So as I'd mentioned (more than once), myself and a few other local artists were hanging out at local comic book store Merlyns today, drawing sketches for kids as part of Free Comic Book Day. Though we'd initially intended "kids" to refer to those 10 or younger, we drew pics for basically anyone who asked, which also included quite a few parents and other adults....
And it was a success! A lot more people showed up than I think any of us imagined, and we did a whole lot of drawing. I lost track of time, but I'd say there was an hour or more where we were basically swamped by kids asking for pics. Crazy but very cool.
We were expecting kids to want drawings of superheroes, but it turned out that Star Wars was the all-around favorite, with the video game Halo also making a surprisingly strong showing. I drew at least 7 Star Wars pics myself (that I can remember), and 2 Master Chiefs (from Halo). We did have several superheroes, with some other random requests mixed in as well.
I do have to say though, my absolute favorite request turned out to be the last drawing I did. After a lot of Clone Troopers and Jedi, I really wasn't expecting any surprises. But then a young lad came up with his mom and said he wanted a drawing of Fin Fang Foom! He knew who he was (I'm still not sure how), and I had to oblige such an awesome and unique request. It took me some searching to find a reference pic, but it really made my day. It was also the only one I did in color, and I really wish I'd got a photo of it....
In addition to us, there were a few people there in Star Wars costumes so people could get pictures taken with them (and which might have subconsciously influenced the requested subject choices somewhat...). They were also making the rounds to the different comic stores around the area over the course of the day.
There are 2 major comic stores in town, Merlyns and The Comic Book Shop, the latter actually having 3 different location. In addition, there's another shop, Lightning Comics, just across the border in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. All of the shops participated in FCBD, as did the CdA libraries, and in addition Lightning Comics scored a coup by having writer Chris Claremont in the store signing comics!
John, the owner of Merlyns, seemed pleased with how we did, and was talking about having the group come in more often for similar events. We were able to spread the word about the local artist group and 24 Hour Comic Book Day, and hopefully helped to inspire some kids to keep or start drawing. All in all, it was a heck of a lot of fun!
In addition to myself, the following artists participated. We've all got pages on deviantArt, so take a minute and click on over to check out samples of their work!
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