Wacky Cartoonist Hijinks! Jim Shooter, Bill Sienkiewicz, Chris Claremont, Archie Goodwin, Denny O’Neill
on June 14th, 2009More old photos of cartoonists! Whee!
1980-something! Clockwise, from left, Archie Goodwin, Robert Greenberger, Laurie Sutton (sorry, Laurie, this is the only photo of you I could find), Bill Sienkiewicz, Chris Claremont (barely visible), being strongarmed by Mary Jo Duffy, who is also elbowing Archie in the gut. I’d better not comment further on that.
Erik (no last name) emailed this:
“From the tags and the people there, I can tell you that picture of Jo Duffy mugging Chris Claremont with others is from the Atlanta Fantasy Fair in 1983. It was the first multiday convention I ever went to and had a blast. I remember Jo Duffy at the time was learning Japanese script and was near the end of the Marvel booth.”
He’s right about Atlanta, but wrong about the date. I was not attending out of state conventions at that age as a pro.
That must be 1984, the year DC Comics was scoping me out. They paid for me to fly out and paid all my expenses. I remember: I lost my plane ticket.
From left, Bill Sienkiewicz – very blonde – next to the very tall Jim Shooter. Yeah, Bill’s kinda petite, but Jim is also kinda tall. Then we have Trina Robbins and Mark Hempel. Some wiseacre is trying to make the V sign over Mark’s head as Mark blows me a kiss (lucky me). The person is taking revenge on Mark because every time Mark took a Polaroid photo of me, he would crop the man standing next to me out of it.
Boys will be boys.
Chris Claremont kneels at Jim Shooter’s feet, and no further comment is necessary.
Archie drops in exhaustion, right on top of a table. ZZzzzzzz…
Denny O’Neill pretends to pray over Archie’s dead body. Many years passed before this picture became funny again.
Speaking of praying, here I pray to my own personal neon Jesus. I have no idea who this guy is, but he appears at a lot of conventions, and just cracks me up. I’m glad Christians have a sense of humor. No riots follow this guy’s satirical appearances. It’s heaven.
Reposted from the old blog.
BTW, for about a half hour yesterday, I posted a link to the old blog, intending to reactivate it for archive purposes. Moving all the posts here to the new site turned out to be an unnecessary time-sink. I should have listened to Web Goddess DC McQueen and just left the old blog to serve as a companion to the new site. I know just enough about the internet and computers to be either useful or disastrous to my purposes. I long for the day I become a reliable tech mediocrity.
Anyway, after getting a look at the old blog, I realize it has been gutted with over 95% of posts gone. Within 60 days, ALL remaining posts will have been transferred either to this site, or the new Colleen Doran site.
Colleen Doran.com will be a portfolio blog. All the old posts about my work on projects like Wonder Woman, Fallen Angels and the like will be restored at Colleen Doran.com. There will be nothing at my new site that is not directly related to my work. Which means, no blogging about what movies I like or industry issues. It is all art, all the time.
A Distant Soil.com will continue to be a general blog and webcomic. With 25% less trivia than the old blog. We hope.
Once again, I want to thank John Muth for his original site help and design. But a static website no longer serves my purposes, and DC has kindly stepped in to do the blog thang.
c
Boy do I understand the separation of blogging into targetted purposes. I’m about to launch yet another one with a specialty focus — this one for THE SCRIBBLER’S GUIDE. On the one hand, tracking multiple blogs requires attention, on the other, it’s a heck of a lot easier to link for specific purposes.
Good luck with yours!
Oh, by the way, when you posted the picture of Denny & Archie the first time, I sent Marifran the link — she really enjoyed seeing the picture!
What a lovely man Archie was. And what a profound loss to the comics industry.
Archie was delightful and kind. I truly wish I had spent more time with him, because he was one of those editors who teaches and inspires. I had many very bad small press editors back in the day, and had a bad attitude about editors for years until I started to meet real editors who knew what they were doing! Now when I find a good editor, I hang on for dear life.
I am so glad Mary Fran liked the pictures!
I used to get ribbed for being fannish, always at cons with my camera. But now I am very glad I took these photos!
Scribbler, you are so right. A Distant Soil is nothing like my other work, but this site is what most clients see. Branding is very important.
I was approached by a fashion house about doing work for them. I wondered what the heck happened when I gave them my website info, but didn’t get the job. In the initial interview, the client loved my Reign of the Zodiac designs, but when the art director went on the web, they landed on the wrong page, went “Meh, that’s not what we want!” and hired someone else.
I’m hoping the new site will enable me to clearly differentiate between styles and jobs with category pages, galleries and tabs. That way I can point a client to exactly what they want to see, and not confuse them with other styles.
While being able to work in diverse styles can be a real asset (I am ALWAYS employed), it can also be very confusing for potential clients. If someone comes to this site looking for a children’s book artist, they are going to get a look at A Distant Soil and think I am the wrong artist for the job!
I like to think I am the right artist for every job, though there are a few I have backed away from. Not big on zombies, for example.
“Not big on zombies, for example.”
Zombies not sexy enough, eh?