Ma, Simon :: Comic Art

Parker convention drawing – Sean Phillips (LICAF 2024, Part 6)

Artist: Sean Phillips (All)

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Parker convention drawing – Sean Phillips (LICAF 2024, Part 6) Comic Art

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UKCAC 1997. Left to right: Sean Phillips, Duncan Fegredo, Mark Buckingham.

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Artwork Details

Title:	Parker convention drawing – Sean Phillips (LICAF 2024, Part 6)
Artist:	Sean Phillips (All)
Media Type:	Pen and Ink
Art Type:	Convention Sketch
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	118
Likes on CAF:	1 2
Comments:	0
Added to Site:	10/3/2024
Comic Art Archive:

Description

I will put my cards on the table and say that the main draw for me of attending The Lakes International Comic Festival was to meet Sean Phillips and perhaps have him sign my copy of Bad Weekend, obtain a convention sketch and grab a photo. I had seen him before in the late 1990s when he used to attend the annual London comic convention (and I have the photo to prove it) but my tastes had not developed sufficiently to appreciate his comics. Sure, I had examples of his work – Hellblazer, The Minx, Hell Eternal – but he was not in my first division of British comics artists. In my premier division were Brian Bolland, John Bolton, BWS, and, umm, that’s it. I told you I was old school. Everyone else is in the second tier. I even bought the first Criminal arc – the one featuring a character called Leo who looks like Leonardo DiCaprio with a soul patch – and although I thought it was okay I did not get the second arc. It was only after reading the Previews solicitation for the Bad Weekend hardcover graphic novel in the summer of 2019 that I gave it another go. The preview said it was a slightly expanded version of two issues of Criminal and was based around a comics convention. What’s not to like? Ever since I have read it many many times; it is probably my favourite comic of the past ten years. Funny, sad, beautifully drawn and expertly coloured. it is a knockout. There is a four-page sequence near the end which I picked up from a CAF classified (hi, Jason; thanks!) which is a masterclass in the language of comics. It is just three guys in a bar chatting and in other hands it might be executed in a visually boring manner but the chiarascuric lighting, the different camera angles and distances, facial expressions, body language of the speakers make it a textbook example of how to make something really interesting to look at. Since reading that I have worked in reverse filling in the gaps in my Brubaker/Phillips back catalogue.

I had seen Sean and Jacob Phillips in the audience at the convention’s opening night event The Avengers: Uncivil War but that was when it had just finished and they were speaking to Michael Lark. The next day in a strange quirk of fate as I was within five minutes of my finishing breakfast in the dining hall of the hotel Sean and Jacob Phillips came in to take theirs and I was close enough to the supervisor to even hear the room number they were in to confirm they were staying there. As I had to pass the table where SP was sitting to go back to my room (Jacob had gone into the kitchen to plate up) I thought that this might be my only chance to say anything to him all weekend so as I passed I told him I loved his work – a compliment he accepted graciously – and that I would see him at his signing which was scheduled to be a couple of hours from then. This was his downtime and he probably wouldn’t want some fanboy droning on and on at him. There is a story – perhaps apocryphal – that Alan Moore stopped attending the annual London comic convention after 1987 because it had gotten to the stage where autograph hunters were following him into the mens toilet, which is totally out of order for any number of reasons.

I arrived 15 minutes early for that signing but because I was so early I decided to spend some time with Roger Langridge. However, by the time he had finished it was already 15-20 minutes into the hour Sean Phillips had been allocated but this turned out to be a stroke of luck as not only were there only a couple of people in front of me but as soon as I joined the queue then no else seemed to want to join me. This made it much easier for him to make time for a convention drawing which I requested.

I already have a number of pages from Sean Phillips’ previous work which I have picked up from a variety of sources (thank you to Andrew, Jared, Jason and Mark) so in order to avoid duplication I suggested something I was not sure he would go for but which was definitely in his wheelhouse. I was a bit of a latecomer to Darwyn Cooke and his Parker series. His work looked too retro, too 1950s to me; I was not old school enough to appreciate it. However, when the one-shot The Man with the Getaway Face came out I gave it a try and after that I was a committed Cooke convert. I am pretty sure I am never going to get a spread from Darwyn Cooke’s Parker as they don’t come back onto the market with any frequency and when they do they are … pricey. However, there is one (and as far as I know only one) other artist so far who has been authorised to work on the property by the Donald Westlake estate and that is Sean Phillips who had a “bonus extra track” in the second IDW oversized hardcover collection of the Darwyn Cooke adaptations. Fortunately SP was up for the convention drawing thereby saving me a fortune in hunting down a Darwyn Cooke example – I will not need one now. Thank you, Mr P!

[continued in the following post]

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	Simon Ma ( 2 ) Premium Gallery Owner
Joined:	April 2013
Last Login:	September 2025
Country:	UNITED KINGDOM
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