Have you ever had an uncomfortable celebrity encounter? Oh, I never have [looks at heaven for possible lightning].
For those who have been so lucky, there’s a place to share the shame at the aptly named Awkward Celebrity Encounters:
I’m so glad, Abby, the blog’s owner, has made it available since it’s a balm for those recovering from a less than stellar experience. Of course I wouldn’t know anything about that. Just sayin’.
And now for the part where my curiosity kicks in ’cause I’m interested in everything and frequently compelled to ask questions.
So Abby, how did you get started drawing? Were you always attracted to caricature or cartoon drawing?
I’ve doodled and drawn comics since I was a teenager. In high school I did autobiographical comic strips to blow off steam and have a laugh with my friends and poke fun at myself and my family.
What gave you the idea for the blog?
I’ve actually had a number of awkward celebrity encounters myself. I like hearing other people’s stories, because an otherwise-normal person will react totally weirdly when they meet someone famous. Meeting a celebrity is a charged moment, maybe because our expectations come face-to-face with reality in a very confined space.
That’s so well put! Uh, well, it sounds like what it might be like. Anything else?
My greatest inspiration was probably the comic strip Pathetic Geek Stories, by Maria Schneider. I loved the format, where readers submitted their stories and she drew them as comics – it was almost like therapy. I use more of a mash-up style, combining my doodles with photographs of celebrities, because I lack confidence and I’m lazy.
Wow. That’s honest. And frankly, your honesty is what makes the drawings work so well, and I love the mash-up style. The juxtaposition is eye-catching.
Of course I also want to hear about your discovery of Richard Armitage and what you think of him. Always love to hear about that.
My British friend Laura came over for a girls’ movie-night-in, and she brought her “Vicar of Dibley” DVDs with her. Alas, they were British-region format discs and they wouldn’t play in my U.S. machine.
I was ready to suggest something else, but Laura had just come from work, so she whipped out her laptop computer and she was like, “I’m sorry, but you HAVE to see this.” So we hunched over on my sofa and watched Vicar of Dibley “Wholly Holy Happy Ending” on a tiny laptop screen without my ever having seen a single Vicar of Dibley episode before. Of course we were both laughing to the point of tears.
It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but later that week I watched “North and South” on Netflix Streaming and then RA had me hook, line and sinker.
Nowadays, Laura sees me coming and crosses to the other side of the street.
LOL! Ahem.
By the way, I wish I had read your advice for meeting celebrities before I met one. Not that it wasn’t great. It was wonderful, fantastic, what dreams are made of…[fingers crossed behind my back].
A little bio in case you want to know more:
Abby grew up in New York City, earning notoriety for angrily slamming her bedroom door in NYU faculty housing a record 5,047,863 times in a single week at age 14. She is now happily married to her own 6’2″, baritone-voiced dream, lives in Connecticut, and is devoted to her two young daughters (as long as nothing new has been posted to the “Richard Armitage” tag on tumblr in the past 5 seconds). She is literally the last person on Earth who doesn’t own a smartphone.
We need to talk about the smartphone, but thankfully she has a blog where you can track her down. You can also catch up with her on her other blog and on Twitter.
Note: hopefully next post is my celebrity encounter.
RAFrenzy 