Airship27

FoCo CON REPORT

  • On 31 Aug | '2018

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Greetings Loyal Airmen. Last weekend saw the arrival of the 4th Annual Fort Collins Comic Con better know we residents of this fair city as FoCo. And as expected it was another fantastic con providing tons of fun both the guests and the attendees. Valerie and the Air Chief were there of course, along with our Airship 27 Art Director and partner in crime, artist Rob Davis, who drove up from his home in Hallsville, MO to be with us.

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Here’s a great shot from the second floor walkway. Looking down at the fellow in the short-sleeve blue shirt, that is none other than pro-artist Gordon Purcell and this was his first ever visit to FoCo. He and Rob later did a panel on Drawing Star Trek for DC Comics we are told was very well received by the con goers.

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Another out-of-town guest, though just up north of us, was art teacher and comic creator Chad Blakely from Cheyenne Wyoming. Always great to see Chad. He’s one fun dude.

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While Fort Collins own Adriane & Jesse Bonafazi were also on hand. Jesse is a wiz at making custom action figures. A while back, while discussing some of our comic and pulp creations, Jesse put forth the idea of our lovable Mr. Jigsaw teaming up with Brother Bones the Undead Avenger. Honestly, we thought he’d gone off the deep end. Then during the show he rushed over to our tables and gave the Air Chief the above drawing which depicts two little boys dressed up for Halloween as…you guessed it…Jiggy & Brother Bones.  “See,” said Jesse. “They can team up.” We think the sketch is brilliant.

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As ever you can always expect to find cos-players galore at these shows, such a Ghostbuster visiting with artist Zane Degaine and Deter the Shark Boy, who was really one cool dude.

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Speaking of Zane, he debut his first full comic at the show, FASTBACK, an action packed cops and crime thriller. Here’s the Air Chief getting his own copy autographed by the creator. Keep a look out for the comic, it is going to become a collector’s item.

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Of course Zane’s wife, Olivia, wasn’t about to be shown up. She actually had several comics at their table including issue # 1, a new series featuring Raizee the Ram that we created together.  Look for issue # 2 early next Spring.

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Olivia was also one of my three students in my Spring Comics Writing Class at the local community college. As we did after the first class, we managed to put out a second issue of FRONT RANGE TALES, as written by the students and illustrated by comic pro-artist. Standing together is happy students and proud teacher, Olivia, the Air Chief, Scott and Max.  They were a great class and will do awesome things in the future. Our next writing class begins Sept. 5th and we’re are told we’ve already gotten 7 writers signed up. Really looking forward to it.

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Above are actual pages from Olivia’s tale as drawn by Gary Kato. He gifted her with the pages after the comic was published. Then we have Scott who happily autographed one of his copies to fellow writer Aaron Powers who was in our very first writing class last Fall.

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Another guest artist was our friend Jon Bonjour who is now illustrating a brand new Nukla strip that we wrote a few months ago. Nukla was an old Dell Comic series and we are reviving for an independent comic line. Jon has also agreed to do a back up strip for a future issue of Mr. Jigsaw, Man of a Thousand Parts. We’ll certainly be happy to see what he does there. Can you believe he’s only still a senior in high school?

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Finally we wanted to leave you with this great shot of this young lady who picked up a copy of our Mr. Jigsaw Special How To Make A Comic Book.  She was delightful and very, very excited about creating her own comic stories. As you can see, this year’s FoCo was another big winner.

Ron- Over & Out!

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