Artistic Heroes

The inscription in my Digger Vol 1 book.

[This post is way over due. I wrote it a few days after the fact, and then forgot about it for a week. Woops.]

As readers of this blog, you have heard of my undying love for the comic Digger and the artwork of Ursula Vernon. I would consider her one of my main influences in my recent exploration into digital drawing and illustration.
A few weeks ago she tweeted that she was in the Seattle area and arranging a meet up IN MY TOWN. I couldn't believe it. I wish someone had filmed me reading that tweet for the first time, and I wish Fox hadn't bastardized the term "glee", because it so perfectly describes my reaction.

So that Thursday I headed down to the Barnes and Noble on Bellevue Way to meet my hero.

There were probably around 15-20 people for 2 hours just hanging out in the Starbucks adjoining B&N. Ursula will sign anything put in front of her, but in between trying to figure out how to spell people's names, it was a casual  hang out. She answered some questions about art, but there was a lot of joking around and laughing about things completely unrelated. Unbeknownst to me, she has a pretty strong Live Journal following (that's still around? Apparently.) so some of the conversation was about things I was not aware of; but my undying Digger love was among friends.

Ursula was so kind and generous to all of us geeking out over her. It was fun to be in the company of fellow artists and comic enthusiasts sharing in a common passion of one person's art. It really inspired me that a group of people can really love one person's work so much. The community building tool that the internet is is so awesome, yet a lot of times we forget that actual people are behind each and every comment. When the internet is personified at meet ups or cons it is an interesting vibe (considering most of these people communicate better through editable text, yours truly included) but the passion and excitement isn't something to be ignored. How cool it would be to create something that would generate that kind of response!

Before I left I got to tell her a small part of what was running through my brain the entire time - that she is a huge influence in my own work and that I absolutely adore Digger. She is always kind and self deprecating, but I hope she knew that I meant it.

So thank you, Ursula (and boyfriend, Kevin) for being so awesome. The Pacific Northwest will have you back anytime!!


And while we're on the topic, Karl Kerschl, if you ever want to stop by Seattle and have a meet up, I'll be there with bells on. Well, not literally because how tacky are bells?