Note: This is a LONG one folks.
Hey there, folks. Just me flying solo on this one, since Don wussed out and wouldn't sell any of his organs for the money needed to pay for the plane fare, hotel and other costs of attending San Diego from Canada. Overall, my Con experience was a lot of fun as usual, and as usual, the whole thing was much bigger, even though I didn't think it would be possible for the show to get any bigger. The increased crowds (and rumors of A/C difficulties) made for a very hot convention center, such that even the attendees who bathed daily and used deodorant wound up a bit ripe by midday, but in general it was worth fighting the crowds for another comics love-fest, California-style.
San Diego: Day One (Wednesday)
As per usual, my plans took me out in time to hit Preview Night, which began a few years ago as a way to let pre-registered folks get a jump on the action. So after depositing both grandchild and grand-dog with my parents, Suzanne and I were off to San Diego via Southwest Airlines. Our uneventful flight got us in at 3:45 as promised, leaving us plenty of time to get our luggage, get to the Holiday Inn where she and I would be staying and grab dinner, with plenty of time to spare for Preview Night.
Or so you would think.
After a nice dinner at Anthony's Seafood Grotto, Suzanne and I headed out for the convention center at around 6:00. A little later than I had intended, but given that I was registered as industry, I figured that it would be no problem getting into the convention center in time for several hours of wandering time before it closed at 8:30.
Or so you would think.
As we arrived, we saw an immense line going all the way down the very, very long convention center sidewalk. It then proceeded to wrap all the way around to the back of the convention center, and looked like one of those lines that might well allow you to celebrate a birthday before you reached the front of it. After standing in said line for about fifteen minutes, Suzanne decided to head up and see if all lines did indeed lead to the same place, and we had to wait in this line for what looked like a long, long time.
It turned out that we didn't, so we made our way inside to the shorter industry registration line. Sure, there were still a pretty sizable number of people, but things moved pretty fast. In addition, while in line, I ran into Kevin Mason (writer of Sleeping Dragons, a terrific fantasy comic that is about to come out in trade paperback form), Arvid Nelson (writer of Image series Rex Mundi), Jason Rand (writer of Image comic Small Gods) and Matt Wang, a long-time reader of the site. Suzanne and I picked up our badge holders and were told to head over to the line for printer number three, a line of about a dozen people, where we would quickly be able to pick up our newly printed badges and head into the convention center, leaving us well over an hour to explore the rest of Preview night.
Or so you would think.
As it turns out, through circumstances that were never made entirely clear, somehow the printing of badges was taking an inordinate amount of time. As in, we stood in line waiting for the badges, basically not moving, for roughly half an hour. Finally reaching the counter, we got our badges and our con bags (and con programs... sort of) and headed into Preview night so that we could enjoy the half hour we had left. Just one snag... we hadn't been given, nor had we seen, the events guide, which contained the map of the place and the listing of scheduled programming. So finding anyone, especially with a time crunch and the immense size of the hall, was going to be a bit of a challenge.
Fortunately, we did manage to hit a few spots before the con authorities booted us out of the hall. First stop was over to Scott Morse to drop off reference material for a painting of Elmo that I had asked him about on the Oni boards the night before. Rather than doing sketches this year, Morse was doing full paintings, and since every sketch he's done for me has been gorgeous, an original painting was even more tantalizing. (Unsurprisingly, Morse did a fantastic painting that I can't wait to hang up in my baby daughter's room.) After that, it was a quick stopover at Dark Horse to chat with Michael Ring, which also led to a run-in with Augie DeBlieck, who directed me to the AIT/Planet Lar booth when I asked where it was.
Predictably, when I got to that booth, Larry was surrounded by about a half-dozen people. One was Rob Osborne, writer/artist of the hilarious minicomic (and impending graphic novel) 1000 Steps to World Domination and another was William Harms, writer of the graphic novel Abel and the upcoming Bad Mojo. I enjoyed talking with both of them, and while I was talking, Ryan Yount came over and I chatted briefly with him about Scurvy Dogs and got a glimpse at the Vampirella Comics Magazine issue that will feature the Scurvy Dogs and which should hit the stands soon. I also managed to chat with Andrew Boyd, the other half of the Scurvy Dogs team, Jonah Weiland (of CBR, who I was surprised to learn is related to Stone Temple Pilots's Scott Weiland) and Tom Beland, he of True Story Swear to God fame. Around this time, the announcer came on and told us politely but firmly (more of the latter and less of the former the second time) that it was time for the exhibit hall to close.
