I’ve returned to my seat here at Strang Institute Mission Control from out west where I spent time with good friends and saw some amazing sights. I picked up some goodies too at Wondercon. Here’s a few:


Monster Commute is a webcomic by the good folks at Steam Crow. This is the first compilation – the second is already available and I’ll be getting that one soon too. Below, Daniel Davis, the man-half of the husband and wife team, draws me a sketch in the back of my copy.

I’ve followed Brianne Drouhard’s blog for some time and was happy to find her behind her publisher’s desk hawking her amazing children’s book Billie the Unicorn.

I’m also a fan of character designer Stephen Silver. I even took a design class with him online a year back, which helped me tremendously with my drawing skills. I picked up his latest treat of a sketchbook.

Another blog I’ve been following is that of Mann Arenas, who draws the incredible Yaxin the Fawn. I’ve watched the progress on this book over the last few years and it was a treat to finally get my hands on a copy. It’s in french though, so I’d better brush up on my foreign language reading skills.

 My best Wondercon experience, hands down, was getting to meet the creator of Bloom County and Opus the penguin himself, Berke Breathed! I didn’t have anything with me to have him sign, so I snatched a copy of volume two of his Bloom County compendium. This is right after a talk he gave about his comics, books, and movies based on his comics and books. He also showed a short clip from a failed Opus movie project. David Hyde Pierce was the voice of Opus (which I thought was rather distracting). I asked Mr. Breathed what voice he heard in his head when writing Opus and he said that of Winnie the Pooh.

Here’s a few other mentions of people I met at Wondercon: Becky Dreistadt, one half of the duo that creates the fantastic hand painted webcomic Tiny Kitten Teeth; also artist and animator Pascal Campion, who does some amazing Flash based illustrations. Check them out!

Finally, here’s me in front of Pixar Studios, where one day the Ellie on Planet X movie will be made. So I tell myself.