A Pair of Giants

Over the past few days I've been lucky enough to be in the presence of two of my comic book heroes. 

Last Saturday, I went to a CAPS dinner honoring Gene Colan.  Although Gene's doctors wouldn't allow him to travel to California, we were able to link up with him at his home in Brooklyn via the computer on SKYPE.  Mark Evanier, Gerry Conway, and Marv Wolfman were among the guest speakers.  Wolfman had commented on how Colan had made him better writer because Gene's naturalistic figures made it impossible for him to get away with writing bad dialogue.  It was great that he and his wife Adrienne could share the moment with us despite being 3000 miles away.  I was lucky enough to get a few minutes of one on one time with Gene at the end of the event.

On Thursday night, I saw a rare appearance by Robert Crumb at UCLA's Royce Hall.  I felt lucky to get in because the reclusive Crumb rarely makes public appearances. The talk was moderated by Francoise Mouly ( The New Yorker, RAW ).  Crumb talked about his life growing up, his current life in France, and his most recent project "The Book of Genesis Illustrated". This project was four years in the making for Crumb.  He originally expected it to be a year and a half project, but 40 pages in he realized this was going to be a much bigger project.  The work is amazing and the Hammer Museum is displaying every original page from the book from Oct. 24-Feb. 7.  More info here.