From there, Suzanne and I called it an early night, heading back to the hotel, with me hoping that tomorrow would be a little less hectic and a lot more productive.
San Diego: Day Two (Thursday)
Otherwise known as "the day Randy saw everything and still hadn't seen much of the convention hall." Which is to say that this day was much more productive indeed, although not much less hectic. As usual, my system of moving around the Con consisted of wandering until I saw someone or something that caught my attention, going over to talk and/or buy and then moving on to whatever it was that caught my attention next. The one panel I had intended to attend, Spotlight on Usagi, I decided to forego in order to spend more time on the floor, which means that I was basically there from 10 am when they opened the door to 7 pm when they closed them.
Jeez, no wonder my feet were sore.
At any rate, I moved around the Con on Thursday accumulating a metric ton of stuff in one of the oh-so-fashionable and enormous Tokyopop bags which were all the rage amongst con-goers. My first stop off was to follow up on a tipoff from Tom Beland on cool Marvel-related costumes, as he had the night before bought a Thor costume (and a hammer!) for a pretty cheap sum. I walked over to the booth of Disguises, which sells Marvel comics to wholesalers and distributors and from there on to big chains, and found that they were selling direct for this Con. I passed up buying a costume, largely because I didn't want one more thing to shove in my suitcase, barely passed up buying an $8 plastic Iron Man full helmet (because I knew it wouldn't survive the trip back) and settled instead on a nice plastic Mjolnir. Which I then happily showed off to just about everyone I spoke to at the Con that day.
Some of the other fun I had was similarly only tangentially related to comics. I picked up the DVD from Kwoon, whose motto is "It's like porno, but with kung-fu instead of sex." Looked like fun, and had great marketing, and it came with a shirt with the tagline "The Devil hates kung-fu." I also got a kick out of a booth promoting Comedy Central's new "animated reality show," Drawn Together, and was delighted to get a free City of Heroes poster and information on the upcoming update, which includes the ability to add capes to your higher-level heroes.
Which makes it sound like I spent the whole day at Comicon doing non-comics things, but nothing could be further from the truth. I will inevitably leave names off the list, but I know for sure that during the day I spoke to Brian Wood, Robert Kirkman, Marc Andreyko, Andy Diggle, David Yurkovich, Lani and Jim DiBartolo (of The Drowned), Chris Moeller, Tony Harris, Tom Feister, Doug Wagner and Kevin Gardner (of The Ride) and Scott Dunbier, among others. I got sketches from Jeffrey Brown (from whom I also bought a hilarious book of cartoons called I Am Going to Be Small), Cliff Chiang, Stan Sakai (from whom I also finally bought Usagi Yojimbo Book 1), Ryan Ottley, Kyle Baker (who gave me a copy of Cartoonist Volume 2), James Kochalka, Steve Rolston (I also bought his 24-hour comic, Lost Souls in Love), Tony Moore and Jeremy Haun.
I had also brought my Nocturnals: A Midnight Guide with me to read on the plane, and realized that I could probably get it signed while I was here. So during the day I stopped by Dan Brereton's booth and he not only signed the front inside cover, but did a kickass sketch of Gunwitch to boot. We then had a very enjoyable discussion about Roman history and the room for exploration of the historical genre in comics, spurred on when we talked about his new project for Disney, the sword and sandals epic The Last Battle. He showed me a promotional painting he had done for the piece and talked up the book a bit, and I have to say, I'm pretty excited. It sounds like it's going to be a gorgeous and very interesting bit of work. I also managed to get Ted Naifeh to sign the book, and he did a sketch of Halloween Girl. With any luck, on Friday, I could find some of the other creators who worked on the book. I had seen Phil Noto, but he had been heading out right as I got ready to present the book to him.
Oh, and the many things I acquired on the floor on Thursday. Richard Starkings and I had a lovely discussion about the unseen gems he keeps finding for his Active Images line, and he gave me a copy of their newest project, the Tim Sale: Black and White hardcover. This one was solicited to sound like a sketchbook, but it's so much more than that; it's full of sketches, pages, unseen stories and a well-written overview of Sale's entire career. While at that booth, I also managed to chat with David Hine, writer of Strange Embrace from Active Images as well as District X, one of my favorite comics of the moment. He showed me some of the pencils by Lan Medina, who will be doing an issue in between work by regular artists David Yardin and Alejandro Sicat, and it was, as expected, gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.
