CECE Swag

Voice of the Collector hit the recent Chicagoland Entertainment Collectors Expo.  He tweeted me he had picked up something to send me, so I sent my address, and a few days later there was a big bubble mailer among my little eBay ones.  It took awhile for it to register with me where it came from though because the shipping was handled online and thus looked much like the rest of the eBay mailers.  So after looking through everything in the package (twice) in astonishment and bewilderment, thinking someone I purchased something from on eBay mistakenly sent these, I finally noticed the name and address it came from.  Then it FINALLY clicked with me that this is what Rob sent.  Good ol’ David ain’t got a thing on my slow-wittedness… *sigh*

With the super secret origin out of the way, let’s see all the freakin’ awesome stuff he sent!  Not much I can add, mostly gonna let the coolness speak for itself.  So just sit back, relax, and enjoy the pretty. 😀

First the big stuff!

The backs!

Then some artist promos (and business cards!)..

The backs..

CECE-specific artist promos..

Here's what the backs of these look like..

Art by Katie Cook, Jay Shimko, Bill Pulkovski, Trevor Mueller, Connie Persampieri, Larry Elmore, and Jessica Hickman

Art by John Haun, Peter G., Steven Miller, Ken Kelly, Chris Henderson, Warren Martineck, Denise Vasquez, Bruce Gerlach, and Andy Broome..

Art by Brett Pinson, Kevin Leen, Randy Martinez, Tom Kelly, Paul Allan Ballard, Tony Miello, Corbett Vanoni, Leah Mangue, and Chris Kuchta..

Finally these two..

The backs..

And yes, these are probably about as close as I will ever get to owning a Katie Cook sketch card without pulling one:

*le sigh*...

Thanks for these great cards, Rob!  Please let me know if I can send anything in return.

Until our next…

Tales from the Mailbox

Click this pic for the eBay listing..

This isn’t the thing I mentioned at the end of my last post, but I think it’s still pretty dang cool.  It’s a sketchbook by Ian Walker.  It is about comic book-sized and 24 pages in length.  All the pics within are done in black & white, hence the title.  I picked up two on eBay, one for myself and one for my dad to put up till Father’s Day and/or his birthday.  The cost: $5 each + free shipping (for disclosure purposes, that means I bought them myself and wasn’t compensated in any way for this promotion, in case that’s not clear).

Click this pic to see Ian's deviantART gallery page. The gallery itself will require one more click once there,

I scanned a few pages for your viewing pleasure.  Clicking on them will take you places.  Ian is very a talented artist and you can see a lot more of his work at his deviantART gallery.

He is also taking commissions.  You can check out his deviantART page linked in the scan above for more info.  Just scroll a ways and boom!… commission information, prices, etc..

Click this pic for more of The White Ninja Guy..

White Ninja Guy is Ian’s own creation, the titular star of his own webcomic.  He’s got his own website and everything!

Click this link for Ian's ustream channel.

Stop by when he’s on sometime and watch the magic happen.  Never know who you might meet.  I ran into  A Pack a Day contributor darkship there recently (I think it was Ian’s channel anyway).

Finally, as if $5 a pop and free shipping wasn’t enough for these great sketchbooks, he is also offering a free sketch (drawn on the last page in the book) of a character of your choice, for the time being at least.

Here are the characters I chose for myself and my dad:

My sketch: Raven of the Teen Titans

Pretty awesome, huh?  Another great reason to check out his channel: You might get to see your art being done live, as was the case with these. 😀

My dad's sketch: obscure-ish Green Lantern Jack T. Chance

I think Jack is the best one Ian drew all night.  Just outstanding!  He’s an old favorite of my dad’s and an obscure enough character that he wouldn’t expect me to choose him (he asked me to “surprise him” when I chose the sketch).

Well, there ya go.  Definitely amongst of the best five bucks I’ve ever spent.  If you have an extra $5 burning a hole in your pocket, I highly recommend picking up a copy.  I do believe you will be glad you did.

Until our next…

Now I’m Ready

Last night was awesome!  I did one sketch card start to finish that I’d been meaning to do for awhile, and inked & colored about a half dozen more.  As such, I’m feeling plenty good enough to mess with cards and my blog again.  And not a moment too soon either.  More cards from Tim arrived today, these being the ones for the Eddie Mathews jersey.  Lots of great stuff in there. 🙂  Also, two Deron Williams jerseys arrived from Shot Not Taken.  And a new Brooke Morales card came from eBay, and a couple more should be arriving soon.  Project S.T.A.L.K.E.R. progresses, lol.

I’m still not going to post any trades yet though.  And no, I don’t care if Thorzul hates trade posts.  I don’t even think he’s ever been to my blog anyway.  I just wanted to take a minute right now to give some major props to some people involved in the National Chicle bruhaha over the weekend.

First, dayf the Cardboard Junkie for rants that pretty much summed up everything that’s wrong with and/or pisses us off about the hobby.  They were passionate and on-point to such a degree that I’d have to say he should probably now be considered one of the leading voices on the current state of the hobby.

Next, Chris Olds, the face of Beckett on the internet.  A fair bit of dayf’s wrath was directed at him, but his coverage of things was pretty decent, and raised my opinion of him a lil’ bit.  I don’t really know him beyond the smug, garish ogre he is hopelessly characterized as by many of the leading bloggers, but ol’ boy handled his business well enough here, and proved he has something resembling of journalistic skillz, so I’ll give him his due.

Next, it was great to hear from the artists commissioned by topps to do the upcoming National Chicle set, particularly Paul Lempa who did the Chipper/Ruth in modern Braves uni/Magglio Ordonez (that’s who it looks like to me, dammit!) card everybody got all militant about.  Being a wannabe artist, it pleased me that the dude was so positive about everything.  The same can’t be said for all the artists interviewed, but that’s where we’re going next.

Finally, to Sooz of a Cardboard Problem for the verbal whoopin’ on Monty Sheldon, explaining why crankypants’ quote was incredibly an douchy and arrogant one.  Good work, Sooz!  It stated why we are awesome, what you get yourself into as a writer/artist/entertainer of any kind, and made me proud to be a part of this hobby. 🙂

Until our next, I leave you with this, just because…

The tiniest swatch of Carlton Fisk jersey ever!

I am the Bazooka Joe heartthrob du jour…