Between now and the last time I saw him, Shannon Wheeler shaved off his beard. Then he won an Eisner. Is there a connection? Discuss.
Shannon’s upcoming book from Top Shelf is “God is Disappointed in you” in which the other author Mark Russell boils each book in the old and new testament down to three paragraphs/book and Shannon draws a gag cartoon for it. What would William Tyndale do? As Shannon says, the old testament is just a string of God being disappointed in man and doing something about it: flood, tower of Bable, plagues, Elijah, etc. The sampler is only seven books (I don’t know which 7, but I took Shannon’s word for it), but Mark has finished the 66 books and Shannon’s finished cartoons for 52 of them. Shannon is working on a book with Boom (publishers of “I thought you’d be funnier”) called “Grampa won’t wake up,” which sounds absolutely charming. That book will release in October. Shannon’s been doing Comic Con for the past nineteen years and has seen the show change a lot, but all his friends are still here so he’s happy with it. He also does APE and Stumptown in Portland Oregon where he lives and where he says you can no longer swing a cat without hitting a comic artist. When I lived in Portland in the late 90s it was the other way around.
(By the way, Shannon isn’t the only one who changed his look this year. Bryan “Kaiser” Tillman did. He also fine tuned his Dark Legacy game and wrote a successful art book. Is there a connection here as well? Discuss.)
See Comic Con 2011 for these artists:
Anson Jew (agoynamedjew.blogspot.com)
Ron Brown (freefallart.com)
Sabrina (sabrinabellydancer.com)
Ben Henderson (goldencrusader.com)
Steam Crow (steamcrow.com)
Kirstie Shepherd (curioandco.com)
Paul Roman Martinez (19xxad.com)
Ryan Claytor (elephanteater.com)
The Frantic Meerkat (franticmeerkat.com) and The Mincing Mockingbird (mincingmockingbird.com)
Karen Knighton (birdenvy.com)
Mary Bellamy (marybellamy.com)
John L. Brooks II (11thhourbooks.net)
Mike Bocianowski (artistmb.com)
Anthony Hon (motenaicomics.blogspot.com)
Shannon Wheeler (www.tmcm.com/tmcm)
Brett Bean (2dbean.com)
Celine Chapus (purpletophat.com)
Amy Mebberson (mimisgrotto.com)
Sho Murase (shomurase.com)
Katie Cook (katiecandraw.com)
Cat Staggs (www.catstaggs.com)
Bryan “Kaiser” Tillman (dark-legacy.net)
Sze Jones (szejones.com)
Maddox (maddox.xmission.com)
Thien Pham (thienisawesome.blogspot.com)
Ben Costa (shilongpang.com)
Jeannie L.S. Galster (jeaniels.com)
Debbie Huey (bumperboy.net)