I had several lucky bump-ins throughout the day. Ran into Marc Andreyko, who chatted with me not only about Manhunter, his upcoming DC book, but about a very cool new project that he is likely to be doing. Don't want to spill the beans on that one in case it's not known yet, but it ties into a favorite comic of mine (sort of), has a great artist attached and should be a lot of fun. Also bumped into Andrew Dabb, who handed me a preview copy of Megacity 909, his new project with Devil's Due, as well as issues one and two of his Ghostbusters miniseries (which I read and enjoyed, expect a review soon).
Just in wandering the Con, I also found any number of great books that were either new or something I'd been meaning to get. Mike Wellman of Atomic Basement hooked me up with issue two of his darkly funny Gone South as well as the hilariously politically-incorrect Tex!, which is subtitled "George Bush and the Fine Art of Character Assassination." That one was the brainchild of writer Joshua Dysart and artist Brad Rader, both of whom were also at the booth. Nat Gertler of About Comics hooked me up with copies of DNAgents, Comics Prose and Licensable Bear, and the fine folks at Mad Yak Press, notably Patrick Neighly, got me copies of their upcoming projects Texarkana, Supernaturalists and The Wizard. Add in some other stuff I picked up, like the new collection of Doctor Cyborg from Allan Gross or the Dave Johnson Sketchbook, and it's clear that I have a lot of reading (and reviewing) to do in the next few months.
After towing around an increasingly heavy bag of stuff and a packed backpack throughout the enormous convention hall, I was ready for the day to end when the bell finally sounded at 7:00, just as Jeremy Haun was putting the finishing touches on his sketch. My wife and I met up with Eric Burke, general manager of Dragon's Lair (and a longtime friend as well) and two of his friends from online, Wayne (who had come all the way from Australia) and Adam (who had come in from Los Angeles, just slightly closer). We set off to the Fish Market, the seafood restaurant that I have eaten at for the past two years of the Con. It was packed to the gills (no pun intended) with people, although our wait was only about 35 minutes. The food was delicious, the service good (especially considering the packed house) and the conversation a great deal of fun.
From there, it was back to the hotel, and while I still got in earlier than usual, I was up until late organizing what I'd gotten that day and preparing for the next couple, including making sure I knew where to find some of the folks that I hoped to get autographs and sketches from before the Con was out.
San Diego: Day Three (Friday)
Friday was definitely the biggest and best day for me at San Diego. I had gotten the lay of the land, but wasn't bored yet, and I had stuff to do, but I wasn't overwhelmed. I also managed to find a lot of folks that I wanted to talk to during the day.
As per usual, I blew off another panel I had tentatively scheduled, the 24 Hour Comics panel, but it was for a good cause, as it gave me time to grab lunch with writer (and occasional Fourth Rail contributor) Geoff Johns. We talked about any number of things, including Identity Crisis (not surprisingly, Geoff disagrees with my assessment of the book, and he let me in on some juicy secrets about the storyline that is going to tie Flash into it... without spoiling anything, I'll say that I think fans of Identity Crisis and non-fans alike will probably wind up happy with his story). We also chatted about a variety of comics, including his upcoming Green Lantern miniseries, his thoughts on Teen Titans and comics we were both really enjoying. In addition, I have an idea for a possible feature for The Fourth Rail that would allow Geoff to contribute even with his busy schedule, and it looks like that might happen. More on that in months to come.
At any rate, after a thoroughly enjoyable lunch, I returned to the hall to attend my first panel of the Con: The Incredibles. Brad Bird was not as entertaining a speaker as I would have hoped, but he was entertaining enough, and I was definitely glad I went, because the clip of The Incredibles that was shown was both funny and action-packed, and has reaffirmed my desire to see that movie on opening night. In addition, though there wasn't much to it other than CGI and a tagline, we were shown a teaser trailer for The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, coming next summer. I also managed to pick up a towel (cute, right?) emblazoned with the movie logo, although that was later on.
