Steve Rude 1984 SDCC Nexus pencil sketch

Even though it looks like an '04 in the signature, this piece is actually from the 1984 San Diego Comic Con.

My family was down from Los Angeles for the weekend visiting family and my father read in the newspaper that there was a comic convention in town, so he dropped be off at the con outside with some cash left me there for most of the day.

It was from the first time I met the Dude at his very first San Diego Comic Con appearance. I had commissioned Steve for a Nexus sketch shortly after the I arrived at the show and he told me to check back with him later. When I came back to see the Dude, it was getting close to closing and Steve hadn't quite finished it yet, so I waited patiently for him to complete it. Then, when he did finish it, he asked me to hang on as he ran a couple of aisles over to show it off to his new found friend, Bill Sienkiewicz, who he met for the first time that weekend.

My father was impatiently waiting outside for me on the last day of the con as Steve was finishing off the sketch. How did I know my father was impatiently waiting outside in 1984 before cell phones? Because he parked his car and had me paged over the infamous SDCC PA System, "John Cogan, your father is waiting for you outside!", so embarrassing.

After that incident, I started going to SDCC on my own with a few high school friends who were also into comics.