:: San Diego Comic Con ::

To commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, my best friend Vince Chui and I collaborated and created this piece for the 2012 San Diego Comic Con souvenir book. We are both huge Frank Frazetta fans and of course fans of the classic He-Man action figures. This was a super fun project, so there will be more collaborations in the near future!




I also created this little piece below to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Marvel Superheroes Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, and Iron Man. This was also a blast! I haven't drawn superheroes since I was a teenager!




If you're interested in reading why we created these pieces, please continue reading...

So my best friend Vince Chui is getting married! Being the best man, I had some responsibilities including the very important bachelor party! Vince is a great guy and I wanted this to be something super fun, something epic, something that he'll never forget... Solution - The San Diego Comic Con!

Brilliant! Since our teenage years, we've talked about going to the legendary "Comic Con". Years passed, but we kept talking about how we would make the trek one day... y'know when we were older.

Ha! Being ever so proud of myself for coming up with the idea, I did a quick search online on basic logistics like flights, hotels and admission. I quickly discovered that due to fire and safety regulations, there is a limit on the number of fans that can attend. And the 2011 Comic Con admission tickets sold out in 6 hours.

To make matters worse, I learned that the organizers implemented a new tiered system to order tickets. On an undisclosed date, they would release a link to register for a Membership ID number. Then on another undisclosed date, they would post another secret link for fans to order their ticket/attendee badge.

Tragedy! This idea seemed doomed before it even began. I started brainstorming other ideas for a decent plan B. Unfortunately everything else just paled in comparison. So I enlisted the help of a small circle of friends and set out to score some Comic Con tickets. I searched online and read anything remotely related to Comic Con for nine months... it became an obsession.

Finally on January 10, the Membership ID numbers were released and with shaky hands I signed Vince and myself up. My hands were trembling for excitement. I quickly alerted all my friends to sign up and they did. We did it - we completed the first obstacle! It was exhilarating.

Then it was quiet for a couple months. No news. Nothing. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty stressful.

March 1, 2012 at 5:31pm, I received an email update. "Comic Con 2012 badges will go on sale at 8:00am PST on Saturday March 3, 2012."

Crap! I had already booked an all day video shoot on that very Saturday! Fortunately our good friend Steve and Dave were ready and willing to try and secure our tickets for us. After reading and re-reading the detailed registration process document, we waited nervously.

A flurry of text messages from Steve later, we secured our tickets. Success! We are going to our first Comic Con this summer!

So to celebrate Vince's upcoming wedding AND our first visit to San Diego AND the Comic Con AND the 100th Anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, we decided to submit some fan artwork to the 2012 San Diego Comic Con souvenir book.

We later discovered that this year's tickets sold out in 90 minutes. Also we had to enter a hotel lottery, but that's another story...

To Be Continued...