Nick Dragotta, Daniel Warren Johnson Kick Off Inaugural ICON Festival

The world of comedian artwork is being elevated to new heights because of the medium’s prominence within the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts.

Now, two comedian artwork representatives are launching a two-day fete that seeks to maintain the artwork kind’s momentum away from the times of hunched-over collectors thumbing via unprotected pages in Tupperware crates within the basements of discount resorts.

Taking place Nov. 7 and Nov 8 at Los Angeles’ gilded and storied Biltmore Hotel, the inaugural ICON Festival of Comic & Narrative Art will probably be a two-day celebration of authentic artwork by a number of the hottest and influential up to date comedian guide artists working within the medium.

Superstar artists Nick Dragotta, who at the moment pencils the trade’s top-selling Absolute Batman for DC, Daniel Warren Johnson, the Eisner-winner behind final 12 months’s Absolute Batman Annual no. 1 and the current Transformers for Image, and Invincible artist Ryan Ottley will probably be amongst these available to participate of the present, which will even characteristic a big exhibition of greater than 100 authentic works by Alex Ross, the celebrated comedian painter.

“This thing that used to be our ‘club’ of comic art, as some would call it, just exploded into something that has cultural relevance,” stated Sal Abbinanti, one of many competition’s co-founders. “I believe that the comics artists of today are what Basquiat and Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns were to the art movement of the ’60s. I believe we are in the middle of this renaissance right now.”

Abbinanti, a comics arts seller who represents Ross and longtime illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz, and his associate Steve Morger are bringing the present to L.A. after a number of years of throwing the same competition in Italy. In Europe, he “found that there was a reverence for comics artists. They weren’t seen as comic artists, they were just seen as artists.”

Concurrently, the duo was seeing a development of comedian conventions, however a disquieting sidelining of artists on the similar time.

“The shows were leaning into cosplay and celebrities, selling autographs and photographs. The place for an artist to show or even sell his originals was becoming part of the in-between,” he says. “I wanted a show that was specific to artists and original art and where you could meet the artist one-to-one and not be surrounded by thousands of people in a huge hall of commercialism and advertising, like you’re in Las Vegas or something.”

In conserving with the non-public nature of the proceedings, the occasion will promote solely a restricted quantity of tickets. No crowds right here, please. And there will probably be a gap night time VIP reception which can enable company to mingle with the artists. The venue of Biltmore is supposed to indicate the lofty aspirations of the weekend.

“We wanted to put it into an amazing setting and go, ‘No, this is real art and this should be taken seriously,’” Abbinanti stated.

The roster of artists to this point contains Eric Basaldua (Withchblade), Jim Cheung (Young Avengers), Frank Cho (Skybourne), Ace Continuado (Robyn Hood), Sanford Greene (Bitter Root), Megan Huang (Star Wars), Dave Johnson (Superman: Red Son), David Mack (Jessica Jones), Dustin Nguyễn (Robin & Batman), Alex Niño (Creepy), Jason Palmer (Firefly), Dan Panosian (Wolverine Paradise), Sienkiewicz (Elektra Assassin), Cat Staggs (John Carpenter’s Tales for a Halloween Night), William Stout (Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth), and Dean Yeagle (Mandy). Select artwork sellers will even be available.

Tickets – VIP, two-day, and one-day passes – go on sale today. The VIP package deal will embody a signed giclee of a brand new Ross portray of an angel representing the Biltmore Hotel and meant to channel Old Hollywood. Ross is the artist whose seminal work Marvels and Kingdom Come opened doorways for painted comics. His newest work, the formidable graphic novel Marvel Dimensions (Abrams Comics Arts), hit shops final week.

“This is not your usual comic book event,” he stated in a press release. “This is a luxury event, being held where the Academy Awards were first conceived.”