ISCA Past Convention Recap
Article Transcript
Anything can happen at an ISCA Convention. ANYTHING! During 19 Annual Conventions, and close to a dozen minicons in various places around the world, there certainly have been a number of strange and unusual events. Many of them have been immortalized in the pages of EF by the likes of Sam Klemke and Lar de Souza. Some are weirder than others, but ALL of them are memorable!
The awards banquet has long been a source for some of the strangest occurrences. How many of you remember the talent shows that used to happen during the banquet? They consisted mainly of skits, with the occasional burlesque dance thrown in for good measure. One of these skits showcased the “Blind Caricaturist,” who groped and pawed at his subject’s face. Another such escapade featured a diaper-clad ISCA member playing the part of a crying infant who didn’t want his caricature drawn (of course, in recent years, some convention attendees have chosen to wear a costume to the awards banquet even though they WEREN’T performing on stage). The banquet was also used by an outgoing president to issue a series of “presidential pardons” to various ISCA members. One member was pardoned for “impersonating a tree,” due to the large number of drawings he had received depicting him with shrubbery and foliage around his long neck.
Our guest speakers and other notable visitors have also helped to create some classic moments. Poor Sebastian Krueger was reluctantly goaded into drawing live caricatures on a giant sketchpad during his seminar. The one-and-only Mort Drucker had been slated to be guest speaker one year, but had to bow out at the last minute. So the board members arranged a video conference call with Mort, during which one awestruck and overjoyed ISCA member broke into tears right in the middle of the call. Sam Viviano’s very first stint as guest speaker saw his plane arrive merely an hour or so prior to his scheduled seminar. Short on time, the resident and vice-president treated Sam to lunch courtesy of the drive-thru at McDonald’s. Actor Patrick Warburton, known for Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove and TV’s Seinfeld was once invited to join us for a fundraising event, and Teller, of Penn & Teller, stopped by to see the artwork while we were in Vegas. A documentary film crew, a magazine reporter, and a university professor conducting research have, at various times, interviewed convention attendees.
Even when you spend most of the week indoors, weather could still be an issue. Grey skies and rain clouds at one Convention made for a leaky roof in the ballroom, causing many of the artists’ gallery spaces to get wet. An “unseasonably cold spell” during another Convention led one musically inclined ISCA member to write a ballad about that year’s competition.
Along with a name change (from NCN to ISCA), there have been more than a few changes over the last 19 years. The competition ballroom wasn’t always open 24 hours a day. EF wasn’t always printed as a full-color magazine. The use of photo reference to create caricatures during the Convention was much less common. And the number of people attending these events has grown exponentially since the first one in 1992. So now we come to a major milestone: the 20TH ANNUAL ISCA CONVENTION!! If you’ve never been, or if you haven’t attended for a few years, now’s the PERFECT time to see what all the fuss is about! What will people be talking about after this one? Who will get drawn the most? What ingeniously creative pieces will artists come up with this time? And who will take home the coveted Golden Nosey? Please join us in St. Pete Beach, Florida this November and help create some memories!
This Navigation box may not show up on mobile browsers. Please see Exaggerated Features Issue 2011.4 for the full contents of this issue if the navigation box does not display.
 |
| | |
| |||
| |||
