I’ll be leaving for San Francisco and WonderCon tomorrow morning. I hope I get to see as many of my Bay Area friends and fans as possible.
I haven’t been to this show in awhile. Usually, when I’m up there for WonderCon, Howard Chaykin and I have dinner at Maya. This weekend, however, Howard (for some unknown reason) has chosen Pamplona, Spain over WonderCon. Priorities, priorities…
I am looking forward to blowing my diet and enjoying what my sons have described as the best ice cream they’ve ever had at Bi-Rite Creamery. Woo hoo! Maybe I’ll run an extra mile this morning…
I am really looking forward to being able to spend some quality time with my friends publisher John Fleskes and fellow Good Lizard Man Mark Schultz. Our booths are right next to each other this year (my booth is #1021).
I hear last year’s show was fantastic; I’m really up for this weekend.
See you all there!
I’ll be there on Saturday.
Hopefull, I’ll be able to think of something more interesting to say than, “I’m the guy with all those pictures of old dinosaur books” but….knowing me, that’ll probably be the best I can do
(maybe I should just sheepishly tag along with John (Fleskes) and let him do the talking.)
William Stout and Howard Chaykin, two great artists and so different in styles and approaches in illustration. What do you have in common?
Both of you have always been in control of the business side of your careers. Both of you are hard working.
Do you share agents or just common taste in good food? Who are your common favorite artists? Sorry that I am so nosy, I admire both of you and just don’t see you as “buddies”.
Wait a minute! Michael Kaluta is the common denominator!
Hi Tom,
Good question. While Howard and I have many differences both in personality, artistic style and in musical taste (I love blues; he loves jazz), we do share some commonalities, some of which you discerned.
I think our friendship may have been cemented many, many years ago (mid 1980s) when I recommended him for a movie being made by Cannon Films. He wasn’t able to take the job but I could tell he deeply appreciated my recommendation.
We are indeed both foodies. We both love to travel around the world. We both love Alex Toth’s work. We have several mutual friends, the great (and kind) Mike Vosburg being one of them. We both love strong design and graphics from the past and present. We both love to regale each other with stories of The Biz (movies) and the biz (comics; immodestly, I think that Howard and I are two of the best raconteurs in the world of comics). We both love comics and pretty much began our careers there, but primarily work outside that world. We both do work for film and television and know how to play hardball with the Big Guys. We both work (and play) very, very hard and admire each others’ strong work ethic. We both have good, kind hearts protected by our tough exteriors (Howie’s exterior is tougher than mine). We both pride ourselves in being good business people and standing up for our work and our rights as creators. We both mentor and give advice to promising talent and good people coming up in the business.
I didn’t know Howie is friends with Michael Kaluta. But after one meets Mike, who isn’t?