Memories of the Latino Comics Expo 2012

I got home this past Monday evening from the long weekend in San Francisco for the Latino Comics Expo. Tuesday morning, I was right back to work on a new comic book, back to teaching my comics workshops, and squeezing in a screening of THE AVENGERS during the week (loved it, by the way!). But I realized I had better get to blogging about the Expo...!

This year's Expo was once again held at the Cartoon Art Museum. Many thanks to the Museum for hosting us once again, with special mention to Curator Andrew Farago, Executive Director Summerlea Kashar, Board of Trustees Chair Ron Evans, and the delightful Elena Diaz for assisting us day and night.

We had an art exhibit running in conjunction with the Expo as well, LA RAZA COMICA: A CELEBRATION OF THE LATINO AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN THE COMIC ARTS (which runs until September 30). The Opening Night reception taking place on Friday, May 4. My good friend, and illustrious co-founder of the Expo, Executive Director Ricardo Padilla (in the gray sportscoat) is enjoying a cup of his home-made Sangria, alongside cartoonist Rafael Navarro:

The Museum will have several exhibits running simultaneously, and one of the other shows was the Mad Magazine retrospective. No shortage of gawking and geeking out on that show, and that was just us artists!

I was very proud that we put together an art exhibit focusing on Latino comic creators. And I have to say, as an artist myself, it's such a unique opportunity to have artwork hanging on the walls of such a museum. I've seen numerous shows there over the year, so it's a joy to have artwork displayed on the same walls that have featured such comics and artists as DICK TRACY, SPY Vs SPY, PEANUTS, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, Frank Frazetta, Jack Davis, Sergio Aragones, Gene Colan, etc. Literally every great cartoonist over the last 100 years! And now...sniff....me, too....

 A page from my WEAPON TEX-MEX Vs EL MUERTO.

I stayed at the home of Ricardo and Rosalind Padilla for the weekend, and after the art opening we went back to their place and watched MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE! Nothing like a little kung-fu cinema when running an Expo, ya know?

Saturday we woke up to stunningly beautiful, sunny weather, but luckily the crowds showed up to our first day of the Expo. We had a rich variety of creators exhibiting there, some debuting their new books, others being long-time, well-traveled convention exhibitors. We had creators working on web comics, zines, comics and graphic novels, even animation. I was giving out copies of the new BATICALACA Poster Comic, and luckily we had lots of kids show up, as the comic was created for an all-ages audience in mind.

I shared a table all weekend with Jose Cabrera, always a blast hanging out with the fun-loving creator of CRYING MACHO MAN (seen below with cartoonist Isis Rodriguez, who flew in from Mexico to debut her comic book NIÑAJI):

We had a full day of panels on Saturday, including one on Self-publishing (featuring, L to R, Crystal Gonzalez, the team of Mario Lanao and Cristian Garcia, Rafael Navarro & Michael Aushenker ):

I hosted a panel called 'Mythology in Comics'. It was fascinating to hear the panelists discuss their approaches to incorporating Mexican myths and folklore into their stories, as well all varied in our methods and reasons. One of our panelists, Rodolfo Mendoza, is from Mexico (currently living in Utah), so we assisted him with translating his responses to English (thanks to Isis and Ricardo for pitching in!). L to R are Isis Rodriguez, Adriana Garcia Cabrera, Daniel Parada & Rodolfo Mendoza).

I know that Ricardo and I were very grateful to have had so many great creators attend our Expo and appear on our panel. And we were especially proud to have also had a special panel featuring Spain Rodriguez, the legendary cartoonist from the original underground comix movement of the late 60s/early 70s, and cartoonist and friend of the Expo, Mario Hernandez. Ricardo reached out to Spain in the Bay Area and invited him to the Expo. Spain was more than happy to appear with his old friend, Mario. Here's Ricardo moderating the conversation with Spain (L) and Mario (in the middle):

Another memorable event that occurred at the Expo was that the curator of the Latin American, Mexican American & Iberian Collections at the University of Stanford came to the Expo. He and another representative walked through and purchased from the artists 3 copies of every work they had. They actually bought my entire inventory of EL MUERTO COLLECTOR BOXES I had brought with me! While it's always great to have such a great sale, what really is special is having your work included in such a collection, particularly from such an institution as Stanford. When someone wants to study the history of Latino comics and creators, my work will be available for research, alongside many other works by other artists. Yes, yes, I know we have Google, but good old-fashioned physical research can't be beat!

