But first... Let me tell you the amazing and exciting:
ziritrion's Quest For Meeting Sakai-Sensei!!
(Oh yeah, I'm writing this just for fun, so if you don't feel like reading, skip this and go for the pics straight ahead. I won't mind!)
(Note: I don't use to take pictures when I travel, so I don't have much experience. I forgot to photograph a couple things and some pics are a little blurry, so please excuse me
.)(Note 2: Images were resized. If you want any of the original pics, email or PM me.)
I left Barcelona Friday night at 11 p.m., with a train that went to Madrid which arrived there at 8 a.m. This was my first train trip, and my first trip to Madrid, so I was pretty excited. However, I did the mistake to buy a seat pass instead of a bed pass so I could save some money, but when I got to Madrid the next morning I found out that getting too little space for sleep and a hell of a neck ache is not worth it (it's Sunday evening and it still hurts!)
Anyway, once I got there, I took the metro to the Casa De Campo convention center, in which the Expocómic was celebrating. I got there at 8:30 a.m., and the con did not open until 10, so I spent all that time almost freezing outside the building walking up and down so I wouldn't get bored or cryogenized. 20 minutes before opening, people started to line up, and when the doors opened, there were at least 150 people out there anxious to get in. And finally, the doors opened!
The con was pretty empty at the beginning, but started to fill up very soon. The con itself was smaller than Barcelona's, but I think I liked better this one: the exposition area was in the perfect place (surrounding the whole con, in the first floor,) and the scenario, drawing workshops and gaming area were very well placed. Also, because there was less people, it was much nicer to walk around and look at the booths than in Barcelona. I had some trouble finding the stairs to get to the exposition area, but I found them soon enough. The only thing I complain about was the heating: it was set too high, which was uncomfortable, especially due to the amount of clothing that everyone was wearing.
According to schedule, Stan Sakai was to have a presentation at 11 a.m., so I started walking up and down the con looking around to identify the important spots. I also got to buy a couple of new releases which I was looking for. I noticed the exposition area, so I went there to check out the Usagi Yojimbo gallery.
Here's Super Funky Usagi Bro' welcoming me to the gallery!
Here's an overview of the gallery. There were 3 rows of frames in total: 2 in this picture: the one you can see, the panels in front of it and another one behind these panels.
Here come the goodies!
One of the paintings.
A couple of pages from the water-coloured Battle Of Adachigahara story. I had never seen it before, and the result is indeed very different to the normal coloring!
Here's the first page of The Guardian. I didn't take pictures of the whole story, so don't ask me for more pages.
This is my favourite painting of all!
The original art for this year's Expocómic poster. That bear is too cool
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Another painting, featuring Usagi and Jotaro. This is my second favourite painting
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I don't remember exactly what the info sign said about this one, but I think these 2 pages will appear in the next book. Am I right?
Finally, the time for meeting Sakai-sensei himself had come! I checked the map to see where Stan was having the presentation and quicly went to the workshops. After some confusion (most people went to the wrong workshop, including myself) and some setting up, the presentation began!
This image doesn't do justice to the amount of people gathering there. But as I said, I'm not a good photographer.
I was among the tallest persons there but I wanted to be in first row, so in order to not annoy anyone I stood up to a side and took pictures from there
.Stan introduced himself in Japanese, which cagught people in surprise, especially the English-Spanish interpreter, who didn't know what to do
. After some laughs, Stan started to tell us about UY's world, why he had chosen animals instead of people, and introduced his characters.
Here's Usagi.
Here's Tomoe. Todd Shogun is drooling by now
Here's Zato Ino on the background, and Stan starting to tell us about the process of making a comic. On that very moment I found out that the camera I was using (borrowed from my sister) has NO FREAKIN' ZOOM!! I was unable to get most of the pages that Stan was holding, so I'll try to describe them as good as I can to make up for it.
Stan started to describe the process of thinking up a story, where the ideas for it come from ("I don't know!"), and the thumbnails he draws before creating the final pages. What Stan is holding in his hand is some of these thumbnails.
Here's Juan. You might ask: who is Juan? Well, Stan wanted to show us how he drew pages from a story, so he randomly picked Juan, one of the little kids sitting on front, and started to draw Juan's day, from the moment he woke up until that very moment. If I had known it, I would have kidnapped the little kid so Stan would have chosen me, so he would have drawn my fantastic and dangerous adventure from Barcelona to the Expocómic, a comic which could have won 47 Eisners (at least) and 4 Pulitzers!! But Alas, he had to choose Juan!!! My inner self was going berserk!!!! Oh well, the crowd got a kick out of Juan's story and the little kid went home with a super cool drawing made by a super cool cartoonist and a smile in his face
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Here's Juan's story. Sorry for the blurry pics
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Stan also showed us the differents stages that a final page goes through. Here, he's holding a pencil-drawn page and the inked version from the "Runaways part 2" story.
The inked page and the colored final page (this story belongs to Volume 2, originally published by Image, which published UY in color.)
Here, Stan is showing us how a cover (and the colored pages, I guess) is/are printed. 3 color layers are used: yellow, magenta and cyan, and a final black layer is used in the end. Sometimes, 4 colors are needed, but this is somewhat strange. Stan is holding the different colored cells used and the final product.
