American Illustration Party

As a senior member in the art department of a national magazine, I of course attended the annual American Illustration/American Photography party last night. It was quite an event and I ran into a ton of great illustrators, photographers and designers — really the cream of the crop. Among them were a bunch of comics people and I had interesting conversations with:

• James Jean...who left sunny California to visit NY and is now working on some longterm projects...
• Kagan McLeod...who apparently is developing rap star
• Ben Trinh...who has a release party for his new book coming up in a few weeks
• June Kim...whose new book "12 Days" was just released from TokyoPop
• Koren Shadmi...who recently graduated from SVA and recently collaborated on a new graphic novel, "The Critical Citadel"