Frank Fosco @ Wizard World Chicago

[Adam]

This just in -- Frank Fosco will be appearing at Wizard World Chicago, August 11-14th!

Anyone near the area, get your tickets now!

http://www.wizardworld.com/home-ch.html

I haven't looked at the whole guest list, but odds are good that other TMNT creators will be there, too (they aren't done announcing guests yet, after all).

Frank will be exhibiting & selling original art and comics from various projects, including TMNT and the upcoming Savage Dragon backup VANGUARD (as well as art from comics that have yet to be announced!).

He'll also be doing sketches and taking commissions. Stop by and say hi!

[Abnormal Freak]

Hmm... That would be pretty cool to have Fosco sign some stuff, and it would be great to buy some original art from the V.3 series and any of the issues I'm missing, if available.

Would also be cool to meet Pam Grier and the cast of The Evil Dead. :)

I'll consider. ;p I'm about an eight-hour drive away. I just wish the Minneapolis–St. Paul area were a little bigger to attract this sort of thing. We have a stupid anime convention, but to my knowledge no real worthwhile comic convention that draws in national artists and the like...

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Abnormal Freak

Would also be cool to meet Pam Grier and the cast of The Evil Dead.

Fo sho.

Also, it looks like ace inker Andrew Pepoy (who inked Frank during the first half of the Image run) will be in attendance, as well. It'd be really cool to get some issues and/or pages signed by both of them at the same show.

[Abnormal Freak]

That would be great, too, to have 'em sign a couple of the coolest-looking issues of that first half—and there are plenty. There were only two issues in the entire run where the art left me feeling a little "eh" (I only just went through the whole series for the first time): the first one, which isn't very easily readable, and the last one, where I fully realized my appreciation for Pepoy and Heike's inking. :p Fosco's inks on his own pencils just didn't strike me as good. Not that they're bad-looking issues, not at all...I just like everything in between so much more. :p

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Abnormal Freak

That would be great, too, to have 'em sign a couple of the coolest-looking issues of that first half—and there are plenty. There were only two issues in the entire run where the art left me feeling a little "eh" (I only just went through the whole series for the first time): the first one, which isn't very easily readable, and the last one, where I fully realized my appreciation for Pepoy and Heike's inking. :p Fosco's inks on his own pencils just didn't strike me as good. Not that they're bad-looking issues, not at all...I just like everything in between so much more. :p

I really liked the art in the first issue (Larsen & Frank have complimentary styles), but it was a bit too "open for color", as they say. Frank & company definitely got into a good groove during the course of the series, really utilizing the moody blacks and taking better advantage of the B&W overall.

Frank's inks are quite good these days. I understand that he was a little out of practice when he did TMNT 23, but on his recent work (which you will be seeing more of, though I couldn't say when), he is killing it, I assure you.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Adam

I really liked the art in the first issue (Larsen & Frank have complimentary styles), but it was a bit too "open for color", as they say. Frank & company definitely got into a good groove during the course of the series, really utilizing the moody blacks and taking better advantage of the B&W overall.

Frank just sent me the following rundown on this very topic:

When the three of us, Gary, Erik and myself started the first issue of TMNT we were thinking it was going to be in color. The way I was rendering it I was preparing it for color. But pre-sales/orders as they were led Erik to decide to go black and white. And besides, TMNT started off B/W so we had no problem returning the turtles to their B/W roots. If I knew before hand we were going B/W I would have adapted for it. So for the next couple of issues I worked the book into being more B/W friendly.

Same thing happened with Vanguard: Ethereal Warriors [a 2000 one-shot comic Frank did with Gary]--we thought that book was going to go color also--but...pre sales/orders played a roll in that too. That book should have been in color--it needed color.

And sooo....starting off thinking that ETHRIAN, "The Watchers of Pyrite Gorge" [a backup comic which ran in Savage Dragon #145-159] was going to be in its own book as a miniseries, wound up changing course. Rethinking all the pre sales stuff we decided to have "Watchers" as a back up in SD where it would be seen by more people and it could stay in color and not be a black and white miniseries because of poor pre sales/orders.

Class dismissed.

Interesting stuff, and good things to keep in mind when thinking about how pre-ordering can really make or break independent comics.

[Abnormal Freak]

Yeah, I'd read Larsen note in the letters column that issue one was drawn with the intent of it being in color. I wasn't sure if that was true or if it was just so unreadable because Larsen inked it, ha. I'm not a really big fan of Larsen's art, to be honest (nor his writing, nor...).

I'm glad Vol. 3 wasn't in color. I'm not real fond of color comics unless they're colored by hand; computer colors still irk me.