Jhonen Vásquez's Blog, page 4

SD Comicon ’13 Report #6

I get progressively less and less sleep at conventions that go on for several days, or in the case of the San Diego Comicon several months. It’s how I imagine cartoon blood cells must feel in between sessions of racing around at a breakneck pace through crowded arteries full of noise and terror and farts. I just lay there with all the noise and faces of the previous day floating around in my head and on top of all the thoughts of the day to come and it makes for some serious tossing and turning and doing parkour in the room to try to relax.

I once parkoured on a seriously sad orangutan at the L.A. zoo.

My convention sleeping, or lack thereof, just means that the best time to actually meet me at a convention is a week before the convention happens and I’m just out going for a walk feeling actually pretty good about things and completely forgetting that, in a week I’ll be going to a convention where I can’t even do a wall walk without slamming into a shitty coffee maker because I don’t actually know parkour.

It’s not all bad, however, these things. I do get to see friends that, because of our schedules back home, I don’t often get to see in more casual settings. Ran into Bryan Konietzko at a party last night. I don’t often do the comicon parties because I don’t trust myself around napkins, but it was one or those rare occasions I felt like standing around in way-too-loud music so you have to shriek every single word at someone wincing at your lips penetrating their ear canal like a hummingbird jamming its beak into a flower in search of honey or pudding or…whatever nature is selling.

So Bryan, as many of you know, is the co-creator of Avatar and the Legend of Korra, and he was also a board artist and art director on INVADER ZIM. He’s pretty much one of my favorite people I met through my show bidness dealings. While we were sitting around, talking about how cool we both are, a fan of his came up and immediately lost her cool in that genuinely adorable, awkward way some people have of doing around people whose work they like a lot but can’t quite express efficiently. It was loud so I couldn’t really pick up all of it, but the gist of this girl’s somewhat rambling praise was that Bryan’s show had changed her life and gotten her through some rough patches and maybe something about parents getting divorced and a sibling who also loved the show passing away and all sorts of stuff like that.

Throughout all this, Bryan’s nodding and smiling in a way I find way more convincing than anything I ever pull of when I can’t quite hear people. I usually nod a bit, yeah, but then, once I realize I’ve totally lost track of what’s being said, if I have a glass of anything in my hand, I throw it hard against the wall behind the person speaking to me and run off as they’re turned around to look at what I’ve done. Bryan, however, really looks engaged in this person’s story and I was a bit jealous that he could exude such a personable demeanor at the point where I’d be hiding behind a plant or something, crying and picking out pieces of glass from the blowback.

So the person’s story comes to a clumsy end, and they’re smiling and apologizing for going on and on and Bryan just stands up, says don’t worry about it and how flattering it was to hear all that and then bids everyone good night and starts walking away. The girl sorta just stood there, not sure of what to do, an awkward, nervous smile on her face, but also the sense that something was missing.

Bryan stops, about three feet away, his back to us but his head angled so as to suggest he’s sensing us behind him, and he says  ”Oh, one more thing.” loudly enough to cut through ‘You Can’t Touch This’ blaring all around us.

Bryan spins around, his foot swinging high and up, and he spin kicks this girl into a giant flat screen tv silently playing The Dark Knight Returns. After a wave of paralyzing horror, I realize just what’s gone down and I look up at Bryan, and jump on him to restrain him. he doesn’t resist, just gives me this look of “it’s cool” and nods over to where the girl is slowly rising, covered in glass bits.

She’s beaming, like freakishly happy, happier than at any time since she first walked up.

It’s just a thing Bryan does, I guess.

Anyhow, time to get ready. Wish me luck, maaans.

 

SD Comicon ’13 Report #5

Hulk not feel so good…

Earlier I was walking down the street between signings and a fan (I think it was a fan) yelled out all cheerily “Hey, Jhonen!” and I turned to kind of look at the guy, but not really look because I think my eyes just sorta hazily focused on a spot slightly above the top of his head, held up a thumb and sorta croaked “Okaaayyy!”

