Billy Tackett's DEAD WHITE & BLUE: Chicago, St Louie, I been a lotta places, man!

I've been meaning to get this blog out for a while but have either been too busy or under the weather so here goes:

First of all I want to plug our next show which is the Cincinnati Comic Expo Sept. 18 at the Cintas Center. There will be folks like Josh Medors, David Michael Beck, Mark Kidwell, Mike Maydak, Jeff Preston, Tony Moore and legends like Allen Bellman, Murphy Anderson, Russ Heath and Craig Boldman. And if you don't recognize these names you owe it to yourself to go to the bio page and see exactly how much today's comics industry actually owes to these guys.

A few weeks back we headed up to Chicago for Wizard World's Comic Con. We met a lot of great folks and they really kept me busy! The first commission was from a group of guys that stopped by, one of which was holding a copy of a well known comic book. When I asked if he had the cover artist sign the book he kinda rolled his eyes and showed me the sketch and signature he had paid for. The following ad came from that interaction:

Here's how I feel about the situation: If a fan, or anyone for that matter, is going to pay you for a sketch you should at least give them something that resembles your style. Now if this had been a freebie? I still think one should do more but hey, you get what you pay for, right? But this guy was willing to shell out some bucks and this is what he got. And what are you gonna do, ask the artist to give you your money back for a crappy half-assed sketch? It kinda burns my ass to see someone treat their fans like that.Now that I got that off my chest...

Below are some of the sketches I did while I was there:

One of the more unusual requests, a book full of Strawberry Shortcake getting what she's got coming to her...my method of demise? Being eaten by zombies of course!

Cap was a favorite...this one turned out looking a lot like Tar Man!

Batman!

Zombie Catwoman and her camera shy owner!

Re-sketch of my classic Born To Lose pic

The Force is strong...just not very fresh!

Another Cap!

Oh, and then there were these guys! They didn't buy anything though.

And these last two are collages of sketches I did during some down time.

Zombie JLA...I discovered that a zombie Superman image just doesn't have the impact if you don't show at least his chest too.

And one more Cap for the road!

Lots of people we knew there like Chris Kuchta, Menton J. Matthews III, Mike Maydak, Marc Ballard, Nigel Sade, Mark Kidwell, RD Hall, Mike Holman, Morgan Mead, and...and...crap! I know there were more but I just can't remember. Unfortunately there wasn't much time to hang out but it was a great time...except that the hotel was out of Fat Tire...bastards!

The next weekend we headed to St. Louis for a mini vacation. Visited City Museum and the Arch. Stopped for a bite to eat on a great little street before we left and had this little incident:

Heather shoots a great photo of the street we were on, carriages and everything! Except that just a few short moments later I hear someone call my name...