Note: This is a LONG one folks.
San Diego. 2005. I've been attending the show for 8 years now, and yet, I always get the same blend of excitement and nervousness in the week before and the same sense of being overwhelmed when I'm there. The show is huge, and just keeps growing... final tallies aren't in yet, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if attendance topped 100,000 this year. Happily, this year the air conditioning worked the whole time, and Saturday, while crowded, wasn't quite as difficult to wade through as it seemed last year.
First of all, let me thank everyone who picked up stuff from my eBay auctions, as well as our sponsors over the last year. I was able to use that money to basically cover my Con budget, making this the first year I almost entirely dodged buyer's remorse and a sinking feeling that everything I was enjoying was sucking the life out of my savings account.
I always, always forget what happened on what day in San Diego. So when reading this, keep in mind that any given event may have happened a day or two earlier, although almost all of it really happened, so there is that. This was a good convention for me, as I caught up with almost everyone I had intended to meet (I missed Brandon Graham and Allan Heinberg, and never ran into Damon Hurd or Rick Smith either) and had a great time buying sketchbooks. I went crazy buying sketchbooks this year, as you can see by clicking HERE.
Seems like there's always a few booths that I keep circling around, either looking for creators to talk to or just because the location is in my "flight path" as it were. This year I often found myself at AIT/Planet Lar, Image Comics, Oni Press, Slave Labor Graphics and near the Active Images/Comiculture corner. I spent remarkably little time at the DC or Marvel booths, the former because it was always crowded and the latter because it was mostly given over to videogames. Seriously, when I spent a few minutes there waiting to meet Zeb Wells and Skottie Young, I think I accidentally memorized the voice-over for X-Men: Legends 2 - Rise of Apocalypse.
Oh, by the way, there are no pictures in this Con report. I suck at remembering to take pictures, and recognizing this, didn't even bring my camera this time. You can see pictures on Nate's blog, as well as one of me and Nate in CBR's photo parade. You can also see a a slightly different take on these events from my Con roommates Nate Southard and Tess Bodley, although both of them have their days screwed up on when a couple things happened. I can't really complain, though, because I did get them lost at least once, so my sense of time and direction isn't exactly impeccable either.
San Diego: Day One (Wednesday)
This year, I had procured a relatively early flight, leaving at 11 am from Austin to deposit me in San Diego at 2:30 PM, with plenty of time to get my badge and grab dinner before Preview night started. The flight out was a lot of fun, as I sat with my roommates and and we mostly riffed on Arrested Development, a show we all loved. Several Arrested Development quotes would be used throughout the weekend, most notably (imagine cockney voice) "The Gothic Asshole?" whenever we'd get in a cab or shuttle to go somewhere. If you've seen Arrested Development, you know why it's funny, if it's not, you're probably very scared right now.
Anyway, landed in San Diego as planned, checked in to the Holiday Inn on the Bay and hit the shuttle to get over to the convention center around 3:30. Registration opened at 3:00, so we figured we'd be able to breeze in, pick up our badges and head back to the hotel to grab dinner. As with last year, however, registration was... well, to put it kindly, a little slow. As in, we waited in a huge-ass line until about 5:45, when we finally got the front and got our badges and packets. I'm honestly not entirely sure what the point of pre-registering is anymore. I miss the days when they used to mail out badges.
Hungry as hell, Nate and I headed back to grab dinner at Anthony's Seafood Grotto. Tess, being a vegetarian and also having felt a little sick and tired, had already gone back to the room to catch a nap. I had some delicious shrimp in three varieties (teriyaki, scampi and coconut) along with some great clam chowder, and then we went to the room, picked up Tess and headed off to the convention center, about a half an hour after preview night had started.
Preview night, as always, is a bit of a blur. You've only got about two, two and a half hours to go in and visit with folks, get the lay of the land, and you find yourself bouncing from booth to booth like a pinball as you spot someone or something you want to see. Here's what I remember, aided by figuring out when and where I got sketches and graphic novels and what-have-yous and by reading Nate's Con report.
The first stop of the night, or at least the first one I remember, was the Top Shelf Comics booth. I was very pleased to meet Andy Runton, creator of adorable all-ages comic book Owly. He was as nice and friendly as his comic book creation, and hooked me up with a shirt for my daughter (which she greatly enjoyed when I got it home) and a sketch in my sketchbook, the first one of the Con. While at the booth, I also got to say hi to a variety of comic acquaintances, including Top Shelf's Chris Staros, Brett Warnock and Robert Venditti (also writer of The Surrogates, a really great speculative science-fiction comic). Brett was kind enough to get me a copy of Alex Robinson's Tricked, the long-awaited new work from the creator of Box Office Poison.
