Panel (6.a)
Friday evening I have my first panel of the weekend. It’s an old standard, one my publicist slots me onto every year: DARE2DRAW – Show Us What You’ve Got. It’s the sort of panel I like to do, because it’s more a conversation than a presentation, audience participation mandatory.
There are five of us sat up on stage on folding chairs behind a temporary table. We’ve each of us got microphones, bottles of water, and felt-tips for signing programs or art after. I’m usually called upon to sign body parts so I carry my own favorite Sharp marker. It just works better and it’s non-toxic on skin. Anyway the sort who ask me for an arm or back or face doodle are usually planning to make it permanent, and Sharp works much better under the needles than regular felt-tip.
There’s also a camera on a tripod set up at the back of the room behind the audience. This year we’ve got Bob Brooks on the panel so we’re a big deal and they’ll be streaming us live. Bob’s a fucking legend in comic land ever since an entire first edition, 10 book set of his Farley Mouse set sold at Christie’s for almost a million dollars. Bob’s been doing pencil and ink for DC since before I was born. He’s always been an icon, but two years ago he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and now people treat him like he’s Andy Warhol. I bet it pisses him off.
I usually choose the left-most chair at the table because I’m claustrophobic and the moderator’s podium is usually set up right. This year it’s the moderator, then the overhead projector, then Bob. Next to Bob is Michelle Meyers. Michelle’s a fan favorite with the LGBTQ crowd for her web comic about two gay speed skaters competing at Sochi. She calls it Olympic Trials, which I think is maybe just a little too clever, and she’s up for a GLAAD award this year – huge deal. She winks at me over Bob’s head as she sits down. We’re not really tight but we know each other enough to say hi because we haunt some of the same queer-safe spaces east side, and I literally cried over the art in her last Trials update, so there’s that.
Ricky Dylan’s between me and Michelle. Ricky paints some of the most beautiful Scifi/Fantasy book covers you’ll ever see. I used to collect his posters when I started the con circuit, before I moved in with Tom and began hanging my own canvases on my walls of other people’s work. If I could do color like Ricky does color I’d never come out of my studio because I’d have an orgasm every time I painted a moon rise.
“Hello, Hemmingway,” Ricky says. The folding chair next to me groans when he collapses into it. Ricky’s a big fucker. He’s got hands like bear paws and I have no idea how he manages to work a stylus so elegantly. “Nice crowd for a Friday night.”
I’ve been trying not to notice our audience. It’s ten minutes till start and the room’s already full. I know from experience every single person sitting in the crowd has a portfolio or tablet on their lap and dreams of making it big in their heart. I also know from experience the difference between the four of us on the dais and the 155 of them in the audience isn’t scope of talent but just dumb luck.
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