Yesterday my wife and I drove up to Jacksonville to spend the day at the Cavalcade of Comics 2nd Annual Bennefit to fight Tourette's Syndrome. Comic's legend Don Perlin and his wife spearhead the event and this year looked to be even bigger and better.

The show had been moved to an elementary school because it had grown so large. Outside a children's chorus was starting to line up, there were games for kids, people in costume, and the artists were setting up.

We headed into the artist's room and the first person that we saw was Don Perlin. Don came over and thanked us for coming and for posting info about the benefit here at the ZONE. How cool is that?

Doralaya and I were checking out the art that was up for auction, and we ran into Robert Smith. Robert's an old buddy (and one of the guest artists) and he said that he wanted to do a Cobra piece for my gallery. Cool! The con hadn't even officially started and things were already going great!

Jason Sobel was set up with Alex Saviuk, Bob Layton and Don Perlin. I met Jason at last year's event and he did a Judge Dredd piece for me so I've kept an eye on his work. The sketches Jason was turning out yesterday were leaps and bounds ahead of last year. Keep an eye out for this guy!

Alex Saviuk is not only a great guy but also a very talented artist. Before he was even seated he had a list of eight or ten sketch requests. Bob Layton's list was swamped as well. Since I didn't have a Stallone from either Alex or Bob, I asked if they'd put me on their lists. They agreed.

Doralya and I went back to check out more of the auction art. My prediction was that the Kubert "Sgt. Rock" would get the highest amount, but the piece with the most buzz was the Neal Adams' Batman and Robin piece?! My favorites were a Wrightson pencil sketch called The Reaper and a print by Lee Ames called The Magician.

Doralya bought several raffle tickets then it was lunch outside with music from a middle school jazz band. As we settled down with some Mexican food we watched a karate presentation and several Jedi sword battles.
; ) The food was good and the jazz was even better.

When we went back into the artist's room we hooked up with some fans and spent time sharing art and stories. Robert Smith came over and gave me my Cobra sketch!

Bob Layton's wife came over and asked if I would mind if Bob did my Stallone piece at home.

Bob was getting tons of requests and it's take longer to draw Sly (for the first time) than Iron Man or Spider-Man for the 1,000th time. By doing my piece at home more fans would get a piece of art and the benefit would raise more money.

How could I argue? I told her that would be no problem.

I'm just excited to be getting a Stallone piece from Bob!

Robert Smith taught a wonderful session with little kids who want to be artists. While that was running I had a chance to speak with Ed Hall and thank him again for the Stallone piece he did for me last year. Ed was sitting with Dana Sumers [Politcal Cartoonist for the Orlando Sentinal] and Tom Armstrong [Marvin]. I asked Dana if he'd like to do a Stallone piece for my gallery. Tom said he'd give it a shot. I thanked him and headed back to catch the rest of Robert's sketch session.

After the session I headed over to put in my donation for my Bob Layton piece. Alex said that he'd also like to do my piece at home so I kicked in that donation as well.After a bit of visiting I headed back to get my Stallone piece from Dana Sumers. Dana said that after five or six false starts he came up with one that worked. I agreed with him; it does work! Dana said that Tom Armstrong also did a Sly drawing. As Tom was signing it for me, he added a little Marvin peeking over Sly. How cool is that?

The show was starting to wind down.

It'd been a great day. We made our way around and said our good-byes (and although it looks like Alex is begging us not to go, that's just an illusion).

Then it was back on the road home.

Hopefully, the benefit made even more money than last year. It seemed to be better attended. I know that everyone I talked to had a super time and are planning to attend again next year.

I know, I'll be there!