Meeting Berni Wrightson.
I walked up to his table and to my happy surprise I didn't have to wait in line. He was very gracious. I asked him if he would look at some of my art in particular Motorsyko. It was the first 7 pages. He flipped though each one and nodded his head.
"I like it.", he said. For which made me very happy. I'm not sure if that's how he replies to every artist but I sure as hell wasn't going to complain.
We shook hands, in of itself is a thing of awesomeness. I was very proud to meet him. His work is very important in american art. For one thing he's up there with Frazetta and Williamson and Jack Davis. I would like to think Jack has been a very strong influence on my work for the past couple of years.
Later that afternoon I went to the his Q and A panel. I sat to the side on the second row. It was fascinating. To sit there and watch a legend talk about his career and take you right there with him. I can't stress enough what an an amazing experience it was. My mind was soaking it all in. Anything I could soak up from this seasoned master I would value every drop. I haven't drawn anything yet but I know something will come out of it.
The stories he told about the prints he did for the re issuing of the restored " The Stand", his experiences with DC, WARREN, the "Heavy Metal" movie, Rich Corben, it was all just an amazing experience. The one cool thing he did announce was that he is making a sequel to Frankenstein and that it will be published by IDW. I can't wait! Oh, and Steve Nile is writing it. AWESOME.
The next day I went up to his table. He signed my Edgar Allen Poe portfolio he did back in 76'. He was pleased to see the prints. I told about about Dave Sims "Glamourpuss". It was in this comicbook that really had me take closer look at Al Williamson, Alex Raymond and Milt Caniff. What Sims does is mix lucying models from glamour magazines and rendering them in the Al Williamson style. It really made me appreciate the artists he writes about.
Any way back to meeting Berni Wrightoson, I told that in "Glamourpuss" Dave Sims wrote a small vignette on him. In the article Dave claims to have heard from a third partying that that Berni gave a demonstration on how he inked "The Pepperlake Monster". Dave claims that this third party said that every time Berni would lay down a line he would dip his brush in ink, twirl the inked brush onto a scrap piece of paper so many times to get the brush into a fine point, and then lay down two or three lines, wash the brush, dry the brush, and repeat this over and over.
I told this to Berni and he said he doesn't work that way. I was going to bring the issue ( Glamourpuss" Issue 4, Page 4) but didn't, thinking he had already seen it. I told him I would go find it at a dealers room and he was like "Naa, don't worry about it."
I shook his hand and left going on a wild trek looking for the dealers room. Now Dragoncon has gotten so big that it is in 3 different hotels and I got totally lost and gave up.
NEXT: Meeting Jim Steranko.
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