Waaaay back in 1995 I went to the Spirit of Independence comics convention in Chicago. As far as I can remember it was the very first show at which I attended as an exhibitor rather than a patron. I'll spare you a most of the embarrassing details, but I was still doing mini-comics at the time, and had been working on Box Office Poison for about a year by that point. I'm pretty sure it was a one day show and I was super excited that I managed to sell something like $50 worth of minis.
The other reason the con sticks in my memory was that the star of the show was Dave Sim, creator of Cerebus and the single biggest influence on my cartooning. I don't know exactly what I was thinking, but I came up with the idea of getting Sim to do a "jam" with me: before I went to the show I would draw my characters (dressed up as his characters) and then I would get him to draw his character(s) at the show. Looking back, I can only shake my head in amusement at the sheer balls I had. Here I was, going to my first show "behind the table" and I was already asking my idol to work on a drawing with me. Kids!
I definitely remember being extrememely nervous asking him to do it. He was a great sport, and played along. I can't speak for Sim, of course, but now that I'm a seasoned (>ahem<) "pro" I would think I'd be amazed if someone did something like this with my own characters, even if they were as big of a nobody as I was then.




My biggest regret was that I drew my half of the drawing with relatively cheap materials, which means that now, fifteen years later the ink is turning brown and fading. Until now I had it hanging proudly on my wall but I think I'm going to have to keep it in a closet from this point on to try and preserve it as long as possible (I didn't even have a computer when I got the drawing, so I couldn't scan it--the pic above was taken with a digital camera through the glass of the frame).

Weirdly, I'm older now than Dave Sim was at the time he did the drawing.