From there, it was off to the Oni Press booth. I said hi to James Lucas Jones and Joe Nozemack, folks I've seen at a variety of shows, and also finally got to meet Randy Jarrell, managing editor at Oni Press. Randy, like me, hails from Austin, and we chatted Austin vs. Portland a little bit, as well as a variety of other things. Randy was exceptionally nice and fun to talk to, and the Oni tradition of hiring people I can enjoy hanging out with for short or long periods of time continues. (I'm sure this is very important in the hiring process, whether or not they can hang out with a two-bit Internet reviewer.)
Still wandering and stopping at whatever caught my eye, Nate and I bounced over to the Adhouse Books booth, where I picked up Mort Grim, one of two new projects debuting at the Con, and chatted a bit with Chris Pitzer, the brains behind the Adhouse operation. I would stop by for a copy of Bumperboy, the other big Adhouse release, later in the week. From there, it was a short walk to Boom! Studios, where I got to meet up once again with the gregarious (and super-cool) Ross Richie. Ross hooked me up with a ton of Boom!'s books, including the variant covers for Zombie Tales, issues of G.I. Spy #1 and Hero Squared #1 (on my review pile), the Aaron Lopresti Sketchbook and more. We then decided to head on over to AIT/Planet Lar and Gettosake, as Nate was hoping to hand off a packet for one of his pitches to Jeremy Love. Jeremy wasn't there, but on the way, I stopped by Paige (Jane's World) Braddock's booth to introduce myself to her and thank her for sending over copies of her book for review.
Over at the Planet Lar booth, we said hi to Larry (although he was busy, so that was about all we said) and I got to talk to Andrew Boyd, co-writer of Scurvy Dogs, whom I had recently discovered was now living in Austin. We made tentative plans to catch roller derby (Andrew's idea) at some point, and talked the Flametrick Subs briefly as well. I'm almost certain I talked to other people there, but I'm blanking on exactly who. On our way to the Image booth, our next stop, Nate and I stopped by the Active Images booth, where I grabbed all the newest releases from Richard Starkings' graphic novel line, and then went just next door to say hi to Don Hudson and Steve Buccellato of the Comiculture Anthology. I'm fairly certain that another stop on the way to the Image booth was at Keith Knight's table to pick up Passion of Da Keef, his newest book, but that might have been Thursday.
Regardless, the last stop of the night was the Image booth, where I talked with B. Clay Moore and Jeremy Haun and learned of their upcoming Oni collaboration Leading Man. Clay teased me about hating Expatriate, I teased him about the lateness of Hawaiian Dick... I promised to give Expatriate #3 a look, he promised that Hawaiian Dick would be completed very soon. Tess wasn't feeling well, and Nate and I were tired as well, so we called it an early night after leaving the convention center and just went back to the room to read a little bit and then crash.
San Diego: Day Two (Thursday)
Here's a San Diego phenomenon I never get tired of: I can't sleep. Well, I can, but not for long. Because of the time change, and for other reasons I honestly can't explain, I never seem able to sleep past about 8 a.m. in San Diego, despite usually sleeping in until around noon here in Austin. So I woke up before the alarm, was first in the shower and was ready to go pretty early. Tess and Nate joined me and we had dinner at the deli next door, a Con tradition that Don and I had initiated back in 2003, and given the good quality of the breakfasts there, one I intended to uphold.
We got on the shuttle bus and got to the convention center by about 9:30. Tess wanted to get in the doors as soon as possible to nab a couple of Buffy exclusive action figures, and I told her I'd wait in line for one of them if it wasn't too long. Turns out, we'd be waiting in a long line anyway, as we had to get in line with everybody else in the far back end of the convention center where we would snake down into the convention hall. It seemed weirdly out of the way, but at least it was inside in the air conditioning, and once the line actually got moving, we got in pretty fast, probably around 10:15.
Tess managed to grab her action figures, and we all decided to split off for a bit around then. For my part, I went to the IDW booth, where I finally met new EIC Chris Ryall and talked briefly about their upcoming Transformers books, how much I loved Smoke and how much I was looking forward to the new Fallen Angel, among other things. I don't remember in what order the various other stops of the day took place, but I do know that I got an Invincible hardcover from Robert Kirkman at Image (gorgeous book, and being the completist format whore that I am, I must now purchase any future hardcovers), finally got to meet Kerry Callen (of Halo & Sprocket) and said hello to Joshua Hale Fialkov of Hoarse & Buggy Productions and got hold of the latest issues of Western Tales of Terror and Elk's Run. I also went over to say hello to Sean Wang, creator of the indy sci-fi graphic novel Runners: Bad Goods, and picked up issues #1 and #4 of the minicomic And Then One Day from writer/artist Ryan Claytor.