Saturday evening was time for another get-together, this time hosted by our friends at MISSION: COMICS & ART. Get a bunch of cartoonists together at a comic shop, add Sangria and some other 'drinks', and well, you got yourself a party!

Las Cartoonistas! L to R, Isis, Crystal Gonzalez, Gabrielle Gamboa, Grasiela Rodriguez and Liz Mayorga.

Me and the charming Crystal. And yeah, I'm sporting my stylish Ed Wood 'Bride of the Atom' t-shirt and vintage 1976 Howard the Duck presidential campaign button!

Sunday was another day of beautiful weather, and more Expo excitement!  

I really enjoyed hearing from the folks who visited the Expo. One elderly gentleman, I believe his name was Bob, was telling me about the first Latino in professional baseball (Luis Castro, playing for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1902). Bob was telling me how Luis died poor and in obscurity, with no tribute or tombstone to mark his passing. He told me he had no idea there were 'Latino comics' and he hoped that we would all leave a mark and not end up in obscurity, like Mr. Castro. There was sincerity and true emotion in Ben's voice, and it was really touching to hear him express his concerns. I told him that was the reason that we created a Latino Comics Expo, so that creators of Latino descent could gather together and share their work with readers. I also assured Ben that I make as much noise as I can about my own work, whether people want to hear about me or not! 

We also had an animation panel, organized by cartoonist and animation-dabbler Jose Cabrera. Here's Grasiela Rodriguez discussing her techniques, and a shot of the audience enjoying the various animated shorts:

 
On Sunday, we had another panel with Mario Hernandez, this time he did a reading from one of his comics and had a Q&A with the audience. Mario was a guest last year as well, and he's a complete pleasure to talk with. The first thing he said to me when I saw him Friday evening at the art opening was "I just saw THE AVENGERS and I loved it!". Now that's the way to start a conversation in a comics museum!

Being a co-founder of this particular event fills me with a huge amount of accomplishment. The reaction from the artists and the community of fans convinces me that this is a very important thing that we do, this love of comics as our storytelling device. And the reasons we do it, the influence we each get from our individual experiences, and the impact it has on the people, both within and outside the Latino community, well, the rewards speak for themselves.

SALABRATION celebration this past weekend at GEEKS

This past Saturday night at GEEKS Comics I was part of the Cartoonista contingent participating in SALABRATION.

This may have been the event that's had the most Cartoonistas in attendance (9 total). The usual camaraderie and happy hijinx were on full display! Here's the proof:

Jose Cabrera, creator of the CRYING MACHO MAN webcomic, demonstrates the upcoming Olympic sport, power cartooning!


Lounging around and talking shop (or are they planning to break away and form a rival Cartoonista group??) are Mr. Geo Brawn (top left), Luis Escobar (top right), Grasiela Rodriguez (bottom left) and Jose.


From left to right: Michael Aushenker, Jose, me and Jim Lujan. Michael and Jose will be having a two-man art show/book signing at GEEKS in the Fall, to coincide with a revamped CARTOON FLOPHOUSE brand.

Michael and me throwing out some Dr. Fate-style mystic energy. Michael and I were discussing Dr. Fate's recent appearance on SMALLVILLE, and browsed some Dr. Fate comics at the shop.


Grasiela Rodriguez, the Queen of the Cartoonistas, and the equally royal Hortencia Aguirre, wife of Cartoonista Raul Aguirre. Hortencia is an artist in her own right, and she's been nice enough to feed our hungry maws numerous times with her exquisite cooking.

Luis Escobar doodles inside the front window display at GEEKS. Think of Amsterdam's Red Light District, but with cartoonists and sanitized!

And sure to be a valuable artifact one day, Jimmy sparked the idea for a group jam session. Besides a plethora of Cartoonistas, we had some special guests contribute to the drawing, such as Steve Sievers and my ol' pal Lalo Alcaraz (LA CUCARACHA).


