Artists: Jo Chen

Rosa

Rosa:
My first trip to Comicon was eye-opening. As mentioned in a previous post--I had trepidation about visiting this nerd-fest, and imagined I'd give it one walk-through, laugh at some geeky costumes, name-drop a few comic book authors I'd read about on a blog, and be on my merry way. The amazing fan art, passion of aspiring writers, and genuine variety of booths really chipped away at my cynicism. The vast convention center was still fairly overwhelming, however. My comic knowledge was fledgeling, so I still felt like I didn't know anything about most of the people that the convention goers were seeking autographs from. This wasn't San Diego CC, so obviously Brian K. Vaughn and Joss Whedon weren't going to be there--it seemed the professional booths outside of artist alley would have little of interest to me ... until I saw the shimmering, glorious banners with images of Buffy from the Season 8 comics.
    Artist Jo Chen's booth had fellow Buffy-geeks gawking at her display books. Page after page of covers from the Buffy comic book. Incredibly detailed images that looked like Sarah Michelle Gellar had posed for them. Part of my initial awe at seeing Jo Chen there was that, with her art gracing the covers of the Joss Whedon series--there was a possibility that she knew Joss! By proximity that meant that I was one degree closer to ... wait ... the Kevin Bacon game doesn't really apply here.

Joss and Jo

Anyways, my awe at Ms. Chen's apparent "high powered associations" was overwhelmed by my appreciation for the art that she created for some of my favorite works involving Buffy and The Runaways. I got a little star struck, and as this was my first Comicon, I hadn't brought anything for her to sign, and didn't have enough money to buy one of her prints. My redemption came this past year.
    As I trekked though the convention center scoping out all the artists who had the potential for drawing my cats (not an honor bestowed upon just anyone...mostly just anyone who had time to draw them), our friend Scott came running up to let me know that Jo Chen was just sitting at her booth with no line. I think he phrased it something like this, "People are just walking by--they don't even realize what they're passing up! Idiots!" I didn't want to be one of those idiots again, so when I went home for lunch I grabbed Volume 8 of The Runaways, wrapped it in about 8 plastic bags to preserve it from the broiling thunderstorm, and marched straight to her booth. Jo was sweet, courteous, and used a fabulous gold marker to sign her name in characters on the cover.
I think that counts as having one degree of separation from Jo Chen, right?
Right?
Her website.
Her Deviantart.


Jealous?

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