San Diego Comic-Con 2011

The hardware

Feeling like I'm being watched during my acceptance speech

Blair Butler from G4 TV talking about the Rocketeer Artist's Edition

I'm still in recovery mode from the San Diego Comic-Con experience. I really look forward to going, but while I'm there it is just so overwhelming, that it's hard to keep days straight and remember everything that happened. I do remember however, the absolute highlight of the 4 days, that I was there, it was winning the Eisner Award for "Best Publication Design" for the Rocketeer Artist's Edition book. Before going I didn't want to make a big deal about it, because when you have high expectations, it can easily be followed by big disappointments. The experience was certainly surreal. To be in a big ballroom, surrounded by people, who's work you admire, is quite humbling. Even during the ceremony, I didn't feel any sense of anticipation or nervousness. I was just attending a banquet to celebrate other people's achievements. Suddenly, when the big screen flashed up a picture of the Rocketeer book, along with my name for my award category, things changed drastically. I, at that moment, wanted to win...badly! It was very exciting to have my name announced, right along with Dave Stevens. Then panic set in, because, I'd have to walk all the way up to the stage and actually give an acceptance speech. I'm pretty sure I thanked all the people I was supposed to thank, I really can't remember much about it. It's certainly a great honor and privilege to be acknowledged by your peers for doing good work. I realized, this makes me want to work that much harder to continue to do my best work. I'd love to be able to add another Eisner to my shelf someday.

John Fleskes wrote a very nice personal blog about his feelings on my Eisner win, it can be found here... http://fleskpublications.com/blog/2011/07/31/randall-dahlk-wins-2011-best-publication-design-eisner-award/#comments

I don't know if there is any interest in this, but here's an audio version of the entire Eisner Awards ceremony. My award comes at the 1:04:32 point in the evening. http://www.thecomicbooks.com/Audio/11-07-22-SD-WillEisnerAwards.mp3