AUFAUXBIOGRAPHY

Before the 2007 Small Press Expo, an indie-oriented comics convention held in Bethesda, Maryland, I decided to start a themed con-sketchbook. For those of you who don't frequent comic book conventions, some people will carry a sketchbook around and have artists contribute sketches, based around (sometimes) a central theme. It might be Superman or Wonder Woman or whatever, or if the person's even cooler, it might be David Bowie.

In my business, when I'm at conventions it's usually to build my own convention's guest list, so there's a lot of introducing myself and subsequent quasi-gladhanding that always leaves me feeling pretty queasy. A lot of times, the person I'm inviting is someone I really admire, so it's even worse to suddenly become a shameless huckster, a conventioneer. So I thought it would be cool to have one of these themed sketchbooks, which would give me something else to talk about, not to mention something to carry away from the interchange, besides stomach acid and self-revulsion.

Predictably, I chose myself as the subject, and rather than make it easy ('Draw me as a dinosaur!"), I decided to make it a "narrative corpse", with each contribution building to the overall narrative. The fun part was drawing the introductory pages myself. Since not many people in my professional life know that I draw, this backfired a little, always turning the conversation towards what I'd drawn, rather than what they would draw. There are worse problems to have.