SDCC ’09: The Julian Challenge – Thursday Diary

Editor’s Note:  The following is from the diary of Major Spoilers’ Number One Fan, Julian, as he adventures forth in an attempt to win the Major Spoilers’ Julian Challenge.

As I write this, it is currently Thursday 9 PM, I just got back from a full day of walking and signatures at the 40th Anniversary from the San Diego Comic-Con, and I am absolutely BEAT.

Seriously, every year I go to this big time comic book and entertainment bash, and every year I’m shocked at how dead tired I am.  But I will soldier on, for you, the Major Spoilers Readers that want this Poster Project to happen!

So I ended up with 21 people on day one.  I think I’ll start out with some of the big time web comic that were kind enough to sign the poster, even though most of them were a bit unaware of the source material.

First up Jeph Jaques, author of the very popular “Questionable Content”  who is quite the busy man at the con (the guy hands out free sketches when there are upwards of 50 people that come to him in one day).  Moving on to Mr. Jaques’ fellow Dayfree Press partners (say that three times fast), we have Chris Hastings of Dr. “McNinja” fame and Sam Logan of “Sam and Fuzzy” (the latter of which is my personal favorite webcomic of all time) signatures.

Other webcomic talents I met include the very versatile David Willis of “Short Packed” and Kris Wilson, Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin, and Dave McElfatrick who collectively write “Cyanide and Happiness” (if you ever get the chance to have these guys draw you a sketch, take it; they’re hilarious).

The author and artist of “Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal,”  Zack Weiner lent his talents as did Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik from “Penny Arcade” along with “PVP” creator Scott Kurtz. (Whew!)

Now let’s move onto the stars of the comic book industry.  Star “Invincible” illustrators Ryan Ottley and Cory Walker along with “Astounding Wolf-Man” artist Jason Howard left fancy sharpie marks on the poster.  While we’re on the subject of Image Comics, Nate Bellegarde and Benito Coreno kindly dropped their names onto the poster. Three of the stars from the popular machinima Red vs Blue signed their names onto the poster (I don’t remember their names [sorry guys], but they do the voices of Sheila, Grif, and Sarge).

And last but certainly not least, Jeff Smith, creator of Bone and RASL and an all around nice guy, signed the poster to cap off my Thursday.