No really…someone please help Hulk…

I didn’t even mean anything bad by it, but that’s pretty much where my head was at that moment. I’m at the point in a several days long convention where I respond to things with a thumbs up and an incoherent couple of words. “Hey, Jhonen, I love your work!” someone might say as I pass them, and my face lights up as I speak to their chin and say in a too loud voice, “Totally, I’m sorry about I’m hungry! I’m going!”

Pweez…pweez kill Hulk…

Later, after sitting a little in a cocoon of silence, maybe I’ll realize I just treated an old friend like a complete stranger or a complete stranger like a fire hydrant all because of con-shock. It happens, and I just figure the people I spoke to will probably sort it all out.

Hulk will remember you not help Hulk…

Okay, is that not THE best Hulk cosplay you’ve ever seen? I was walking past that guy and I fell in love with how fucking shitty that costume was. It is awe-inspiringly grotesque, and whether or not the guy knew how funny it was, it was so awesome it ended up being the ONLY photo of a cosplayer I took all weekend, so far anyhow. HULK MELTING! HULK NEED MEDICAL ATTENTION!

Okay, so this girl rolls up in a wheelchair, she was clearly excited as all hell and she instantly launches into “Oh my god, I just got out of the hospital, and I’m still recovering from Meningitis and it was so bad I actually ended up in the hospital before I even knew what it was because I was so dizzy and I fell down the stairs and broke both my legs and your cartoon got me through the whole thing because I watched the DVD’s in the hospital and GIR is my favorite character and I was hoping you could draw me a-”.

Right then I cut her off, pointing a finger about a foot away from her face and said “What you need is a drawing of a lumpy turtle that has just dropped its ice cream on the floor!”

I think she was explaining how that wasn’t what she needed but I was too busy drawing her a turtle that had just dropped its ice cream on the floor to hear what she was saying exactly.

AHHAHAH! Stupid turtle! You totally dropped your ice cream. Idiot!

Remember how I said people eventually realize it’s a wonderful thing I’ve done for them by not doing what they asked me to do? Well, it’s nicer to say that than to say that sometimes they cry and wheel away with a burning resentment for ever thinking you had a shred of human decency in your heart. Heh…Comicon.

I also drew someone this MODOK and I don’t think they cried, but who knows what people do when they’re out of my field of vision. Probably cry and feel things and all kinds of weird shit.

So that was Friday. My only real hope for Saturday at the con is for someone to tell me I look pretty because hearing nice things helps, guys.

SD Comicon ’13 Report #4

Woke up today with a mouth full of human ashes. “This shit again” I thought when i realized what it was. No time to really shower so I just coughed some of the ashes on my hands and gave myself a good rubdown, having seen certain small animals do it the same way only with sand or gravel. So far as I know, that’s what happened to Kratos.

I always walk into the convention hall the same way, wearing headphones and listening to music that bolsters my nerve for the start of the day. I think of it as a kind of Flight of the Valkyries scene from Apocalypse Now, only it’s a sea of Comicon-goers running in terror before me at the sound of whatever I have blasting out. Only real difference is that I always have to remind myself that nobody else can hear what’s coming out of my headphones, but only after grabbing someone out of the crowd and yelling “DO YOU HAVE NO FEAR, CHILD? I AM A HELICOPTER, GODDAMMIT!”

Alright, time to get moving.

SD Comicon ’13 Report #3

People buying more copies of books people stole from them.

Day two of the con, and I’ve spent a great deal of time looking out my hotel room window ignoring whatever horrific woman I picked up the night before at the 24 hour Subway happens to be waking up in my bed this time, looking down at the giant Ender’s Game tent they’ve set up down in front of the hotel.

