Randy's Sketchbook: San Diego 2006 by Randy Lander It's an annual tradition here at The Fourth Rail since 2003... the sketchbook feature. I've got scans of the various sketches that were done for me this year in San Diego. If you missed last year's sketchbook feature, you can find it HERE. If you're here for the new stuff, you'll just need to scroll down a little bit to start the image parade. My sincerest thanks as always to the artists who did sketches for me this year. We'll start off with my theme sketches, as I always get fewer of those. My theme is pirates, ninjas, robots and/or monkeys. Basically, comic book cliches that I enjoy. It's a little bit wordy and ambiguous, and I think my next theme will be more straightforward (I'm thinking of starting a G.I. Joe themed sketchbook for 2007), but it has provided me with a ton of interesting, original sketches. First up, a terrific, color sketch from Dan Hipp, the super-imaginative artist behind Image's Amazing Joy Buzzards. I believe that AJB is due for a long-awaited return in November... in the meantime, do yourself a favor and pick up the first two trade paperbacks. This is the most expensive sketch I've ever commissioned, but it was so worth it. An original Tim Sale creation, with gray wash over his pencils and inks? One of the absolute highlights of my sketches this year. Sale is currently working on the artwork for the NBC series Heroes, as well as the upcoming Superman Confidential story arc being written by Darwyn Cooke. Cooke and Sale together? I'm there. Closing out the theme sketchbook this year, we have an amazingly detailed (and frighteningly anatomically correct) winged monkey, courtesy of Eric Shanower. Shanower continues to work on Age of Bronze, his extensive comic covering the Trojan War. In addition, his Oz books are just about to be reprinted in a gorgeous new collection from IDW. First up out of my main sketchbook, we have a delightful little Scott Pilgrim sketch from Bryan Lee O'Malley. I asked Bryan if he could put some kind of videogame power up in the sketch, which explains the mushroom on Scott's head to you Mario fans out there. O'Malley is of course hard at work on volume four of the indy phenom series Scott Pilgrim. If you haven't ready any of the other volumes from Oni Press, now's the time to rectify that. You won't be sorry... everybody loves Scott Pilgrim! Another Oni book that seems to have caught some buzz is the post-apocalyptic ongoing Wasteland, written by Antony Johnston and illustrated by Chris Mitten. Here we have one of the mutants from Wasteland, courtesy of Mitten. Sticking with Oni, the latest artist on their Queen & Country series is Chris Samnee, who wowed me last year with his work on the graphic novel Capote in Kansas, as well as a kickass Batman sketch that was probably the highlight of last year's convention sketches. This year, he actually offered to give me another sketch right after finishing the first one, and since I'm not a complete idiot, I of course said yes. So here they are, Paul Crocker and Tara Chace, from Queen & Country. One more sketch from the Oni guys... hey, can I help it that they've got some of the best artists? Neal Shaffer and new artist Joe Infurnari collaborated on volume one of Borrowed Time, a Twilight Zone-esque tale of lost ships and ghostly existence that really started strong. Here we see a character from Borrowed Time, courtesy of Infurnari. Leaving behind the Oni sketches, here's the first of a couple from the Image guys. Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba have combined to create Casanova, a completely whacked-out science-fiction espionage action mindfuck of a series, which is currently on issue two. At $1.99 an issue, it's an affordable ride, too. Below, a quick sketch from Gabriel Ba of hedonistic superspy Casanova. Also from the Image booth, this is a character from Phonogram, the upcoming series about magic, music and more from Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. The first issue should hit any time now. One of the happy accidents of wandering was running into writer George Singley and artist Ethan Beavers at the Markosia booth. One of Singley's books featured an archer named Lonebow, and since I'm a big fan of heroes using bows (Green Arrow, Hawkeye, etc.) I asked if Beavers could draw it. Lonebow had featured in Mutation, the ongoing book from Markosia that Beavers is illustrating, and so he knocked this one out for me. Here was a real treat. I ran into Tim Seeley many times over the course of this convention, and it was always a pleasure, because the guy is really nice (and talented!) On a whim, knowing he had worked on G.I. Joe, I asked how much he knew about them, and he said "more than anyone should." I asked if he could do me a Kwinn sketch (obscure G.I. Joe badass character alert!) and he said he definitely could. I actually meant it as sort of an "if you get time, I'll swing back by the booth with my sketchbook" but Tim ran into me at the bar that night and told me he'd already finished the sketch, and had way too much fun drawing it. As you can see, that fun translates into a great drawing of one of my favorite characters. If you're not familiar with Tim's work, you can see his art most notably in the uber-successful Devil's Due adaptations of the Forgotten Realms Dark Elf Trilogy, but I'd also highly recommend him for his writing skills on the horror/action/comedy series Hack/Slash, which just had a very accessible quarter issue and is in serious development for a movie. One of the sketches I had absolutely planned to get this year was a Fables sketch from Mark Buckingham. It wasn't easy, as he was always busy, but I finally lucked out and got him to draw Boy Blue in the witching cloak. As a bonus, he's got the vorpal sword as well. If you have no idea what I'm talking to, shame on you... go out and buy the first volume of Fables (Legends in Exile) immediately. It is my favorite book, hands down, and Buckingham continues to impress on the artwork. I truly was not expecting to find Takeshi Miyazawa at San Diego, so finding him there was a really lucky break. I have loved his work since his early days on Sidekicks with J. Torres, and through to his current work on Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. I was delighted to find that he had an overstuffed sketchbook, that he's working on an online comic (BFX Project 2) and that he was doing sketches. Remembering Miyazawa's excellent guest work on Runaways, I commissioned a sketch of Nico, and you can see how great it turned out. While wandering Artist's Alley, I came upon the striking artwork of Joseph Brudlos, which reminded me of Rod Espinosa's work on Neotopia. I learned that the graphic novel he was selling was the first collected volume of Alpha Shade, the online comic he works on with his brother. He was kind enough to do me a sketch, although he warned me that he usually drew with a WACOM tablet rather than pencils. One of the books I found last year was Hector Spector, a neat little action/mystical book from Joshua Pruett and Richard Pose. This year, I picked up a design sketchbook for Pose's newest project, coming next year, and he was kind enough to do a sketch for me as well. Finally, here we have a beautiful piece done by Sean Wang, the artist and writer of the excellent science-fiction/adventure series Runners as well as the artist of Image's upcoming book Meltdown. This is Cember, a fun character who is a sharpshooter and fast talker and one of my favorite characters in that book. Email Randy Lander comments about this column, or visit his MySpace profile/blog.