Tori Amos, all dolled up in a creative and interesting-looking superhero-esque outfit (think Ferosha Couture goes to Comic Con), made an appearance at the San Diego Comic Con over the weekend to sign copies of the new book Comic Book Tattoo which is a collection of graphic comicbook stories based on her music an lyrics. Here are a few pics of Tori at this weekend’s event and a portion of a blogpost devoted to the Comic Book Tattoo convention panel with featued Tori and 6 of the book’s contributors:

The panel for Comic Book Tattoo was great. They had not just Tori Amos but 6 of the writers and artists who worked on the book, and most important of all, they kept it balanced. Too often when you have one high-profile guest, the panel ends up focusing entirely on that person. But everyone had a chance to talk about the process. One of the things that Tori emphasized was that she’d wanted the artists to have complete freedom, because she’d been on too many projects where someone stepped in and said something like, “Did you think about the demographic?” Rantz Hoseley expanded on that, pointing out that many of the artists kept asking him (or, more precisely, Tori, through him) whether they could do things like do a story without word balloons. They were accustomed to that kind of limitation working on other projects. Ted McKeever mentioned a Superman story he turned in that got rejected because he drew the wrong number of belt loops. And Rantz took great pleasure in telling them to go for it, whatever it was. At one point, Tori mentioned that when she read the stories, she didn’t hear the songs they were based on in her head — she heard new music, which she’s now working on. She and several of the artists talked about the cyclical nature of inspiration, with different kinds of arts all inspiring each other.

Because I’ve never attended a Comic Con in my life, I’m not all that familiar with the way the panel discussions work … it sounds pretty difficult to get into all the panel discussions that may interest you because the demand is so high. I’m thankful that this blogger was able to attend and give a report — it sounds like it was a great discussion. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my Limited Edition version of Comic Book Tattoo so I can finally see what all the excitement is about. Tori Amos‘s music has touched me in such a way that I am curious to see how other folks have interpreted her music graphically and storywise. This is such a cool endeavor, I’m excited that so much work is going into the book’s promotion.

PS: For the record, I would prolly have many colorful things to say if any other person were caught wearing an outfit like this in public but for an artist like Tori Amos (or Björk) I am very willing to cut some slack (also consider, there are a lot of freaks at Comic Con … she was surely not the oddest looking person there). Tori is a Goddess and should be allowed to dress the part … even if sometimes it may look like she dressed the part in the dark and on drugs, I can’t really hate on her ;)

[Photo credit: Splash News, Source via Undented]