The first ever Houston Space City Comic Con returned to town this year in a big way. See, there was a show called "Space City Con" that played local hotels until one of the founders went through a divorce, so that partnership was dissolved and the other backers created "The Houston Con" to take its place... on Galveston Island, a minimum of fifty miles away from the eponymous city... in January... during a rare deep freeze. Fast forward a year and a half and a very mild rebranding later, we've got an impressive "new" show conveniently located off I-610 in Southwest Houston at the spacious NRG Park complex. The show still has some growing pains, including a highly segregated layout rife with unfortunate inequalities that rendered Artists' Alley a barely navigable series of claustrophobically narrow strips, but I adore guaranteed plentiful proximal parking for $12. This Friday, I'll be braving my first Amazing Comic Con at the same old George R. Brown convention center Comicpalooza's been at since 2010, with lots of brand new horrendous construction all around it, located at the nexus of freeway congestion hell that is I-10+I-45+Route 59/SH288, where I'll get to fight for $20+ parking spots a mile away with attendees to events at Minute Maid Park and Toyota Center. Give me NRG Center, please!
Anyway, here's an illustration detail by Antoine Mayes, one of several done by him at SCCC that I'll discuss in more depth on future posts. It depicts The Horn Firing Creature of Gilgana, but reimagines it as an obscured, foreboding, craggy beast that might well have been the image that would pop into H.P. Lovecraft's mind if you mentioned dinosaurs. I love when artists take the time to reconsider and revise these hoary Silver Age menaces I throw at them, rather than hewing to faithful but boring reproductions. Speaking of reproductions, I had a hell of a time with that aspect of Mayes' art, as he works in shades of gray that do not photocopy or scan very well at all. I did the best I could to deliver a workable version here, but it loses a lot of detail.
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