My plan to hit The Goon panel was foiled by accidentally mixing up the times, so that when I got up there, it was about a half hour into things. As it turned out, the Reno 911 guys either hadn't shown or had left early, and so the panel I witnessed was mostly fans slowly coming up with questions to break the awkward silence as Eric Powell and his editor sat on the dais. My cellphone buzzed and led me outside, so I left the panel after a few minutes and headed back down to the Con floor to meet Nate again.
Again, the actual sequence of events is blurry to me, but I have a rough idea of who I met during this period of time. Nate and I headed over to Oni Press again, where I got to talk to Ande Parks, author of the brilliant Capote in Kansas graphic novel. Ande was quite enamored of my review (he hugged me), but I'm even more enamored of his graphic novel. Seriously, one of the best things I've read all year. Here's another link to the review. Trust me on this one, folks. On a separate trip to Oni, I also met Chris Samnee, artist of Capote in Kansas, and he drew me an amazing Batman sketch.
Nate took me over to the Gigantic Graphic Novels booth, where I was introduced to Rick Spears and Rob. G (of Teenagers From Mars and Dead West.) I really wanted to buy Dead West, but I had already preordered it at my shop, so I guess I'll be buying it this Wednesday. I also need to pick up Teenagers From Mars from the shop, and I've been meaning to do that for a while now. We then went over to AIT/Planet Lar, where I got to chat with Joe Casey about a variety of things, including what he thought of my new review format and lack of ratings (something I was asking a number of pros about to see what the general consensus was), as well as getting a zombie sketch from Charlie Adlard. We also stopped in back at the Image booth to talk with Rick Remender and say a brief hello to Kieron Dwyer. Rick handed me a copy of the Fear Agent preview, a cool Wally Wood-esque sci-fi book with rotating art chores from Tony Moore and Cory Walker.
At 4:30, Nate and I took off to hit the Comic Book Weblogs panel. This was an entertaining panel, as a variety of bloggers, including Heidi MacDonald (The Beat), Peter David, Tom McLean (of Variety), Tom Spurgeon (The Comics Reporter), Augie De Blieck and Mark Evanier. This was really my only interaction with most of the folks on this panel throughout the Con. Though I don't get intimidated easily when it comes to introducing myself, Heidi intimidates the hell out of me, and I never quite worked up the nerve to introduce myself her at the Con or the Hyatt bar. I also really wish I'd gotten to meet Tom McLean and Tom Spurgeon (I was exceptionally pleased to see that Fourth Rail is in the links section of both of their sites). Peter David and Augie, of course, I saw and talked to during the Con, and I've seen enough panels to feel like I know Mark Evanier too. At any rate, great panel, good panelist line-up, definitely worth taking the time out from the Con floor.
After that, there was a little more wandering of the floor (I think, I'm honestly completely blurred at this point) and then Nate and I went to get Tess at the booth shared by Kevin Altieri and Rafael Navarro. Rafael may be one of the friendliest and funniest guys I've met in comics, and I was very pleased that he and Kevin said they might join us for dinner at the Rock Bottom Brewery. Unfortunately, Tess and Nate inexplicably decided to trust my (horrible!) sense of direction. It might have been my assurances that "I know where I'm going!" which led to us going about five blocks out of our way (and much verbal abuse for me, I might add), but we still got there, got seated and ate before Rafael and Kevin came out to join us. I had the chicken fried chicken which, as with every visit to Rock Bottom, was great. And huge. I couldn't even finish it all. Anyway, after we finished eating, we chatted with Rafael and Kevin for a few minutes before heading out to the Honey Bee Hive to catch a burlesque show that had been advertised by It's A Chick Productions.
I like the Honey Bee Hive... it's a cozy space and the drinks are relatively cheap. The burlesque show, with a geek theme, was fun if not spectacular, but it did provide a place to hook up with my good buddy Joe D, from my days in Psycomic. Joe and his friend (whose name I've totally forgotten, but in my defense I was about four rum and cokes in when I met him) hung out with me and Nate for the rest of the night, and we had a lot of fun.
San Diego: Day Three (Friday)
Once again, I was up well before the alarm clock. Though I usually try to plan out panels and such for San Diego, this was the first year I remembered ahead of time that there might be some pros coming that I wanted to see who wouldn't have a booth at the show. So, about a week or two beforehand, I sent out a few emails asking around to see if folks were coming and where they would be. As a result of this, I managed to set up a time to meet up with Alex De Campi, writer of Smoke (as well as a writer for Ninth Art) for a quick chat and coffee. So on Friday, we had scheduled a time to meet up near the Oni Press booth (since I reasoned that Oni was always easy to find) at 10:00, when the hall opens.
Theoretically.
