Andy Price started off his con with getting a new sign to display at his table. Considering how many people have dropped their bags carelessly on the original art--I didn't see any instances at this con, but at others oh boy--it's probably something that he definitely needed to add.
Considering that that his work is worth several hundreds of dollars, it's probably more than well worth it. Now I just have to wonder if the fish he's armed with is an actually fish or is a hand made yarn creation from his wife.
Anyways, after the opening ceremonies the IDW Comic Crew had the first panel on the main stage. After that they had about an hour before their scheduled press conference. I'll get to the press conference in a bit, but to tied you over, below the break you'll find what each artist was working on at the tables, as well as what happened during their panel hosted by... BronyCon Mascot Blank Canvas!?
Huh. I guess Applejack really is the best background pony. As such we shall pay no attention to her banner in the background. Especially not the cherry cutie marked flank that's mostly cut off by the boarder which might or might not signal an upcoming and unannounced Friends Forever team up. That's not important at all. What is important is the bearded glasses wearing man in the hat. That my friends is MLP Artist/Writer Tony Fleecs.
Tony Fleecs was offering his usual head sketches and boatloads of his original published comic pages. While most of the pages weren't anything new, he did have the upcoming pages for the his issue featuring Rainbow Dash and Little Strongheart. It was brand spanking new and had all of that pages that he created for the comic.
Surprisingly there was a 5 page gap in the first half of the issue. When I asked him about him about it he smiled, pointed towards to Sara Richard and said, "Oh yeah. Sara did those. So while I wasn't able to get a sneak peek of the entire issue, I definitely know we have a treat to look forward to. I hope everyone is ready for Sara Richard to rock comic world, again.
I own all of the titles featured on Jeremy Whitley's table. I shall say this right now, if you are a fan of his MLP work, I highly suggest that you should also own all of the titles he has on his table. Jeremy didn't really have too much to talk about while at his booth. He's been focusing on titles outside of MLP for a company that's directly related to his shirt.
Which his monthly going title of The Wasp was officially announced yesterday. Apparently the guy has a talent for writing compelling young women characters.
Oh and for some reason, Siege of the Crystal Empire was not on his table at the end of the show. Something about it selling out was mentioned. I thought the general consensus of the comments of this blog was that it was terrible. I'm pretty sure that terrible books do not not sell out at conventions.
Jenn Blake joked that BronyCon should keep Andy Price at Panels during his entire stay at the convention, since apparently that was the only way they were going to make money. Andy Price was also the only person who had not one, but two lines for his table. The first (and shorter of the bunch) focused solely on those who wanted to buy a print and/or get a signature from Andy. That line kept moving all weekend long.
The second line, the one that straight back from Andy's table and snaked along the wall in front of him, lasted for the duration of the convention. It never diminished in length. But it also never really grew in size. Andy Price was in demand and apparently he was meeting those demands.
I unfortunately wasn't able to chat with Andy too much during the con. His BronyCon handlers kept the line moving at the pace he was comfortable with. However I did manage to get a sketch...
I can't be sure, but I think she wants to eat me. Of course I did request Chrysalis around Lunchtime, so maybe Andy was channeling his hunger into the drawing. I do love the green colored pencil that he used to highlight her eyes.
In addition to offering her dwindling supply of original comic art pages, IDW Limited sketch cards, signed TSSSF cards, and whatever original sketches she had been commissioned to work on, Jenn had some good news paired with some unfortunate news. The good news, she has a new MLP Project coming out from IDW! So Seth please stop asking me when Jenn is doing more pony art for the comic. She's coming back. Definitely be on the look out for what she has cooked up! Is it a cover? Interior pages? Something completely off the wall? Well she was mum on that front. But I have a feeling that it's something that she's found great amusement in.
However, and this is the sad news, that upcoming project of hers is going to be the last MLP project she's doing for a little while. It would seem that the person wearing the green shirt next to her has snatched her up for a project of theirs that has been described multiple times as "Die Hard with Fashionable Kick Butt Lesbians." If you've followed Jeremy and Jenn on twitter at all, you probably know exactly what the project is that these two have been working on.
No details as to the release date of that project, but hopefully it shouldn't be too long before these two are spamming all social media channels about it.