A long-time fan of mine happened to be walking past Geeks with his girlfriend when he noticed all the commotion inside. His name's Jason and I first met him back in 1998 when he made a beeline to my table in the Small Press area of the San Diego Comic-Con. He pulled his backpack off his back, pulling out a comic book and told me "I was hoping you'd be here!" and asked me to sign my then-recent EL MUERTO comic book, the photo-copied first edition. That moment had always meant a lot to me as a creator, because as a fan myself I had attended plenty of conventions where I was always hoping that one of my favorite artists would be in attendance.

At the time we met back in 19989, Jason was a teenaged kid, and to think all these years later, he's all grown-up and I'm still making comics! He picked up all my latest books and the DVD, and I even gave him one of the live art pieces I did that night.

He's had his Muerto skull tattoo for about 10 years now! Back in 2006, I had invited Jason and his girlfriend to an early screening of the EL MUERTO movie, and I was glad to be able to do that for them. It's so great to have long-time fans like that!

As the SALABRATION was in fact a little celebratory event to commemorate GEEKS owner Sal's birthday, Raul generously created this wonderful painting as an unexpected but supremely appreciated gift:

To say that Sal was impressed and flabbergasted to accept it would be a corker of an understatement! Raul really put a lot into this, and it really summed up the evening for everyone.



By 12:30am, everyone had left. Sal couldn't have been happier. All of us Cartoonistas had a wonderful time, and so did the folks who stopped by to join in the fun. Over the last several years, either solo or with the Cartoonistas, I have done some truly memorable events with Sal. He hosted the Q&A for the EL MUERTO screening during the Whittier Film Festival, my nephew and I had a two-man art show, I've conducted my "DIY Comics:The Secrets of Self-Publishing" seminar there (and in fact will be doing another one this coming Saturday). It's so nice to be able to have a 'home' store that you can partner with for events like this, and make a good friend in the process.

Thanks Sal, and Happy Birthday!

The great line-up of talent that night: (Top row, left to right) John Narcomey, Geo Brawn, Javier Hernandez, Luis Escobar,(Middle row, left to right) Raul Aguirre, Grasiela Rodriguez, Rene (guest for the evening), Jose Cabrera, (Bottom row, left to right) Michael Aushenker and Jim Lujan.

All photos courtesy Jim Lujan Photography, LLC!

Happy Halloween from El Muerto and CRYING MACHO MAN!

El Muerto appears in Jose Cabrera's web comic, CRYING MACHO MAN! See El Muerto get treated to a trick!

EL MUERTO to appear in CRYING MACHO MAN web comic this weekend!

El Muerto will be appearing in Jose Cabrera's CRYING MACHO MAN online strip this Friday, October 30th!

Jose's been creating his CRYING MACHO MAN for 5 years now, a satirical, irreverent look at the silly, stupid, tragic things we all go through. I've seen his art evolve over the years, and as an artist I admire the growth he exhibits as his line work becomes more fluid and elastic and his inking becomes more expressive and evocative. Certainly the man's always had a wicked sense of humor, which he applies so strongly in his strips.



He's got two book collections out now, with more on the way. For the past year now, he's been in Mexico on a Fulbright Scholarship. His Mexican adventure has been wonderfully captured by he and his wife Naomi on their blog OUR YEAR IN MEXICO. By January, Jose will be back in Los Angeles, with all new kinds of cartooning adventures awaiting him!

In the meantime, let's all enjoy the upcoming El Muerto appearance this coming Friday. Jose and I talked about working together on a project, so I thought that handing him my little dead boy for a day would be fun. Basically, he came up with the gag, ran the rough draft by me, and then inked the final piece. Because this is CRYING MACHO MAN, don't expect one of my angst-filled, Mexican telenovela melodramas/haunted hero routines! No way, Jose! This is Crying Dead Man courtesy of the pulse-pounding Mr. Cabrera! I couldn't be happier with this appearance, and thanks to Jose for letting me be a part of his strip.

Last year, you may recall, El Muerto appeared for a 5-part appearance in the nationally syndicated newspaper strip, BALDO. That also ran over the Halloween/Day of the Dead weekend, and I'm glad to once again have El Muerto appear in another strip over the same weekend. Maybe I can make this a tradition. Any other web or syndicated cartoonists wanna have El Muerto guest-star in your strip next Halloween/Day of the Dead?