In fact, getting into the hall at 10:00 requires that holy grail, the exhibitor badge. Otherwise, you're pretty much screwed. We managed to get into the hall near the closed doors, not realizing that in fact the huge line we had waited in on Thursday was in fact the daily plan for Con entrance. So we had to wait, with an increasingly angry crowd, as security waited for the all-clear that told them that the folks waiting in line had gotten into the hall. The doors finally opened at 10:40 or so, and I was pretty sure that I'd missed Alex. Fortunately, she had been caught up in the same kind of thing, and so she actually arrived at the Oni booth a little after I did, around 11:00. We chatted about a variety of comics-related things, and I had a great time talking with someone who has done the comics journalism thing as well as the comics writing thing. Alex was charming, smart and a great conversationalist, able to cover for the 5 to 10 minute gap I usually have between meeting someone new and feeling comfortable enough to have an actual conversation. Talking with Alex was definitely one of my highlights for the Con, and it was interesting to hear from her perspective as someone who has basically just broken in and is working on her follow-up projects.
I also finally managed to run into Maida Carpio Scott, an old friend from the Strangers in Paradise mailing list days, and her younger son Zevan. We chatted briefly and caught up, making sure we were still on for plans to hit the Fish Market for dinner with her husband Doug and other son Zander as well as a couple other friends. From there, it was off to wander the Con hall until around 2:00, when the Veronica Mars panel took place. That's about 3 hours, and honestly, I couldn't tell you exactly what happened in that time. So I'll just mention some of the folks that I think I ran into in that time, and if I'm off a day or two, oh well... Nate has his days and panels mixed up on his Con report too.
I know that at some point, I stopped by the DC booth and got to say a brief hello to Geoff Johns, as well as talk to Christos N. Gage, who wrote the fantastic Deadshot miniseries earlier this year. He's got some other stuff in the hopper for DC, and I'm hoping for a trade of his Deadshot series (as well as more Suicide Squad-related stuff from him, but there's no news on that front, unfortunately). While walking the floor, I spotted the familiar graphic for My Monkey's Name is Jennifer, a very funny book that Slave Labor published a couple years back from Ken Knudtsen. Ken had a new book published by Terminal Press with him, which I picked up... turns out that each purchase from Ken came with a free shot of citrus vodka, which was a nice bonus. I also shuffled over to the other side of Ken's booth, where the Ma brothers were promoting their comic Burn. I dug the art and the concept and picked up both issues, which came with a free sketch. You can see the sketch that Jerry Ma did for me of Iron Man in my sketchbook feature, elsewhere on the site. I also said hello to Tony Harris and Tom Feister on the other side of the convention hall and, following a tip from a passing Zack Smith, found Zeb Wells and Skottie Young signing at the Marvel/Activision booth. From there, I sought out Colleen Coover and Root Nibot, the creators of Banana Sundays, at the Oni Press panel to tell them how much I had loved the first issue. While there, I also got to meet Oni's new marketing/sales director Maryanne Snell, who was very nice and friendly, and say hello to Chip Mosher (of Big Blast, at least when I first met him) and talk briefly about what it was like for him and his wife to attend the Academy Awards, among other things. Also saw Jose Garibaldi as he was passing by, and he gave me a copy of his newest sketchbook, and talked to Jamie S. Rich, who wins my award for "sharpest dressed man" of the convention by showing up almost every day in a suit... and not just any suit, but some very nice suits, not too stiff and not too flashy. I envied Jamie's fashion sense, although I'm just not enough of a suit guy to pull that off without being uncomfortable all day.
At 2:00, I attended the Veronica Mars panel with fellow Mars devotee Tess and "never watched it but his feet hurt and he wanted to sit down" Nate. After viewing the little clip show they put together, Nate resolved to check out the show. Especially when he learned that Buffy/Angel's Charisma Carpenter was going to be a regular next year. She was on the panel, along with Joel Silver, Rob Thomas and some of the cast, including Jason Dohring (Logan), Teddy Dunn (Duncan), Francis Capra (Weevil) and Enrico Colantoni (Keith). It was a fun panel, happily no spoilers were spoiled, and there were only a few embarrassing "will you marry me?" style fanboy/girl questions asked of the participants. Can't wait for Veronica Mars season two, and can't recommend the DVDs of Season One (due out in October) highly enough. Veronica is up there with Lost, Arrested Development and The Shield in terms of my favorite shows.
After the panel, it was more wandering of the Con floor with Nate. We stopped by Thom Zahler's booth so I could get review copies of Raider 2 and 3, Zahler's spy/action adventure graphic novel series, and spotted Bill Williams of Lone Star Press (and a fellow Austinite) in the next booth. We talked with Bill for a while, but then had to head out in order to meet Maida and Doug so we could walk over to The Fish Market for dinner.
Dinner at the Fish Market is a Con tradition for me at this point, and I'm always reminded of why when I eat there. I had skewered grilled shrimp and scallops with au gratin potatoes, and the food was amazing. The conversation was also good, although I felt a little bad that I had dragged poor Nate to what was essentially a retailer dinner. Maida and Doug bought a comic book shop in Colorado Springs just about a year ago, and had brought their friend Laura Marsh (owner of True Believers in Santa Fe, New Mexico) with them, and we all talked about the theory and practice of comic book retailing throughout dinner.
