The first panel I attended at the 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival was titled “Comics Quick Draw!”. It featured three of my favorite writer/artists as well as people. Dave Roman, co-creator of Jax Epoch and a writer of Avatar-The Last Airbender comic stories, he is currently best known for his Astronaut Academy series and is working on a colored and collection edition his Teen Boat series with John Green. Raina Tegelmeier did the very successful comics adaptations of Babyistter’s Club and the Eiser Ward winning autobiographic SMILE, she is currently developing her next original graphic novel, a story taking place in middle grade. Laura Lee Gulledge has been a gallery artist and her first semi-autobiographic graphic novel Page by Paige came out in 2011, she is currently at work on her second graphic novel about a young girl named Wilhimina and the living shadows that surround her.
The Draw Off gathered a collective crowd of children, parents and adult fans and was moderated by Publisher’s Weekly’s Calvin Reid. There ended up being seven rounds, with the final round being called a Switcheroo. The first round had the artists all doing a different drawing, the next five rounds they all did their version of the same idea. The concepts came from the kids in the audience and I must say, these kids were both strange and a little morbid.
Following is a description of the drawings done and photos of the finished works.
ROUND ONE
Monkey drinking coffee on the subway by Raina Tegelmeier
Elastic Man by Laura Lee Gulledge (basketball addition hers)
A Cat and Mouse by Dave Roman (he totally twisted this)
ROUND TWO
Mutant Dog eating a rabbit
Laura Lee Gulledge
Dave Roman
Raina Tegelmeier
ROUND THREE
Alien on Mars eating bagels
Dave Roman
Raina Tegelmeier
Laura Lee Gulledge
ROUND 4
Wizard on vacation at the beach
Laura Lee Gulledge
Dave Roman
Raina Tegelmeier
ROUND 5
Giant powdered donuts being pelted by sprinkles
Laura Lee Gulledge
Dave Roman
Raina Tegelmeier
ROUND 6
Cucumber jumping into lasagna
Raina Tegelmeier
Laura Lee Gulledge
Dave Roman
The Final round was called SWITCHEROO. In one minute intervals for three minutes they would create three Jam drawings based on the same themes. After much suggestions from the audiences and deliberation, the three things were Dragon, Hippo, Catwalk.
Here are the three pieces created by Dave, Laura and Raina together with some Photoshopping (like some other pieces in this article) from yours truly.
