Kyle Baker and Bob Wayne at UKCAC ’88

Anyone who has seen the photos I sometimes post of creators, if I have one, with the uploads of original comic art will recognise I am no Annie Leibovitz or David Bailey (I am honestly not fishing, so no complimentary backslapping please). I know nothing about apertures/F-stops and indeed how to compose a picture. However, I am proof if it was needed that any picture is better than no picture, and it always puzzled me how so few people carried a camera at conventions back in the day – the last couple of decades of the twentieth century. I probably did not think it then but I definitely think it now that I would prefer a personally-taken photograph of a creator over a signed comic/book by the same any day of the week.

My second favourite convention photo I took is that of Frank Miller (that accompanies the upload of the page from Daredevil 180) which was the last picture I took at the first comic convention I ever attended – UKCAC ’86. Up until that shot I had operated on the basis of “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” but when Frank Miller saw me shoving a camera in his face, instead of scowling at me menacingly he instead broke out into a spontaneous smile. It was then I realised that good manners cost nothing and can open doors and if I just asked for approval for taking a photo then a better result would follow. So for the most part I did clear it with the subject before taking a snap of them and everyone bar one did not mind – Brendan McCarthy does not like having his photo taken (or at least he did not back in the 1990s) but I can definitely relate to that so I do not hold it against him.

But I think my all-time favourite convention photo is the one above. Looking at it almost always brings a smile to my face, and sometimes even thinking about it results in a stupid grin being plastered across my chops. At UKCAC ’88 I was at the DC Comics table where Kyle Baker was doing free quickie convention sketches. He was just coming to the end of his tenure on The Shadow. The only stationery I had with me was a lined A6-format notebook and to be just different I requested Ching Yao Chang and Hsu-Tei. After he had drawn these I asked him if he would mind posing for a photo, and instead of sitting up straight, looking into the camera and smiling, as most people did when I asked, he leant sideways whilst maintaining eye contact with me, and rested his head on Bob Wayne’s right shoulder which prompted him in turn to look at me, smile and lift his outstretched hand in a gesture as if to say, “What’s he like?”

Thank you again to Frank Plowright and Hassan Yusuf, the two main organisers of UKCAC ’88, but especial thanks to Bob Wayne and Kyle Baker for both the sketch and a very happy memory.