After dinner, Nate and I went back to the hotel, changed clothes and rested briefly before heading out to the Hyatt Bar to see what was going on there. After disembarking from the shuttle, we met up with Steve Buccellato and Don Hudson, and they walked over with us and Steve even bought the first round when we got to the bar. Things started getting more crowded from there, as those who had attended either the Eisners (occasionally) or late dinner (more frequently) started to trickle in. I once again met up with Alex De Campi, who had Frazer Irving (the amazing artist of Seven Soldiers: Klarion) and Austin artist David Marquez with her. It was during conversation with these folks that I had my most embarrassing moment of the Con, which I was going to skip over in the Con report, but it's a funny story and Nate has already recounted part of it in his Con report, so what the hell.
On Thursday, I had run into Phil Hester, and those of you who know my reviews know that I'm ready to nominate him for comic writer-related sainthood. So when I saw Phil at the Hyatt bar, I waved him over. "Phil! Phil!" I wasn't 100% sure it was him, but I figured if it wasn't, he'd probably just ignore me as a lunatic. So "Phil" comes over, and I introduce him to Alex, Frazer and David. (Nate had been with me when I met Phil on Thursday.) Of course, midway through the introduction, "Phil" says "You have no idea who I am, do you?" Turns out "Phil" was in fact Adam Fortier, publisher of Speakeasy. He gamely stuck around for a brief conversation before going off to get a drink. The saddest part of the story is that I wasn't even drunk at this point, just... well... dumb. Alex kindly offered that he shouldn't have answered to Phil, and Nate backed me up that Adam and Phil did share at least some physical resemblance, so I wasn't entirely crazy. That was the last time I tried to introduce people throughout the Con, though, unless I was 100% sure who both of them were.
While at the Hyatt, Nate and I also sat down for a while with Bill Williams and Les Weiler (of Goathead Publications) to chat about a variety of things. It was during this conversation that I realized that four guys from Austin had flown all the way to San Diego to sit in the Hyatt bar and talk comics, which I found rather amusing. Drifting away from that group at one point, I once again stopped by Alex's table, to find her sitting with Steve and Dan Goldman and Dean Haspiel. I had shared a few drinks with Dan the year before, but I had never met Dean, and he was a tremendously nice guy. I told him how much I had enjoyed The Thing: Night Falls on Yancy Street that he had done with Evan Dorkin, and was pleased to learn that he had read my reviews. I also expressed interest in his work with Harvey Pekar on The Quitter, and he told me to come by the DC booth the next day to see the black and white copy they had of the book there.
At some point, Nate and I decided we'd had enough to drink and were getting tired and headed out to catch the shuttle and go back to the hotel room.
San Diego: Day Four (Saturday)
Once again, I woke up early, and so I stepped out onto the balcony to finish reading Tricked. After finishing the book, I showered and joined Nate for breakfast downstairs. We let Tess sleep in, because she'd been out later than both of us, and we made sure to head to the convention center after 10:00 so there wouldn't be any lines to wait in to get in.
Though I wasn't as exhausted on Saturday as I was last year, I was definitely tiring a bit by this point in the Con. I wouldn't really feel it until later that night, though, so most of Saturday was still pretty good for me. By this point, I had realized that all the sketchbooks I had bought were really good, and I wanted to get more, so I spent a lot of time picking up sketchbooks on Saturday. (Clearly I still missed a lot, though, because Tom McLean has a list of seven that I didn't get or in most cases even see.) I had also run into Greg Thompson, writer of the very fun Image book Hero Camp, at the Image booth on Friday, and he'd told me that Robbie Rodriguez, the artist on the book, would be around on Saturday. I spent much of the day pursuing Robbie for a sketch, but never actually got to talk to him for more than about 10 minutes at a time.
During my attempts to find Robbie, I did finally find the Splash Page comics art booth, and Cameron Stewart was there, sketching and autographing. I had a great time talking to Cameron, as always, and complimented him on his work on Seven Soldiers: Guardian, as well as telling him that I had recently discovered the blog that he shares with the Royal Academy of Illustration and Design. Other pros I ran into during the course of the day included Jan Duursema (currently wrapping up her work on Star Wars: Republic with John Ostrander), Becky Cloonan (working on a new Vertigo project and a new Tokyopop project), Ryan Ottley (who did me a fast and very cool sketch of Allen from Invincible) and Mike Norton (who gave me a sketch of his Marvel character Gravity).
