{"id":6455,"date":"2012-02-25T12:54:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-25T16:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=6455"},"modified":"2021-03-20T15:44:49","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T19:44:49","slug":"tales-of-megacon-2012-paul-gulacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=6455","title":{"rendered":"Tales of MegaCon 2012: Paul Gulacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Last Friday, Saturday<\/strong> and Sunday<\/strong>, I was at MegaCon<\/span><\/a> 2012<\/strong> with my buddy, John Beatty<\/strong><\/span><\/span>.\u00a0 [That’s not John<\/strong> Beatty<\/strong> with me in the photo above.\u00a0 No, that’s John “Hex” Carter<\/strong>.\u00a0 Hex<\/strong> was seated a couple of tables down from Beatty<\/strong> and I.\u00a0 You’ll hear more about Hex<\/strong> tomorrow.]<\/p>\n

MegaCon<\/strong> was a lot of fun.\u00a0 Of course how could it not be?\u00a0 Beatty’s<\/strong> table was seated next to Bob <\/strong>“The Hardest Working Con Sketch Artist in the Business”<\/em> McLeod<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 I was able to pick up sketches from several artists [which will be posted in the coming weeks] for my Stallone sketch collection<\/strong>.\u00a0 Beatty<\/strong> and I had a fun time hanging out with John<\/strong> Higashi<\/strong>.\u00a0 I met several new artists and got to see several old friends\/artists.\u00a0 All in all it was a cool weekend that produced a couple of funny stories that I’ll share in posts this week.\u00a0 Although this story isn’t funny, it is pretty neat.<\/p>\n

Paul Gulacy<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> was a guest at MegaCon 2012<\/strong>.\u00a0 I first discovered Gulacy’s art<\/strong> when I was in junior high and he was working with Doug Moench<\/strong> on their classic run on Master of Kung Fu<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Paul Gulacy<\/strong> quickly became my favorite artist<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 A few years later I began collecting original art and Paul<\/strong> was still my favorite artist.\u00a0 I had acquired a few sketches by him and somehow got his phone number.<\/p>\n

I called Paul<\/strong> and the conversation went well and I commissioned him to do a Bruce Lee<\/strong> piece for me.\u00a0 We began to talk fairly regularly.\u00a0 Paul<\/strong> was always entertaining.\u00a0 In addition to being a talented artist, he is a great impressionist able to sound exactly like Brando, Eastwood, Stallone<\/strong> and so many others.\u00a0 Paul<\/strong> did a Stallone<\/strong> piece for me… followed by a Sabre<\/strong> commission.<\/p>\n

I finally got to meet Paul<\/strong> in person in 1980<\/strong> at a comic convention<\/strong> in Atlanta<\/strong>.\u00a0 Paul<\/strong> invited me to sit behind the table with him as he autographed and sketched for fans.\u00a0 So there I was with Paul Gulacy, Mike Grell, Bill Sienkiewicz, Pat Broderick, Bob McLeod<\/strong> and other artists.\u00a0 A fan about my age was making his way down the row getting autographs from all of the artists.<\/p>\n

When he got to me, he looked at the program and then asked, “Who are you?”\u00a0 I said, “Oh, I’m nobody -” Paul<\/strong> spoke up saying, “This is Craig Zablo<\/strong>.\u00a0 He’s a friend of mine.”\u00a0 As you can imagine, I couldn’t stop smiling all weekend.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As I moved through college and got ready to enter the “real world” I decided to sell off my comic art collection<\/strong> so I wouldn’t have to work during my senior internship.\u00a0 I found myself reading fewer comics<\/strong> and had lost touch with Paul<\/strong>.\u00a0 The one piece of art that I did keep was the Stallone<\/strong> commission that Paul<\/strong> did for me.<\/p>\n

Fast forward 28 years<\/strong> to MegaCon 2012<\/strong>.\u00a0 I hadn’t spoken to Paul<\/strong> since the early 80’s<\/strong>, but I wanted to go up and re-introduce myself and thank Paul<\/strong> for being so cool to a young fan.\u00a0 I wanted Paul<\/strong> to know that I still had my Stallone<\/strong> piece and that allowing me to sit with him while he sketched was a convention memory that still brings a smile.<\/p>\n

I found Paul’s<\/strong> table.\u00a0 The show hadn’t started yet, but already a fan was speaking with him.\u00a0 When their conversation finished, I stepped up.\u00a0 I said, “Good morning.\u00a0 My name is Craig Zablo<\/strong> – ”\u00a0 Paul<\/strong> immediately said, “Wow!\u00a0 We’re going back in time.”\u00a0 I could see the wheels spinning as Paul<\/strong> tried to place me.\u00a0 I was surprised and said, “You remember me?”<\/p>\n

Paul<\/strong> said, “Youngstown<\/strong>, right?”<\/p>\n

“I used to call you when you lived in Youngstown<\/strong> – “<\/p>\n

Paul<\/strong> said, “I did the Stallone<\/strong> piece for you.”\u00a0 I was amazed that he’d remember.\u00a0 We had a nice conversation and Paul<\/strong> introduced me to his wife. I thanked Paul<\/strong> for the great memories and art.<\/p>\n

So now I had two great con memories<\/strong> of interactions with the talented Paul Gulacy<\/strong>… and MegaCon 2012<\/strong> hadn’t even officially started.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I was at MegaCon 2012 with my buddy, John Beatty.\u00a0 [That’s not John Beatty with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[58,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-comics","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6455"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26493,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455\/revisions\/26493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}