From there on out, it was all about the floor once again, catching up with folks and getting sketches. My most notable buys were sketchbooks, from folks like Phil Noto, Tom Fowler and Dave Johnson. I also managed to get a few more autograph/sketches in my Nocturnals Midnight Companion, from Tom Fowler, Phil Noto and Ronnie Del Carmen. Much to my dismay, neither Tom nor Ronnie had ever seen the book before, as it seems nobody from Green Ronin sent them their contributors' copies! If anyone from Green Ronin is reading the column, maybe you could drop these guys a line?
I ran into a lot of folks on Friday. I caught Jeph Loeb for five minutes at the Wizard booth, to tell him how much I was looking forward to Catwoman: When in Rome, which surprised me given that I'm generally more of a fan of the Marvel work that he and Sale have been doing together. I also chatted with Dark Horse editor Scott Allie and Video creator Stephen R. Buell and met up with John Layman, writer of Puffed and the upcoming Gambit, while walking through the hall. One of the highlights of the day for me was meeting Ross Richie and Dave Elliot of Atomeka. Ross was a fan of my reviews and a very gregarious person whose enthusiasm for A1's productions was infectious. He put pretty much the complete Atomeka selection for the next few months in my hands, and it all does look very impressive. Expect to see reviews on the site soon.
Friday was also a particularly big day for sketches, as I finished off the first sketchbook I ever started, back in 1996, on that day. Mike Hawthorne and Ross Campbell both contributed, and Becky Cloonan finished off the book with a delightful sketch of Emmy from Demo. I was also lucky enough to find Cameron Stewart, and after gushing over how much I loved his work on Seaguy and Catwoman and everything else, handed him my theme sketchbook for only the second theme sketch of the Con. I got it back on Saturday and it was just gorgeous and funny too.
From there it was off to dinner, and I had made arrangements to have it with my old friend Kevin Beyer and his new girlfriend Lisa. After Suzanne and I got back to the hotel and freshened up, we headed back and met up with Kevin and his gang over by Lou & Mickey's Steakhouse. Much to my surprise (and delight), Kevin's other guests for dinner were none other than Nate Ng and Brandon Thomas, two guys I had met the year before and who I really enjoyed talking comics with. I have met Nate at least three times now, and I've got some kind of mental block, because I always space on it until he reminds me... with any luck, this will be the last time I do that. Brandon I remembered, not just because I had started reading his column sporadically after running into him last year but because he had written an exceptionally good Spider-Man Unlimited story that I had reviewed fairly recently.
The food was good (if expensive), and the conversation equally so. Mind you, I think Nate, Brandon and I spent most of our time in one conversation (about various comics and industry gossip) and Suzanne, Lisa and Kevin spent a lot of their time in another. But we all came around for talking about Chappelle's Show and other TV that some or the other of us liked, including Coupling, The Shield, Arrested Development, Alias and 24.
Most of the gang split up after that, with Kevin and Lisa heading back to sleep, Nate heading back to pack and Brandon heading back to write his column (daily from the Con... he's a crazy person). Suzanne reluctantly but dutifully accompanied me to the tail end of the Eisners, where we saw Don Martin and Jerry Robinson win their lifetime achievement awards, before we headed off to the Hyatt to see if anyone was there. Indeed there was, but on a casual look-through I didn't see anyone I knew, so Suzanne and I headed out. As we were reaching the shuttle stop, however, I saw Tom Feister heading in, and so Suzanne headed back to the hotel and I headed to the bar with Feister and friend, who turned out to be Dark Horse editor Jeremy Barlowe.
The Hyatt bar was a lot of fun for me, and I managed to meet and talk to Dexter Vines (just briefly, unfortunately), Tony Avina and his wife and Ben Abernathy and his wife. We talked about everything from sports (where I had little to contribute) to the real estate prices in San Diego (and good God, when they say expensive, they mean expensive), and it was just a whole lot of fun. I spent the rest of the night hanging with John Layman, Dan Goodman (formerly of DC, currently the creator of Styx Taxi, among other things) and the Jolly Roger crew, including Tony Harris, Tom Feister and JD Mettler. Tony told some hilarious stories of his days at Gaijin Studios and a particularly funny story about a prank Dave Johnson had played at registration, and a good time was had by all, until the Hyatt staff came around telling people that not only was the bar closed at 2:00, but that you couldn't even drink the drinks you had after 2:00 (because it was outside, I later learned.) That put a kibosh on the rest of the evening, which was just as well, because with the time difference, I was starting to zonk out. One short (and solo, save for the driver) shuttle ride back to the Holiday Inn later and I was off to sleep.