At 1:00, Nate joined me to attend the Quick Draw panel, featuring Scott Shaw!, Sergio Aragones, Kyle Baker and Jeff Smith. Last year was my first year to see Quick Draw, but this year I had already experienced the unusual visual charades, and had a sense of what to expect. It was still fun, but as Nate noted, a lot of the jokes are sort of repeated, and so I don't know if I'll make it a must-see every year after all. It's definitely a panel to attend at least once, though.
I made a point of going to the Top Shelf Productions booth so I could tell Alex Robinson how much I enjoyed Tricked. He was of course pleased by the reaction, but expressed in mock frustration "It took me four years to do, and you read it in one night?" I didn't ask him when the next one was coming out... I would have been lucky to escape with my life. I also made a point to head over to the DC booth to get a sketch from Dean Haspiel, and I got to take a look at the pages from The Quitter (which looks fantastic) and say hi once again to Alex De Campi, who stopped by to see Dean and was introduced to Karen Berger, who was sitting down there as well. While I was wandering, I passed by the Speakeasy booth again, and was drawn in by a cute girl making a sales pitch for one of their comics. As I talked to her, I heard a voice say "Is that my hero Randy Lander?" Turns out that sitting right there, one of the creators for the comic I was hearing about, was Brandon Jerwa, late of Devil's Due. He was sitting with Dan Jolley and Marie Croall, and I talked with all three of them for a bit. Marie in particular was a blast to talk to, very funny and honest, and she noted that she had disagreed with me on almost all of my reviews, but she enjoyed reading them. Marie also has fantastic tattoos, and hopefully she realized I was staring at those and not ogling her while we talked.
I also stopped off at the Flight booth to pick up new work by Enrico Casarosa, Ronnie Del Carmen and several others. These guys had beautiful sketchbooks and comics, and I'm looking forward to digging into the rest of the stuff I picked up off those tables in the next couple of weeks. Before the day was out, I tracked down a couple more folks to get final sketches and purchases. I finally found Dan Brereton, over in the same area as Stan Sakai and the Morse/Mahfood/Huddleston crew, and picked up one of his sketchbooks as well as a copy of Last Battle, the comic about Rome that we had talked about last year. I then headed over to Sakai's booth to pick up the Fantagraphics volumes of Usagi I was missing (we've had a hell of a time ordering them from Diamond or Cold Cut). I asked if he could do a quick ninja head sketch on the front of my "ninjas, pirates, monkeys and/or robots" theme sketchbook and he did a terrific little ninja sketch. Now I just need to figure out who to get to do the pirate, monkey and robot!
Saturday was also the day that I finally located Jim Rugg, creator of Street Angel, at the Slave Labor booth. He was gracious enough to take my theme sketchbook and work on it, and I told him I'd pick it up from him when he was at the booth on Sunday. With that accomplished, I had taken care of most of my Con goals. I was walking away from the Slave Labor booth when I heard someone calling my name and turned to find Jim DiBartolo, co-creator of The Drowned and the new artist on Image's Rex Mundi. Jim and I have talked about a variety of stuff online, and we're on each other's Netflix friends list, so we chatted comics as well as TV for a few minutes. Jim was one of the last folks on my list of people to see, so it was luck that I had run into him on the second to last day of the Con.
I headed out of the Con center from there to join Nate for a dinner at Anthony's Fishette, the walk-up portion of Anthony's Seafood Grotto. I was disappointed that they didn't serve the clam chowder in a sourdough bowl at the walk-up, but the "mixed treasures" I got of various fried seafood was pretty good, and it was my first time to try calamari, which I liked.
After dinner, Nate and I took a cab out to the Honey Bee Hive again, this time to see the Morse/Mahfood live art show. Remembering the wait outside from two years ago, I made sure we got there right at 9:00 when it was scheduled to start. As it turned out, that was too early, and were there in a relatively empty bar for about an hour before things started to fill up. Tess called over and joined us about two hours in. By that point, I had switched from rum and cokes to coke and Stoli vanilla, which might have been a mistake. As a result of being very tired and having a few too many drinks, I was more or less out of it for the live art show, although I did still catch a glimpse of some of the cool art the guys were doing, including a really nifty Cobra Commander piece that they started off with. Tess went up and bought one of the skateboards that they were painting, but I managed to resist the temptation to buy another piece, mostly because I didn't want to try to figure out how to ship it back the next day. Nate claims that I was attempting to dance, which I'm very happy to not remember.
Stumbling away from the Honey Bee Hive and seeking out a cab, we spotted an all-night pizza place and went in for a slice. It was the perfect thing to eat at that point in the night, or so I thought, and we caught a cab and I basically fell into bed and passed out after saying goodbye to Nate, since he was catching an early morning flight out to Austin in the morning.
