Today Marilyn and I went down to the Staples Center for the Wizard World Los Angeles comics convention. Mainly it was just for the purposes of getting my portfolio looked at and handing out some leave-behind copies for editors. Unfortunately, WWLA was smaller than the one in Chicago, and I only got to speak with one editor, from Top Cow. I don't think I have enough bikini-clad women in my portfolio to make much of an impression, but the guy we spoke to was nice, we didn't have to wait in line, and who knows - some of the bigger companies are looking to vary their styles a bit these days.

Perhaps fitting for L.A., there were a number of celebrities present: Summer Glau from "Firefly" and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", though we never actually saw her, because the line wrapped around the convention hall; Milo Ventimiglia from "Heroes", who was surrounded by a slightly smaller crowd, so we saw his forehead and his nose; Donald Faison from "Scrubs", who we got to see in full figure (and who Marilyn says "gave her a double take"), but didn't get to talk to because he was being filmed.

But, not all was being in the general vicinity of celebrities. We got to actually speak to and shake hands with Erin Gray from "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". Marilyn and I had both grown up watching "Buck Rogers," as it turns out. She was really nice and very approachable. We told her that we had only recently had the opportunity to enjoy her work again by watching an episode on NBC's website. She said it would be nice if NBC would send a little compensation their way since they were re-airing the old episodes online - which is what the Writers' Strike was all about - but thought that the hardships of the Writers' Strike was probably making actors too nervous to try the same thing.

We attended a panel on advanced coloring techniques in which there were no visuals - I can't remember if the room wasn't set up for the artist's computer to be displayed on the big screen, or if they didn't have their computer. I don't recall because I was half-asleep through most of it. He had some good advice once he got past all of the technical jargon (I recognized most of the terms he used, but I'm still not proficient enough with Photoshop to remember what they all mean), but by the time he got there I was fading in and out.

One pleasant surprise was running into Patrick Scullin, an old friend of mine from junior high school. He always used to sign yearbooks with a sketch of Captain America, which of course I thought was cool. And I still do. I was really pleased to see that he's still involved with comics and illustration. In fact, I was a little jealous because he's got a nice table set-up and sketchbook...

While this didn't really feel terribly productive (especially considering the price of the tickets), and I was already a little frustrated because I didn't get any of my Independent Study pages ready enough to be included in my portfolio, it was still like a practice run to prepare us for San Diego. Given the size of that convention, I should be able to drop off a lot of drop-offs...