JSA Vs. KOBRA - The Signening

Today, my local, and favorite comic book shop, Amazing Fantasy, hosted a signing for the art team for the JSA vs. Kobra mini-series, a book that I have raved about before. Suffice to say, it is still one of my favorite books hitting stands and it was nice to meet the guys and get some sketches from them. Since I had to bring my boys along, I let them pick the subjects of the art. Jack decided that the only two choices for him were "Batman or Ninjas" so I went with a Batman sketch from Don Kramer, penciller for the series who has also had runs on JSA and Detective Comics:


Sean, meanwhile, decided that he really wanted a drawing of Hawkgirl, so I asked Gene Ha, cover artist and also the artist for Top Ten, for a sketch and he rewarded me with the below:


Really, though I've only gotten a few sketches so far, this is probably my favorite one. He used one of Alex Roth's JSA covers for reference and he commented that it had an Alex Toth feel to it and I can see that in his art.

So a great time was had by all and a big thanks to Amazing Fantasy for hosting. Gene Ha, Don Kramer & inker Mike Babinski were all really nice guys ad I wish I could make it to Windy City Comicon next week to see them again.

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: $%#@ YEAH!

So it came to pass that Free Comic Book Day has descended upon us once more, on this absolutely beautiful (at least in the Chicago-area) Saturday in May. I headed over to my local comic shop to check out the wares and was not disappointed with the selection and there was already quite a crowd, even though I arrived just a few minutes after opening. Skottie Young, artist on Marvel's adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was already signing and doing sketches, so I quickly jumped in line. Chris Mitten, artist on the very good Wasteland, soon joined him. I managed to get something signed by each of them, along with these two sketches:

First, I had no idea what to get, since I didn't expect them to be doing sketches, so I didn't think about it ahead of time or bring any reference material (or even a sketch-book). Fortunately, I overheard Skottie Young saying that he had just finished re-reading NextWave, so I immediately knew I needed a sketch of Machine Man:


Next, I asked Chris Mitten to draw Michael, from Wasteland:


Both of the guys were great to talk to and I'd highly recommend seeking them out if they're at a convention near you.

Amazing Fantasy did their usual bang-up job with the event and everyone had good things to say about them, I love that shop and it's nice that I've never had to shop at a crappy comics shop in my life.

As for the comics themselves, I'd highly recommend picking up the Atomic Robo book, the short story contained within is a hoot and worth the (no) money for the last page alone. DC's Blackest Night #0 is OK, pretty much a trailer for the upcoming event, but there's still some nice interaction between Hal Jordan and Barry Allen in there, actually, it was better than Flash: Rebirth #1 in that respect, but I don't know if that's a function of this book being that good, or that book being that bad. Marvel's Avengers book is a fun little story and is good for bringing people up to speed on the current clusterfuck that is Avengers continuity, it's a good example of taking a crappy status quo and spinning an OK story out of it.

So anyway, it's still reasonably early on this most comic-booky of holidays, so if you can, get out there and get yourself some comics! Buy some too!