Some more pix from the recent NYCC and WonderCon shows…
DAVE ELLIOT
Monsieur Elliott had the good fortune to serve as my Editor-in-Chief during his time at Radical; an association that reinvigorate his stature in the industry, after having exhausted the cache of his earlier collaborations with such faded luminaries as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Matt Wagner, Simon Bisley, Mike Mignola, Dave Gibbons, Peter Milligan, Kevin Eastman, Ted McKeever, James O’Barr, Kevin O’Neill, Dave Dorman, Steve Pugh, Michael Zulli, and several dozen other sub-Harris creators. He remains a gentleman, scholar, top mate, and prefers to be introduced at conventions as “Andrew Steven Harris’s editor”.
STEVE NILES
While at IDW, I became pals with Ben Templesmith, whose wickedly sarcastic humor could not be more in contrast to his 30 Days of Night partner Steve Niles, one of the most genial and soft-spoken guys you could hope to meet; especially considering he became famous by writing stories about vampires chewing people’s heads off. Steve has an intensely creative mind, which has led him to become one of the most prolific writers in the industry; in fact, the Star Trek: Borg Spotlight I wrote for IDW had originally been Steve’s book, until his professional commitments surrounding the 30 Days of Night film forced him to pull out and me to take it on. Much as I had a blast writing it, I’d still love to see what Steve would have done with it.
DAVID HINE
David is a top-notch writer and artist who actually got his break into Marvel during a NYC blackout, when Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada lit some candles and read David’s horror masterwork Strange Embrace from cover-to-cover. (I’ve read it straight through as well; it’s hypnotic.) Among nearly countless other books (notably Spawn and various X-titles), David went on to write one of my favorite series of recent years, the scandalously overlooked Silent War, with one of the most powerful final pages in recent memory. (Like all good highwayman writers, I even nicked its structure for the final page of Star Trek: The Last Generation #3.)
David had a Silent War sequel planned, ultimately skitched by continuity changes in other company titles, but one night over dinner he told me it involved destroying the entire Marvel Universe, in a miniseries that I dubbed “Sing Along With Black Bolt”. Was he just joking? Is David’s mind really that epically deranged? Go read Strange Embrace, kiddies, and you tell me.
STEVE PUGH
Steve came up through the ranks of the UK comics industry working alongside the likes of Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Jamie Delano and Ian Edginton before crossing the pond with them during the British invasion of the ’90s. He’s drawn characters ranging from Hellblazer to Superman to Marvel’s mutants, with some Terminator, Judge Dredd and Witchblade mixed in along the way. Also as fine a pub companion as you’re ever likely to find.
BATTON LASH
I first met Batton many years ago, when I originally moved to San Diego (his wife, Jackie Estrada, is head of the San Diego Comic-Con’s Eisner Awards, the Oscars of the comics industry), having already been a huge fan of his Wolff & Byrd series from the days that we both worked for the folks over at TSR. As fellow former Brooklynites, we’ve both now migrated to the warmer climes of San Diego–and once that happens, my friends, there’s no going back.
Andrew Steven Harris 