“You promised me sandwiches” the monstrous thing behind me kept asking, but my attention was on something several floors down in front of the fan-filled tent. A man, an older gentleman, from what I could tell, who kept carrying people around on his back. At first I thought maybe it was some grandfather hoisting a kid up so they could see something interesting above the heads of the crowd, but it was soon obvious that it wasn’t just the one kid, it was a whole bunch of people who’d climb up on the old guy’s back and do a few erratic laps around on the grass the tent was set up on. One person would get off, another would get on and it was just confusing the hell out of me until I got dressed and left the hotel to walk to the convention.

Heading out from the lobby, I saw stood in front of the Ender’s Game tent and scanned the crowd for the old man and soon enough he came running out from a mass of onlookers.

It was Harrison Ford.

On his back was a delighted, sweating brick of a muscle man dressed as the Scorpion King. Normally the sight of someone dressing as The Scorpion King in 2013 woulda been what got me wondering, but it was the ruddy-faced, wheezing Harrison Ford that had me asking what the hell was going on.

So it turns out, to promote Ender’s Game, that movie’s studio hired Ford to spend the weekend carrying fans on his back making spaceship whooshing sounds so the fans can know what it’s like to be a space academy student or something. I felt awful watching Harrison Ford doing that, but it didn’t stop me from waiting in line three times to ride him.

At the convention, things went the way they usually do. Pretty fun, but also insanely tiring. One of the things I like to do to keep from going off is to not take requests when people ask for sketches. I’ll usually do a quick little doodle if people ask and they have a sweet rack, but often someone will come up and ask for something really specific. I never charge for autographs or little sketches, so when someone gets super detail oriented and just drops a sketchbook in front of me I usually stop them in mid “I want a GIR wearing a Deadpool mask battling Gypsy Danger in the Bahamas” to tell them what I’m actually gonna draw them. I then explain that I have more fun when I just poop something out that even I don’t know what it’s gonna be. Some of my favorite sketches come out of those moments, but usually it’s something shameful.

THAT’S WHERE THIS SQUEE-HAIRED BEE EATING A PICKLE CAME FROM.

Everyone’s usually pretty nice about getting stuff like that, and it makes me feel good to disappoint people in a way that makes them smile.

I was mostly alone at the booth as far as other artists went, so for most of the time I had a friend sit with me via Facetime on my phone. This made things awkward at times, however, as I had the phone propped up on the table pretty much at exactly the height as most peoples groins, so now and then I’d bend down to address my friend when, to the fans lined up, it just looked like I was talking to their penises or vaginas or peginases. It didn’t help that, while bending down, I’d say things like “You’re looking reeeal good today, my friend!”

I also learned not to ask friends dressed as Harley Quinn to go get lunch with you because you NEVER get to food because people stop them for photos every three feet. Also, nobody looks cool wearing Google Glasses, but this is the perfect place to wear them because everyone already looks really silly here.

FUCK YOU, HARLEY QUINN! I ALMOST STARVED TO DEATH BECAUSE OF YOU.

 

SD Comicon ’13 Report #2

See that picture up there? That’s me right now, me sitting front of a room service hamburger I paid three hundred dollars for. I’m just wrecked from the whole ordeal of getting from my house to this hotel room, so I’m pretty much just hiding in here, looking out the window and seeing the people down below having fun and not hiding with hamburgers at all.

The drive would normally take 2 hours, 3 with some bad traffic, but because of the convention exacerbating general rush hour traffic, today’s drive took 56 hours and a few minutes.

As far as I’m concerned, the convention already peaked and hadn’t even gotten to it yet, the reason being I passed the motherfuckin’ WEINERMOBILE. That’s right. What’s left to be impressed by when something like that’s happened? Nothing, lemme tell you. I should just kill myself already.

The Fuckin Weiner Fuckin Mo-Fuckin-Bile.

Though I did go into the convention hall today, I really only ran in to drop off some prints for the SLG booth to display because if I drop below 50mph I explode. Had no signings today, so I did a cursory circuit around the convention floor to say hi to various friends and do flying kicks into the faces of various enemies.

The stunning view from the SLG booth.

