Dan Panosian issued a public apology for the events stemming from last week’s first annual Drink and Draw 24 Hour Comic Book Day. “What the fuck was I thinking?” said the innovative and well-published artist.
Panosian, who began as an inker roughly twenty years ago and has since worked over nearly every major line artist and for every major publisher, more recently expanded his style to quite shocking effects, wowing fans and pros alike. Many are looking forward to the upcoming DC title The Unknown Soldier, which will feature his full art exclusively.
However, Panosian has also long been a steady practitioner of the Drink and Draw gatherings, an unofficial social club (co-founded by Panosian with Jeff Johnson and Dave Johnson) in which professional artists meet up at bars around the country to sketch and contest with one another in what has previously always been a rather jovial setting. So it was not too surprising when the popular and friendly artist suggested a mixing of the event with the increasingly successful 24 Hour Comic Book Day, in which creators attempt to independently and completely produce a full comics tale from start to finish in less than a calendar day. The innovative storytellings and creative team-ups that have been born from the challenge have been incredibly viable and vibrant, particularly in building fan followings for individual talents across the spectrum.
Unfortunately, the mixer turned sour towards the halfway point, by which time Scott McCloud (who began 24 Hour CBD with veteran artist Steve Bissette some years prior) had already crossed the threshold of proper public intoxication, and was insistent on inking everyone else’s comic work in the style of Rob Liefeld. Panosian, a one-time studio mate of Liefeld, took offense to the act, though possibly not as much offense had he not then been nearing completion of his fourth or sixth fifth-sized bottle of Jack Daniels. A fight broke out when Joe Quesada allegedly urinated on the shoes of Jimmy Palmiotti, resulting in Amanda Conner throwing a chair at Quesada, missing entirely and instead hitting both McCloud and Mike Norton. Granted, we all know how McCloud gets when he drinks, but the sudden ripped removal of his shirt and loudly professing “McCloud SMASH!” only complicated matters, scaring the royal piss out of the handful of hired personal escorts present, and a small number of middle-aged fanboys who had snuck into the Legion Hall by way of the servers entrance out back. How the fire started is anybody’s guess, but the presence of so many escaped lions and tigers and bears has more obvious roots to the discerning reader.
Hours later, after the police had at last finished with their incessant questioning and taken away enough comic book professionals in handcuffs to really confound the next several issues worth of credits in the Diamond Previews catalogue, Panosian was spotted by New Comics Day reporters sitting on a curb clothed only in a shredded American flag and holding a thermos top full of cheap coffee provided by the local fire department. Rocking back and forth and staring into the smoldering ruins from less than 12 steps away, shaking his head slowly from side to side, Panosian quietly mumbled, “Never again…never again…never again…”