Wizarld World LA 2008- The Wrap Up!

Got a little behind here on my blogging, but here’s my report on Wizard World Los Angeles, held the weekend of March 14-17 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

I’ve been doing Wizard World here in LA for several years now (it started back in Long Beach). It’s more of a ‘mainstream’ comics/pop culture show, catering to the same people who read Wizard magazine. That would be guys (and they definitely target male readers) who are into Marvel and DC comics, play a lot of video games, and gawk at the pictures in Maxim magazine. Not exactly my demographic….

But actually, WizardWorld, like any show, will always have a curious group of people with a very wide range of interests and tastes. So with that in mind, I decided to exhibit once again. Also, the fact that I live about 20-25 minutes away makes this a much more manageable show than out of town events. And the clincher this time was that my good friend, Jose Cabrera asked me to split a table with him. A better table price and partnering with such a great guy?

Yet another reason this particular show was a no-brainer for me: I had a lot to promote. Fresh from winning BEST FEATURE for EL MUERTO at the previous week’s Whittier Film Festival, I had to share the news about that! Also, I passed out flyers for my radio show as well as flyers for the San Gabriel Valley Comic Book Festival. I’ve helped organize that event with the folks from the Nuvein Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to introducing the community to the arts. The Nuvein Foundation actually provides support for my radio show, and in fact the head of the Foundation, Enrique Diaz, is also the Executive Producer of PLANET COMIC BOOK RADIO.

And the real reason I wanted to attend Wizard was to debut, or at least unveil in public my brand-new comic book creation, DEMOLTION DOVE! I had slapped together a quick DEMO DOVE Myspace page a day or so before the convention, but this showing the character in person. I have to say, I was honestly surprised how popular the character had turned out to be that weekend. Granted, people were only reacting one promo poster, but the design of the character, the name and the juxtaposition of his traits really caught people’s fancy. I really had no idea what to have expected. For the last 10 years I’ve only really been know for creating EL MUERTO in comics, zines, mini-comics and other forms of art. I’ll definitely be using this blog, and radio show, to talk more about the DOVE, but for now you can enjoy the same preview the Wizard audiences did!



In fact, the very first day, Friday, I had a fan of mine ask for a DEMOLITION DOVE drawing! Not one to disappoint, or miss a great photo op, I had him take a photo of me drawing. I’ve known Alejandro some years now via APE and Comic Con. He’s an enthusiastic comics fan but also an extremely interesting and intelligent person to talk to. In fact, we started talking quite a bit about the politics in the DOVE storyline as well as the events going on right now.




Another fan came by on Saturday and asked if he could have a sketch. I’m thinking I’ll be drawing El Muerto or the Dove…..but then he mentions ‘Daredevil’! I was really excited by the chance, to be honest. Anyone who knows me will know my love for the old-time classic superheroes (that’s pre-1985!). So I busted out this Daredevil for Edwin:


Edwin, and his girlfriend Crystal had come down from Las Vegas for the show. He had actually seen the Muerto movie on DVD and really enjoyed it. He ended up picking up some of my comics. I found out that when he bought the DVD, he didn’t get the mini-comic book that was supposed to be included. So I told him to come back to my table on Sunday and I would have a copy of that comic for him. Luckily I have a small stash of those! He really appreciated the gesture, and of course I really appreciate having such a great fan of my work.

Edwin even asked Jose for a Daredevil sketch, which really surprised me. Jose’s a great cartoonist, but his web comic is more geared to satirical/absurdist humor, not superheroes. So what a pleasure it was to all of us to see him knock out a Daredevil. I love it when artists who aren’t really doing any type of superhero/action books bust out a superhero! Most of those type of artists actually grew up on the same comics as the rest of us geeks anyway!



My friend Michael Aushenker didn’t have his own booth at this show, but he was stationed with a publisher he’s working with. Michael is going to be writing an upcoming miniseries for the publishers of the GUMBY comics.

Here’s Michael with the GUMBY crew. On the far right you see creator Art Clokey’s daughter Holly Harmon.