San Diego: Day Five (Sunday)
On Sunday, probably through a combination of the pizza, the drinks and not sleeping enough throughout the Con, I woke up sick. My stomach was not at all happy with me, and wasn't shy about letting me know it. After a few hours of restless sleep, I got up and went down to the hotel gift shop to buy some Pepto Bismol chewables that would hopefully keep me from having to throw up again during the day. While my stomach was weak and I felt out of sorts, the Pepto did at least keep it manageable enough to enjoy the last day of the Con, for the most part.
As much as the rest of the Con is a bit of a blur, Sunday is even moreso because I wasn't feeling well. I picked up my sketchbook from Jim Rugg and was exceptionally pleased by the results of my last sketch of the Con. While wandering, I saw John Layman over at the Marvel booth and stopped by to chat with him a little bit. I didn't get the chance to socialize much with John during the Con, which is a shame, because he's always a fun guy to talk to. John was only one of the fortuitous last minute run-ins I had on my last circle of the Con floor, however. I also got to talk again to Ross Campbell, creator of Oni Press's Wet Moon, and pick up some of his beautiful full color prints that he had done for the Con as well as ask what was going on with Wet Moon volume two and find out that Campbell is also working on a new Tokyopop OEL (Original English Language) manga. I realized during this Con that Tokyopop is going to be publishing a lot of comics later this year or early next that sound really interesting to me, although unfortunately I realized too late to go by the Tokyopop booth and ask the right person about the possibility of review copies.
My very last run through the convention floor was to try and figure out what I should pick up Dave Farabee as a present for picking me up from the airport. As it turned out later, the reason for that gift wasn't strictly necessary, but I'll get to that in a minute. At any rate, I rememembered that Dave, like me, is a fan of Stikfas, and so I went and sought out the new ninja stikfa, as well as another one of those and the supervillain stikfa for me. On my way through the hall, I passed by the Image booth and spotted the familiar names of Robert Tinnell and Todd Livingston, writers on Black Forest and The Wicked West. I stopped by and said hello and got the scoop on their newest projects from Image and Speakeasy.
From there, I met up with Tess and took the shuttle back to the hotel, where we grabbed a quick lunch at the Elephant & Castle Pub. My stomach still wasn't feeling great, but I needed to eat, so I passed up all the rich (and really good) sounding food on the menu and decided on their beef dip. It was a really good sandwich, and I wished I had been in full health when I'd eaten there, because it turns out that the Pub in the Holiday Inn lobby actually has really good food.
Still feeling a little sick, I figured that at the very least, we'd get on a plane and I'd be home and able to take my planned day off on Monday to relax and recuperate. After all, while others have expressed their travel nightmares in Con reports, I've always had pretty complications-free flights. Not this time, though. The first inklings of trouble came when Tess and I arrived at the airport and were told that our flight from San Diego was running late in arriving. They put our luggage on an earlier flight out to Phoenix, and were going to try and get us on standby on that flight so that we'd be able to catch a connection to Austin.
We went upstairs to our gate to wait for the news, and got on the standby list. We waited for several hours while conflicting information came in. Brad Bankston of Austin Books was one of the fellow travellers on our flight, and they hadn't told him about the standby, so we hoped that between the time we checked in and the time he had, our flight out of Vegas had also delayed enough that our delay on the original flight wouldn't matter. Sure, we'd be getting in to Austin at more like 2:00 in the morning instead of midnight, but we'd still be getting in. Worst case, we figured, we'd be stuck in Vegas at around 8:00, and Southwest would put us up in a hotel. Irene, the Southwest representative who helped us in San Diego, was incredibly nice and helpful in tough circumstances, and assured us that they were trying to get our connecting flight to hold, and that if we were stuck in Vegas, the hotel rooms were already taken care of. We soon learned that there were three more of us, Ty, Matt and Spring, who were in the same boat, trying to make an Austin connecting flight.
Our flight finally left, about an hour or so late, which wasn't bad, all things concerned, although we had waited in the airport about four hours at that point. We still had some hope that we might make our connecting flight, and Tess, Brad and I had a good conversation on the way to Vegas, also chatting with the passenger in front of us, a girl who was making a connection to Salt Lake and who had attended the San Diego Con and talked with us about Veronica Mars, Buffy, Firefly, comics and other such things.
When we landed in Las Vegas, we rushed over to the gate where our connecting flight was supposed to take off from, all the way across the airport. Since it was 8:40 and the departure time read 8:10, I was pretty sure we'd missed the flight, and indeed, that is what happened. The folks at the gate were of little help, and just told us to go to the Customer Service desk. We did that, and were greeted by a sour-faced young woman who seemed not at all happy to be on the job. We told her (assuming that our situation had been conveyed) that "we're the six misconnects from Austin." Her response? A put-upon "That means nothing to me." She didn't get any more helpful from there. We did get her to call in a manager, a guy named Lance Thibodeau, whose first response was to offer us discounted room rates. We weren't having any of that, and managed to badger him into giving us the rooms that had been set up for us, but he was mostly sarcastic and rude throughout, and seemed to have little interest in helping us out. When we informed him that our luggage had already been shipped to Austin on another flight (a decision made by Southwest, not us) and thus we didn't have basic toiletries or clean clothes or (in Tess's case) essential medicine, there was a nod towards sympathy but no effort to actually help out in any way. They very helpfully (note sarcasm) offered to fly us back to San Diego more than once, where of course we didn't know anyone or have a place to stay or luggage either, but at least we'd be out of their hair. The next flight out, as it turned out, would leave at 2:30 the next afternoon, so we were indeed stuck in Vegas for a while.
