And Mark is back from San Jose after a hard day of Super-Conning at the aforementioned Super-Con up there. I saw almost none of the city but I saw a pretty good little convention and a lot of good people. Among those I talked with were — forgive me, anyone I leave out — Mark Waid, Paul Smith, Steve Leialoha, John Heebink, Chris Marrinan, Russ Heath, Ray Lago, Bill Morrison, Brent Anderson, Don Rosa, Kathy Garver, Larry "Soup Nazi" Thomas, Paul Power, Tony DeZuniga, Ernie Chan, Alex Nino, Danny Bulanadi, Doug Sneyd, Jim Silke, Philip Tan, Tom Yeates, Dean Yeagle, Chase Masterson, Jane Wiedlin (from the Go-Go's) and Daniel Cooney. People were snatching up Daniel's Valentine graphic novels and there seemed to be a lot of disappointment that he's going on hiatus from his character. If you haven't gotten all he's done to date, check 'em out here. Good stuff.
I hosted a panel this afternoon with Mssrs. Chan, Tan, Nino, DeZuniga and Bulanadi all about the Filipino comic artist community. Ernie told an amazing story of how when he lived in The Philippines, he was making the equivalent of $1.25 American for pencilling and inking one comic book page and had to do four a day in order to earn a basic living. In the early seventies, when a deal was brokered for artists over there to do work for American publishers, the rate went up to around $20.00 a page. The pages done for the American market were a bit more elaborate and filled with drawing than what they'd been doing for their home country but still, it was quite a change of life style for a time there.
I have to go unpack and go back to work. If I think of anything else, I'll post it here later. But it was a good con and you would have enjoyed it and I think I'll post a video link and tackle some deadlines.