Wolverine, by Leinil Yu

Leinil Yu is the smiliest, nicest man in comics. I asked if he was doing sketches or just signing, and he signed my book for me with a quick sketch, apologising profusely all the while that he wasn't doing sketches. What a sweetie! It might be just a quicky but I'd love to be able to sketch like that in five seconds.

Check out Leinil Yu on DeviantArt and at his art dealer's site.

Batman, by Michael Lee-Graham

Lovely man, lovely drawing, just generally lovely.

Hulk, by Paul Davidson

I think this represented how he was feeling at the time - if you have a raging hangover the last place you want to be is sat at a desk in a brightly lit, over-air conditioned conference hall having to engage with occasionally intense fanboys (and girls). Nice job though.

Paul Davidson's website is here.

Batman, by Simon Bisley

The man is a genius, just open and honest and sweary and lovely (and he'd probably shout me down for saying so). He drew upside down in my book, which may have been due to the amount of Stella he'd consumed but still, it has a nice batlike ring to it.

More Simon Bisley here.

Batman, by Sean Phillips

Mark went for the full painting but I like my Sean Phillips black and white sketch.

Batman, by Craig Wilson

Craig drew one of my favourite Batmen (can that be plural?). I love his take on Red Riding Hood too. Check out his work and follow his blog for more pieces.

Batman, by Kev Crossley

Lovely bloke, happy to chat, drew some amazing pieces over the weekend. Check out his artwork over on The Art of Kev Crossley.

Batman, by Dan Francis

Dan is a student training to work in 3D video gaming, but he still drew me a cool Batman.

Batman, by Philip Johnson (he apologised for the crap Bat symbol bless him)

More from Philip Johnson at DeviantArt.

Domino, by Filipe Andrade

Check out Filipe Andrade's blog for more.

Sean Phillips flick book

How to draw the White Queen in seven easy steps!

There are more photos in the seequence but I didn't want to bore you so I'll post them to my Flickr stream instead. Check out Sean's blog and website for more of his work.








The finished product.

Kapow!

Last weekend we drafted in both sets of grandparents and spent the weekend geeking it up at Mark Millar's Kapow! comic con, the first of its kind in London. It was lots of fun, although I severely underestimated the length of time we would spend queueing (next time I'm taking a flask of strong coffee and a copy of War and Peace). I think the organisers underestimated how long fanboys would be willing to queue, too - bigger venue next year please!

I made it to a couple of the Marvel panels, although I don't know enough to be particularly excited by any of the announcements. The most surreal sight of the weekend wasn't the people in costume (although there were a few!) but X-Men editor Nick Lowe and writer Kieron Gillen in Prince Harry (yes, Harry) and Kate Middleton masks. Very disturbing.



And I saw the debut episode of Falling Skies, Steven Spielberg's new TV series (a fairly generic take on the band-of-survivors genre, but if you think the only thing missing from The Walking Dead is aliens then it's for you).

But my favourite part of the weekend was wandering through Artists' Alley and watching the artists at work. Some of them were big names (Brian Bolland anyone?) and some of them were just starting out but it was a pleasure to watch the creative juices flowing (or not - there were a few hangovers going around on Sunday morning).

I got some Batman sketches from various artists (and a Hulk from Paul Davidson - I mentioned hangovers, right?), which I'll post separately. Mark gave me a little sketch book to carry round, so they're only small pieces.

Mark however went for the big sketches, and got two incredible pieces, by Marvel artist Filipe Andrade and Sean Phillips, who spent the entire weekend drawing and painting for fans and was by far the hardest working man there. Incredible the sort of artwork he can knock out in fifteen minutes! It really was a joy to watch.