A painting (cover for Book 18: Travels With Jotaro.) It takes a day to make a page, and a day to make a painting (unless it's watercolor, which takes 5 days to dry off.)
Stan was asked about how hard was to develop the characters. He answered that some characters were pretty easy (like Gen), but others where much harder, and as an example he drew Ishida. Ishida appears in Book 13: Grey Shadows, which hasn't been published in Spain yet (it's due for next May, I think), so most people didn't know this character yet, but I'm sure many of them will love him as much as I do
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Usagi being lifted by a kite. Stan explained how important research was for some stories, and how he had wanted to make a story involving kites but not knowing how until he drew this sketch by chance.
And this is Hermy! When asked which character was Stan most identified with, Stan answered drawing the little critter. It turns out that Hermy is a guinea pig
.The time for the presentation was over, so everybody applauded and then rushed to meet Stan. One of the con organization ladies said that if we wanted Stan to sign something, he would do so at 1 p.m., and asked us to move somewhere else because they had to clear the area up. Anyway, a few of us approached him and made a few pictures with him!
This is me and Stan
. In real life, I weight 230 punds of pure muscle and all the ladies in a 5 mile radius chase after me screaming in their hysteria just to touch me, but my sister's camera, besides not having zoom, was unable to take my good side, so here you go . Also, for some weird reason, I was unable to smile .I also bought a signed UY 2005 calendar for 10€
. And Stan was also kind enough to give me a signed Emerald City Comicon poster .I wanted Stan to sign a couple of my trades and a few posters and sketchbooks by request of some Dojo members, but since he was signing at 1 p.m., I thought that I should come back then since Stan would be busy. Then the real surprise came. Once I started walking around the con, Sharon (Stan's wife, with whom I had the pleasure to exchange a few words before and after the presentation) approached me and told me that if I wanted Stan to sign me anything, that I should give it to her so he could sign it in the back. I told her that it was okay andthat I could wait in line, but she told me that even if Stan wasn't supposed to do that, he would do it anyway, so in my joy I gave her 3 trades 2 were mine and the other was from a friend), 4 sketchbooks and 4 posters to have them signed, thus confirming that Stan is one of the nicests cartoonists on Earth
. Sharon told me that she would give them back to me in a while, and that she would look for me. After a while, I found her looking for me from the exposition area. She gave me back all the stuff I gave her and told her good-bye in case I wouldn't see her again (although I was gonna go to Stan's signing anyway).At 1 p.m., and after some confusion (dèja vú), I finally lined up to have Stan make a drawing that a friend of mine had asked for.
Stan was signing and doing sketches for everybody, sometimes for 3 books or more per person, so the wait was a little longer than usual (I had to wait for about 1 hour and 15 minutes or so.) The bad thing was that he didn't have much time for signing everything, and right after he signed the books of a few guys before me, the organization said that he would only sign one book per person because there was no time left. One of the guys in the line had a Groo the Wanderer book with a sketch by Sergio Aragonés showing Usagi and Groo looking at each other angrily, and Stan added a few details to the drawing
.When my time came, I asked him to draw on the back of a poster my friend's request: a Godzilla breathing fire while doing the V sign with his hands, or kicking a building down, or simply doing anything funny. Stan accepted and drew a small godzilla and Usagi riding on top while doing the V sign
. If I had had the time, I would have loved to ask Stan to draw either a member of the Dodo Ninja Clan (or a member of the Zo ninja clan!) or Gen with an afro and baggy pants while dancing à la Saturday Night Fever, but my friend had wanted his drawing for a very long time, and my requests seemed pretty silly, so I got the Godzilla drawing for my friend . I shook Stan's hand and told him good-bye (I had to take a plane on the afternoon), but then I noticed that Sharon was holding some drawings for sale. I checked them out and finally bought one which was just perfect (both in quality and price!) I told her good-bye too and finally left the Expocómic.After suffering a whole day standing up, not having eaten anything, not having slept the night before, with a heavy bag on my back and the worst neck ache I ever had, I headed to the airport just to get lost and wander around 15 minutes before I found the check-in and 45 minutes more to find the boarding gate. Luckily, I got to the airport with more than enough time
.Of course, I didn't leave the Expocómic empty-handed. This is my booty, arrr!
One of the trades (Grasscutter) I got signed. Yes, my real name is Álvaro
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The Emerald City Comicon poster ^_^ .
The Madrid Expocómic poster.
The art I bought from Stan. For just 50€, this was a bargain! And it features Tomoe! And Todd Shogun doesn't have it!
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The whole booty! Trades, posters, calendar, and the sketchbook!
And the final drawing, good ol' Godzilla with Usagi on his back especially made for my friend Guillem
.And that's all, folks! I hope I didn't bore you much with all this
. If you ever have the chance to meet Stan, then do it: as much as people say that Stan is a really nice guy, you have to meet him in person to really appreciate it . I had a great time in Madrid which I hope I can repeat someday (both meeting Sakai-sensei and going to Madrid's Expocómic, and for longer .)