OK, so we're pissed at the rude treatment and unhappy that this screw-up didn't earn us anything, not flight coupons, not even a free drink on our next flight out, not a meal allowance for the two meals we were going to need on this unplanned stopover. Still, make the best of it, at least we're in Vegas and stuff is still open, right? Except that it takes several hours to confirm that no, none of our luggage made a stop in Vegas, and then we had to wait literally two hours in the heat for the hotel shuttle to pick us up. The shuttle driver claimed that he had driven by at least five times, somehow missing our group of four to six people who were sitting in the middle of the pick-up area, which was at this point typical of the customer service we'd been getting. Long story short, much waiting and frustration later, we arrived at the hotel and got checked in at what was probably around 1:00, 1:30 in the morning.
After getting settled in, five of us took the walk up the road to the Orleans hotel to get some breakfast/dinner, as most of us hadn't eaten for 10 hours or so. We got the cheap (but good) breakfast there, but by the time all was said and done, it was about 2:00, and most of us just didn't have the energy to go and gamble or enjoy Vegas at all. Spring, Ty and I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep, while Tess and Brad got a little bit of table gaming in before heading back. In fairness, the hotel that Southwest booked us into wasn't at all bad, a place called the Emerald Suites on Tropicana that had a full kitchen (stove, microwave, full-size fridge), separate living room and bedroom (with queen size bed). I was too tired to really enjoy it, but it was a nice place to stay, at least. After a quick stop at Walgreen's to pick up toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant and something to eat for breakfast, Ty, Spring and I headed back to our separate rooms to get some sleep.
The next day, I think we all weren't entirely believing that we were going to get on a plane and get home, but we got on the shuttle around noon, got through the airport with no hassles and got on the plane, mostly on time. We were in the "C" boarding group, so we didn't get to sit together (or at least, I didn't get to sit with anyone else), so I got some of my post-Con reading done until we landed in Austin at about 7:30. I felt bad to abandon my comrades on the last leg of the journey, but my wife and daughter were waiting for me, and Katy was already up past her bedtime, so I rushed down to see them, grab my luggage (carefully guarded by being left right outside their luggage office with no one watching them) and got in the car to head home and recover from my mild illness, albeit about 19 hours later than I had intended.
I'll be reviewing the stuff from this year's Con over the course of the next few weeks (OK, probably months.) The amount of material I picked up in San Diego means that I'm sticking with the style of reviews I've been doing over the past month or so for the forseeable future, as I try to get caught up on the comp pile. If you've read this far into the Con report, thank you and I apologize for running so long and basically rambling the whole time. Maybe next year I'll take better notes... although somehow I doubt it.
Lessons learned at this year's San Diego:
1. All the really cool t-shirts are for girls - Being a total design whore, I fell in love with so many cool shirts over the weekend, but most of them were not the kind of thing a 30-something man like myself could wear without looking just remarkably stupid. Fortunately, I have a daughter, and so I got a couple shirts for her, including a cool one from www.loter.com.
2. Putting your Con planner on your iPod photo = great - I tend to plan out San Diego to a reasonable (some might say slightly crazy) extent, with creators I want to see, panels I want to hit, sketches I'm hoping to get and the locations of booths I know I'll want to find. Usually this has been on a sheet of paper (as it was this year as well), but this year I also put a text version of it on my iPod Photo, and if I didn't already love the damn thing, this would have done it. It was great to be able to reach into my pocket, pull out the iPod and see where I wanted to be or who I was looking for.
3. Cellphones are your friend - Already knew this one, but especially when you're in a group with two other people with cellphones, the ability to easily and quickly find one another with cellphones just can't be beat.
4. Put your essentials in your carryon - I don't care if you've got a nonstop flight, put your toothpaste, toothbrush, razor, deodorant and clean underwear and socks in your carryon. Otherwise, you'll have two heavy bags full of books and need to make a run to a Walgreens when you get stranded in Las Vegas. And on a related note...
5. Don't fly into Southwest Las Vegas if you can avoid it - Seriously, it would be difficult for them to have handled the situation worse if they had been trying.
Oh, and this ain't all... check THIS LINK for the many and varied cool sketches that I got during the Con, and THIS LINK for the sketchbooks I picked up at the Con.
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