Not everything was so bad, however. I was happy to see that SLG had some new shirts of mine, two versions of an old Johnny print I did some time ago. They turned out alright and you can hardly tell they’re printed on burlap at all.

A girl wearing all black, browsing the SLG booth noticed me taking this photo, but she didn’t know who I was. I asked her what she thought of the shirts, and the girl said she wasn’t too fond of them because they didn’t come in black. I thought of some witty, cutting remark to throw at her, something like “Yeah!” or “If you like black so much why don’t you marry my shoes because they’re black, am I right?”, but instead I just nodded and punched her in her stupid eyes.

So not too much to report for today. This con will probably be one of the quiter ones for me, so I’m not sure I’ll have anything too amazing to tell you at all, but there are still a few things I wanna check off my list, not the least of which is having sex with two pikachus at once. Well, until then!

SD Comicon ’13 report #1

Feeling awful. Coming out of hypersleep the way I did I can expect for the effects to last all weekend. Had terrible dreams…dreamed I was going to Comicon.

Sitting here, drinking my tea, everything looks strange to me, most likely from my not usually waking up this early. The moon looks unusually bright and on fire this early, and I can’t see the stars at all.

Today’s preview day, and I’m gonna try to get to San Diego early enough to pick up my badge and shield belt. I figure I’ll be in traffic two, maybe three hours, so I’m bringing an empty Lucky Charms box to use as a restroom should I need one.

They’re strapping me into my car now, and the engines are starting up. Time to hit the road, although really, my car is already making contact with it, but you know what I mean. Okay, they’re telling me to stay real still for the takeoff.

 

 

 

How to find a me at this weekend’s San Diego Comicon (CORRECTED)

 

See that map up there? That shows the way to the SLG Booth, Booth #1815 for those non-cartographers out there. The SLG booth is that tiny, surly tugboat next to the monstrous DC Booth, so it should be pretty easy to find if you’re one of those people that wants to seek me out to ruin some of your perfectly fine books by scrawling my barely decipherable signature on them.

Wanna know signing times? No? Well…okay…but I’ll leave them here just in case it turns out they’re of importance to you.:

Thursday, Friday, Saturday 1:00-2:30 P.M, 5:30 – 7:00.

Sunday 1:00-2:30 P.M.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen and barely human socially obliterated horrors, my San Diego Comicon place and times!

 

How to find a me at this weekend’s San Diego Comicon.

 

See that map up there? That shows the way to the SLG Booth, Booth #1815 for those non-cartographers out there. The SLG booth is that tiny, surly tugboat next to the monstrous DC Booth, so it should be pretty easy to find if you’re one of those people that wants to seek me out to ruin some of your perfectly fine books by scrawling my barely decipherable signature on them.

Wanna know signing times? No? Well…okay…but I’ll leave them here just in case it turns out they’re of importance to you.:

Thursday, Friday, Saturday 11:30-1:00 P.M, 5:30 – 7:00. (Unsure of Sunday signings)

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen and barely human socially obliterated horrors, my San Diego Comicon place and times!

 

$Z.99 Screen Print Sale

So Comicon is coming up, we’re trying to make room for stuff and we’re sick of eating off or furniture made from screen prints and using screen prints as toilets, so to make some room $Z.99 is having a screen print sale! Save big on some seriously fine things like the INVADERCON 3012 print and the Creepachu print sets by Jhonen Vasquez and Jenny Goldberg.

We don’t want to use these as toilets, but they’re pretty much sitting on TOP of the toilet, and it’d be great if we could just clear them away a bit. Thanks!

JTHM signed headshot prints entering retirement!

 

One of the first items to go up in my tiny webstore, this print is feeling old and its knees are all wobbly, and it’s time to say goodbye to it as we put it on a boat and set that boat on fire, just like a viking, or that old lady that was being mean to the neighborhood cats.

Grab it by Sunday and say a prayer to PRINT JESUS that this print has a good journey.