San Diego: Day Four (Saturday)
Saturday turned out to be something of a hellish day for me, and for many others. I once had reserves of energy that kept me going throughout the convention, but it seems now that Saturday is when my batteries start to drain, and I was zombielike and aimless for much of the day on Saturday. The crowds were also much, much bigger, which meant that the sweat-inducing heat that had been part and parcel of the con experience this year was even worse. It was also very difficult to get anywhere.
Thanks to a late night and to the Con folks scheduling a panel for the very second that the hall officially opened, I decided to skip The Lost panel, figuring I'd catch it in the fall with everyone else. I did manage to swing by and get Bruce Timm's autograph on The Nocturnals Midnight Guide, which completed everyone whose names I could find at the convention, and I handed that book off to Suzanne when I met her at the next panel.
Which was Quick Draw: Cartoon Improv. Finally, after several years of bailing out and regretting it, I finally got to see this panel. It was every bit as fun and funny as promised. Mark Evanier threw out things to draw and games for Sergio Aragones, Scott Shaw and Jeff Smith, and all three contestants were inventive and amusing. Aragones, of course, was the main attraction, with an especially impressive piece where Evanier started out small and kept adding elements to it, forcing Aragones to put an inordinate amount of characters and action on the page. I don't remember it all, but I do remember that by the end, there was a marching band, King Kong, a hitman, a superhero, the Queen Mary (ship and royalty both), martians, ninjas and Sergio himself. Meanwhile, Scott Shaw and Jeff Smith exhibited a frightening groupthink, drawing the same sort of thing on a couple of occasions, even though they weren't looking at each others' work.
My original plan at that point had been to head over to the Sin City panel, but the line was huge, and they weren't clearing out the room after Star Wars, so I decided it just wasn't worth the hassle. Instead, I went down to the floor again to wander about and hopefully get an early jump on the Frank Miller autograph session at the Dark Horse booth. Unfortunately, I discovered too late that there was a raffle to get in line for that signing, and I had missed it. Probably my biggest disappointment of the entire Con was that I brought the Art of Hellboy, my Sin City hardcover and my 300 hardcover and I never got the chance to have them signed by Mike Mignola or Frank Miller (as appropriate).
So, with my plans pretty much shot and no other panels appealing to me, it was back to wandering around. I was tired and sweaty, and so I think I wasted a good deal of time just aimlessly milling about the Con floor, seeking some sort of purpose. Toward the end of this aimless wandering, however, I did manage to finally meet up with Brian Bendis and Ed Brubaker, both of whom I thought I'd miss this time out, as well as Scott Kolins, who showed me his beautiful upcoming work on Earth's Mightiest Heroes and the first cover to Kirkman's Marvel Team-Up. I also got to say hello to Peter David, whom I hadn't previously met in person. Finally, after I had given up waiting for him at the Vertigo booth, I also ran into Jock, who agreed to do a sketch for me even though he wasn't at the booth doing sketches officially. While he drew me a kickass Cougar sketch, I chatted with the friend he had with him, British artist Frazer Irving, who talked about an interesting upcoming project with IBooks as well as a variety of other things with me.
After that, I stumbled, exhausted, back onto the shuttle so that I could head back to the hotel and join Suzanne for a quick (but delicious) dinner at Anthony's Fishette across the street. Some clam chowder, some fish, some shrimp and some fries hit the spot, although I was exhausted, and not sure whether I'd have the energy to hit the Hyatt bar one last time before calling it a Con for 2004. As it turned out, I didn't, so I spent the night reading some of the many comics I had acquired during my visit and writing this very Con report.
San Diego: Day Five (Sunday)
Honestly, I had kind of written Sunday off as a day, given that I had two panels planned (both of them more Hollywood than comics) and little to no time on the floor. However, in making my last few rounds, I got a chance to do some last check-ins with guys like Brett Warnock and Chris Staros of Top Shelf (both great guys who have an uncanny knack for spotting talent and putting out terrific books), Jeremy Haun (who I think is going to be a much-courted talent when he unveils Battle Hymn and Desperadoes), Brian Khepri of Khepri.com and Ross Richie of A1 (I had to stop by and tell him how much I enjoyed the A1 stuff he'd given me to read and review).
