONvergence mascot Connie, I drew Connie’s evil sister Connie Mark 2 as Elle Driver from the same film. I don’t know if anyone else was as amused as I was by the eye patch over the Cylon eye, but it cracks ME up…

This was the cover art for the pocket-sized programming book, which presents our programming schedule in condensed grid form. It’s cleverly referred to as “The Grid,” and it’s a running gag that I try to do cover art for this each year that both reflects the theme and has some sort of “grid” reference as well. This year we went for the Ms. Pac-Man treatment. That’s a Connie-fied Ms. Pac-Man chasing around the maze with Mark 2-style Ghosts.

And finally, here’s the ad for CONvergence 2013, which will have the theme of British Invasion. I managed to pack quite a few references in here, but I still didn’t manage to include The Prisoner, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and so many others! Well I’ve got a year to come up with something to work them into!

Now, back to work on Young Justice!