Cave Con 2018

With a friend in town to visit, we traveled to Springfield for the 2018 Cave Con. I believe this was its first year, so it isn't a huge convention yet. But it felt like they had a lot of vendors, several local artists, and some people who've done work for major comic publishers.

Joe R. Lansdale was there, as were Cullen Bunn and Dennis Hopeless. I bought an Arcade print from Buster Moody, and I thought about getting a copy of Godzilla in Hell. I just didn't think I cared enough about Godzilla. If Big G is going to be confronted with all his old foes in Hell, it's going to be largely lost on someone who can't recognize any of them.

With the mostly limited funds I had on hand - the last week was a pain in the ass for spending - I focused mostly on local artists. I picked up the first issue of Hank Steiner, Monster Detective, by Scott Schmidt, Tyler Sowles, and Sara Sowles. It was interesting, and I'd like to see more of the world it's set in, the points of tension between the "monster" side of things and the humans, which I'm guessing is where a lot of Hank's work falls.

I also picked up the first two issues of Charl13, written by Fines Massey and Chris Burgess, and drawn by Kristofor Harris. It's about a robot soldier trying to protect what's left of humanity in a wasteland left over after a war with an alien race. It's takes the tone and approach of a spaghetti Western, the cynical, reluctant hero roaming a dangerous and uncertain landscape. It hit a lot of my favorite buttons, so I'll have to keep my eyes peeled. Buying both issues got me a print of my choice for free, so I picked a nice one by Omar Zaldivar. Made Charl13 look very cool.

Beyond that, I bought a four prints from three different artists. One by Gary Bedell, which had two people in a rapidly sinking crow's nest, looking at the shadows of two creatures circling them beneath the water. He had copies of that sitting out front and center on his table and it caught my eye every time I walked past, so for $5, it was a no-brainer.

Eric Wright had a print of a swallow carrying a coconut, which is a Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference, which I vaguely remembered, but I thought it something an actual bird species did. I know there are birds that pick up clams and drop them on rocks to bust them open.

The last two were from Kelly Williams. They're a little bigger than bookmark sized, one of Spider-Man with the old Spider-Sense going off, and one of Beta Ray Bill with a nice lightning effect in the background. He told me he did that with a white acrylic. I thought it was done with some sort of marker. At any rate, I don't see a lot of Beta Ray Bill pictures, so had to get that.

I didn't order any commissioned sketches. Haven't gotten any all year. Seems to be harder to find artists with a style I like, a price I'm willing to pay, who I haven't already used for someone on the lists I'm working through. My friend did commission a nice Etrigan from Lorenzo Liana.