I also finally caught up with DC's CMX (manga) editor Jake Tarbox, who I had been trying to find all Con, and who I knew from his time with Raijin Comics. Though I only had a few minutes before I had to head up to panels, I was very happy to get a chance to talk with Jake and meet his wife and to connect in person with someone who I never thought I would see in person, given that he had lived in Tokyo for the last 14 years. At any rate, Jake has a great eye for manga and picked up some unusual properties for Raijin, and I have great hopes for DC's CMX imprint as a result.
Beyond that, it was strictly panel time for the rest of San Diego for me. The Dead Like Me panel wound up being a lot of the MGM executive talking and the three castmembers being pleasantly quiet, but it reminded me of why I loved the show and reinforced my resolve to order the DVD box set as soon as I can manage it financially. There was also a nifty little music video with clips from the first (and maybe some second) season, which was a nicely put-together little promo. The joy of the panel was finding that Bryan Fuller, creator of Dead Like Me and co-creator of Wonderfalls, was in the audience, and I got to go up to him, shake his hand and tell him how much I enjoyed both shows, which was a thrill.
My plan at that point was to hit the Serenity panel before leaving for the hotel and then the airport. Before Serenity started, though, there was a short Shaun of the Dead panel, and I figured I would secure a space in the room and, as a side benefit, finally get to see a glimpse of this Shaun of the Dead thing that so many (including Rich Johnston) have been hyping the hell out of for so long. After seeing the panel, which included the two creators hilariously riffing off one another and off audience questions as well as the trailer for the movie, I was kicking myself for not getting to one of the Shaun screenings during the Con. Rest assured I'll be there for opening night of the movie, which looks like a terrific blend of the zombie movie ethos and Brit/geek comedy.
The real joy for me, though, wasn't discovering Shaun of the Dead, because I'm sure I would have found that eventually. No, the joy was in learning that these two created a sitcom for British television called Spaced previously, and they showed a montage of clips from that show that made me fall totally in love with it. I mean totally, completely, might have to see if I can download it off the Internet in love with it. I'm really hoping that the interest in Shaun will lead to a run on Bravo (which apparently has the rights currently) or a Region 1 DVD release, all of which were things that the creators teased. I can't possibly do justice to the show by describing it, but I feel safe in saying that 95% of the readers of this website would love the show.
After the panel ended, it was Serenity time. I loved Firefly, and in fact think it's the best show that Joss Whedon has created, even though I loved Buffy and Angel as well. I'm disappointed that there won't be more TV time for this show, which really had a lot to explore and can't possibly do it in one (or even a few) movies. However, I'm still really psyched for the film, and the short trailer that Whedon showed didn't do anything to change that. In fact, I'm now more hyped than ever. The panel was, as with all Whedon panels, absolutely hysterical, with the entire cast present and Whedon playing quick-witted and humorous moderator for the group. In fact, my only disappointment at the Serenity panel was when someone sitting next to me mentioned that Whedon had been at the Marvel booth a couple hours earlier and that there was no line for him, because everyone was waiting for John Cassaday! That I had missed my chance to meet Whedon and tell him in person how fantastic I think his writing his was a bit of a bummer.
All in all, I don't think it would have been possible for this year to have been as great as last year, when Don and I got to really walk the Con together for the first time in a while and it seemed like the energy in the industry as a whole was really there. However, this Con did really recharge my batteries and stave off some of the cynicism that has been building for me during the last few months, and I had a great time.
Lessons learned at this year's San Diego:
1. Do not bring multiple things to be signed. Pick one thing and leave everything else at home, or else you'll wind up ferrying a bunch of stuff to and from San Diego for basically no reason. Like, say, about four hardcovers and an Essential Spider-Man, all of which you meant to get signed but just couldn't work out.
2. The only thing more annoying in a crowded convention center than people bumping into you is people who just stop entirely, gumming up traffic as they gawk at whatever it is that has caught their attention.
3. You cannot drink past 2:00 outside in San Diego. If you try, surly hotel staff will nearly start fights with your drinking companions.
4. Sergio Aragones has very much earned his rep as speedy drawer and hilarious cartoonist.
5. The Fish Market is always busy, even on a Thursday night. And it is always worth the wait.
Oh, and this ain't all... check THIS LINK for the many and varied cool sketches that I got during the Con.
Email Randy and Don comments about this feature.
