Rarified Air

Flight 3 Show
Originally uploaded by kardinalsin.

I'm gonna double post to make up for two days of absence. What a whirlwind week we've weathered. I'd like to say that there has been at least one day of rest in there somewhere, but at least this weekend looks like it will slow down. Anyway...

Last Saturday, amongst the throngs of art fans and comic fans of Alhambra at Nucleus, a small group of us took in the fantastic release party for the latest Flight anthology. Now in their third volume, this successful collection has been seen as the greatest introduction to some quite accomplished independent comic book artists.

"But.. but... how was it and who are these guys?" one might ask. I'm happy to oblige. 10 artists from the book made their way to the San Gabriel Valley to celebrate and 10 were kind enough to sign my book and in some cases, throw in a tiny sketch for good measure. I chatted it up with a couple of them (Rad Sechrist, Kazu Kibuishi, and Paul Harmon being the most chatty) and even made away with a great print of the cover which you can see at the top of the stairwell in the embedded photo. Seeing all their work so filled out and accomplished was very inspiring, but even more inspiring was just talking with them and seeing how passionate most of them are about the work.

While I did make some good connections at the show, I enjoyed seeing all the pieces in the gallery in their unfinished glory. While the computer is becoming the weapon of choice these days, seeing the inked line over pencil (or most often, blue pencil) reminds me of how beautiful hand-created art can be. One day, technology will really be able to capture the organic feel of an inked page, but until then, I still appreciate the time and effort it took all the artists to complete their stories.

Now, we just have to wait until Flight 4 to see what they can really do.