The Ugly American

Sorry for the delayed post, but I was in Canada for the Toronto Paradise show. and what a great show it was!

Before I forget, Brian and I were interviewed by Wizard Magazine . Okay, back to Toronto.

I was both excited and nervous about crossing the boarder. Would I be stoned, or pelted with rotten vegetables? Would I be able to master the language and strange currency? And how on earth would I manage to not make a total ass of myself? As it turned out the peso system was very similar to our own US currency, and Esperanto is a fairly easy dialect to master.

Canada (or at least Toronto) is a wonderful place. I wanted to move my family there about ten minutes after landing at the airport and passing through customs. and I’m not saying that because of the awesome health care system, the clean streets, or because everyone was suspiciously friendly. Canada is better than America for two very simple reasons; Tim Horton’s, and bacon. In Canada they have 75 different kinds of bacon -all delicious. More than this was the seriousness with which the average citizen on the street treats their knowledge of smoked pork product. No less than 3 different people told me all about the different cuts, their apparent strengths and weaknesses, and what the subtle differences were. Any nation which takes bacon this seriously is clearly an advanced and enlightened civilization, on par with the Babylonians and the people of Atlantis. Tim Horton’s is like a strange cross between Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks. The coffee is probably the best I have ever had from a chain before. And they don’t do iced coffee -they do iced latte. The difference being that at TH’s you automatically get a shot of espresso in your iced coffee . . .er, latte. And that alone is enough to have me researching the immigration process.

For those of you who are more drug oriented, the laws on pot are much friendlier, and the stuff they grow locally is approximately one bajillion times better than anything available in the States. So I’m told. I think I . . .uh, read that in a magazine or something.

Anyway . . .

Atomic Robo is apparently well loved in Ontario. Perhaps all over Canada. I was busy all weekend long, sketching, signing TPBs, and selling Robo t-shirts. As usual we had about a 50/50 split between male and female fans approach the table, and that always makes me happy. I met one family who were collectively hooked on Robo -they were just fantastic. Because the show was not huge we were able to chat and hang out while I worked and they were just lovely. the oldest daughter, who I would guess was between 12 and 14yrs old, commissioned a sketch of Ada -the redheaded Action Scientist from Vol.1. That made me really smile inside.

I had the pleasure of attending the Women In Comics panel -which wasn’t really a panel. Instead, it was organized as a social gathering. Drinks, snacks, and conversations. The hostess, Liana K. was a sweetheart, and I really enjoyed meeting her and her husband Steve, who is the man behind Ed The Sock. I met some really great artists and creators, such as Nicole (didn’t catch her last name) from NerdGirlPinUps , and Alana McCarthy (whom I got a BITCHIN’ robot eating watermelon print from). But the most awesome of all was meeting Eva Hopkins (who works with Joe Linsner -see "DAWN "), and Melanie Espinola, who did an eye-opening pin-up of Power Girl (my most despised superhero ever). Power Girl actually looked like a woman, with some thighs that I would not want to be trapped between, (or would love to be trapped between under the right circumstances). It was amazing, and totally hot, yet still totally respectful.

Eva and Melanie really opened some new avenues of thought for me on how women are portrayed in comics. The long and short of it was that in both these women and their work I saw they reclaiming what was theirs -removing the sexually degrading part and replacing it with sexual empowerment. So far my approach to women in Robo (limited though it is) is to make them almost asexual, or just like the guys. Portraying them in any sort of "sexy" way is something I’ve been terrified to do, lest I cross a line (and of course as a guy those lines are all invisible to me).

Also what was interesting to me was how many of these women at the show loved the art of guys like Frank Cho and Adam Huges. That really surprised me. Their reasons for liking these guys were well developed and I was able to understand it after a little while. But for me, when I look at Cho or Huges, (both Masters!), all I see is something that I would rather masturbate to than read. So maybe it’s my own hang-up.

Now that I’ve horrified you all with visions of my pants down around my ankles, lets move on.

The other panel that I was part of was the "Mystery Panel". It was sort of a grab bag assortment of guys and we just opened the floor to audience questions. So we talked about everything from Diamond Distributors and how we all LOVE them (not), to working for Marvel/DC vs working on your own projects, to how our individual artistic process went. I spent an hour googling the women from the first panel to get links -sorry but the day is dragging on and I don’t have time to do that again for this. Robo can’t draw himself after all.

So lets see, what else . . .? Canada = Awesome, met terrific people, did panels, sold lots of stuff, and spent a little time with a bunch of beautiful women and made a point of mentioning Dorinda at least every other sentence. Huge thanks to Jeff "Boss Hogg" Brown for inviting me to the show (and of course Doug and Peter who actually run the show). Also to Jeff’s girlfriend Kiara for letting me crash on the futon Sunday night. And to Kiara’s bird Ulysses for shitting all over my hand.