Michael, besides being a great friend, an ingenous writer and a whiz bang artist, is always up for some laughs. Here’s he and Jose hanging out with some friends of theirs. Seriously, they’ve seen these Mario Bros. guys at various shows and they all seem like old buddies!


Michael joining me and Jose at the Crying Macho Man/Los Comex corner:


I’m told I was totally geeking out when I approached these folks! Check them out, the cast of Spider-Man from the comics! John Romita-style Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacey…along with Aunt May, Peter Parker and the Black Cat! Man, it was like walking into the comic book. Lucky ‘Peter Parker’, walking around with all them hot Spidey-Babes. Even the cutey playing Aunt May wasn’t bad!




Our neighbors at our booth were Kelly and Nico, writer and artist of the comic book TALES OF THE OZARK HOWLER. Kelly is a writer of books and screenplays, and in fact the comic book is an adaptation of one of her novels. I thought it was pretty cool that the novelist herself was self-publishing her own adaptation. Nico is a 19 yr. old artist working on his first comic. They were very nice to have as neighbors, and I wish them luck in their joint endeavor.



I’m know for not really being into STAR WARS (blasphemy, I know…) but I had to shoot this R2-D2. Looked like a Jedi R2. with the dark paint job! Anyone out there know if this one is in the movies??



My old chum Tony came by my table and literally dropped to his knee to get a better peek at this DEMOLITION DOVE character! Always nice to surprise your old college buddies, huh?



Speaking of surprise, I was asked by someone for a cheesecake pinup! The guy bought some stuff from me, then asked for a drawing. Thing is, he asked for Betty Page! Luckily my friend Tony was still around and he was carrying his Rocketeer graphic novel with him, which I used for reference!


Dave Stevens, creator of the Rocketeer, had passed away earlier in the week. Tony was honoring his memory by wearing that 15 year old Rocketeer T-shirt to the con. So, in a way, it was a nice way for me to pay tribute to Stevens as well. Dave Stevens was a huge admirer of Betty Page and in fact based the Rocketeer’s girlfriend on Betty.

There was an artist sitting across from me and he had heard I was from Whittier, same as him. Of course we hit it off immediately. Ruben Martinez is his name, and he’s a toy designer at Mattel. He had previously worked with Stan Lee at Stan Lee Media and in fact had Stan write the intro for his new art book he was selling at Wizard. Stan Lee wrote the intro for his book! I bought a copy of course. It’s a stunning book, full of pencil and computer artwork, showcasing Ruben’s keen imagination and great sense of character design. Me and Ruben talked about the growing contingent of comic artists/illustrators in Whittier, with some plan to do something with all that talent! Oh, and I asked Ruben for a Muerto sketch in my signed copy of THE AFTER LIFE!



Another artist I ran into was Keith Knight, one of the great cartoonists working in the field, in my opinion. Ketih’s strip is at times autobiographic as well as political/social commentary. His craftsmanship and entrepreneurial skills are to be admired. As he was inscribing my copy of his new book “I LEFT MY ARSE IN SAN FRANCISCO” we were chatting and catching up on one another. I noticed he kept glancing off to his left as he was doodling, then realized “Oh damn, he’s drawing me an El Muerto!” Sure enough, there in my copy of his new book, I have a one-of-a-kind Keith Knight El Muerto sketch! I’ll be danged if this ain’t one of the best things about this whole self-publishing bit!



I’ll definitely be back at Wizard LA next year. Too many reasons not to. I was actually pleased to hear from several people there that they had seen the Muerto movie either as fans of the comic book or discovering it on their own. I got a chance to talk to one fan at length about the movie and the comic. He had a few things about the movie he wasn’t happy with, but he and I were able to have an honest discussion about it. Another lady came by and scooped up a couple of 11x17 prints. She was a huge fan of Dia De Los Muertos and wanted to add these pieces to her collection of fine art. I actually knew one of the pieces she already had.

This really was, for me, a special show. I met old Muerto comic fans as well as new admirers of the movie. I promoted the heck out of my new radio show and the upcoming Comic Book Festival. Sold my share of comics, zines, buttons and prints. Met some other great artists. And even received an extremely enthusiastic response to my new character.




Yeah, I’ll be back next year for sure!