Oh Sara, why must you tease everyone by showing that banner of the 1:25 (but only if you ordered 25 copies of every issue of FIENDship) retailer incentive variant of FIENDship is Magic. It is a beautiful cover, a very rare cover, and one that when signed by Sara Richard, Tara Strong, and Jeremy Whitley fetches $601.00 at BronyCon's charity auction.
Aside from that little bombshell catching everyone off guard, Sara was offering original water color sketches of anyone's OC Pony (or almost nearly any other pony you could think of), original comics with her covers on them, and original art at steep discounts for in person purchases of her art pages.
As for working with Tony Fleecs, excited doesn't even begin to describe how she was acting about that bit of news. She cannot wait to see the reactions to her pages in that comic. Considering the dream sequence she did with Zecora back in issue 25 for Friendship is Magic, I have a feeling it's going to be something trippy.
The biggest event the IDW comic creators were a part of was the IDW Comics panel right at the start of the convention. All five comics creators were present for this panel, which was moderated by Blank Canvas. Apparently BronyCon figured out how to make Cereal Velocity's portal to Equestria into a reality. Either that or they hired someone to dress up as their mascots for the duration of the convention. I'll go with the former line of reasoning thank you very much.
Anyways, during the introductions Andy Price made it know that he's started submitting pitches to Bobby Curnow for consideration for the MLP series. Apparently he's got a few ideas for stories he wants to tell.
After the introductions, we got into the first question. Which was naturally how did you get involved with the comic. Andy joked about being found on IDW's doorstep before going into a simplified telling of how Katie Cook recommended him to Bobby after she was hired to write the comic. Tony, as it turns out, was hired to be a part of IDW's initial pitch for the series. Jeremy was recommended by Tony to Bobby. Keep in mind that Tony doesn't give out recommendations lightly. Sara was requested by Double Midnight Comics to do their 6 exclusive covers for the Micro Series, and that got her work seen by Bobby. Being able to constantly meet those deadlines helped with keeping her on the book.
Jenn Blake bought Bobby a Lamborghini. After the audience stopped laughing at that joke, she went into detail about her work on the IDW Limited editions of The Return of Queen Chrysalis, how she continued to send in samples to Bobby, which eventually landed her the job with Friends Forever 16.
When asked what they do in their free time, three out of five panelists responded with laughs, before answering with sleep, shower, and eat when they remember. Sara, since she primarily does cover work, hang glides, ghost hunts, and basically travels the world. And apparently in Jenn Blake's nonexistent down time she runs the ruthless terrorist criminal organization known as Cobra.
Yes, the vast majority of Jenn's answers were jokes. Which is fitting since she is a comic artist who is also a stand-up comic.
When asked about their upcoming projects, every single panelist had the exact same answer for Blank Canvas. They are all bound by NDA's and as such can't go into detail about what they are working on for specific companies.
I can only imagine how much Jeremy wanted to scream at the top of his lungs that he's writing The Wasp for Marvel.
As for what is going on with Guardians of Harmony, well Jeremy Whitley did reveal that he wrote a couple of the scripts for those comics. Beyond that, he doesn't know what is going on with the comics.
After that audience Q&A opened up. First question up to bat was a poll of their favorite villains. Chrysalis won that poll by a majority of 3 to 2 with Tony stating that Nightmare Moon is his favorite and Jeremy Whitley singling out Sombra.
Aside from that, there wasn't too much else to come out of the panel. There were a few notes that came down from Hasbro on a couple of their stories--for Andy it was Reflections, Tony had a CMC and Bulk Biceps pitched canned for being too similar to an upcoming episode (On Your Marks), Sara had to redraw the sea ponies on one of her covers, and Jeremy went on for about 5 minutes discussing the notes he received while writing Doctor Discord--but otherwise those were the major highlights of the panel.
Oh, there was one last thing from Jeremy before the panel let out. He talked about two story ideas of his that Hasbro declined. The first was a story involving Discord's long lost sister named Order. I'm not sure if he was serious about that one, but everyone present in the room was cracking up as he started to go into detail about how Order was going to put Discord on trial for what he did during the events of Twilight's Kingdom. The second was an idea to delve into Zecora's backstory. Hasbro didn't want the comics to go into that one since they want the option open to have the show explore that themselves.
And that's everything that wasn't the IDW Comics press conference. Be sure to keep an eye out for that over the next few days. There was a rather... transformative revelation dropped during that one. This has been The Illustrious Q, till next time everyone!
Twitter: The Illustrious Q
