Another Comic-Con has come and gone, and I had a really great time this year. When I got home and had the Nerve Bomb accounting department tally up all my profits, I discovered that I actually did better financially LAST time, but I had a much more enjoyable time of it this year. Probably because I had a new book that I was pleased with, a great booth and a cool booth-buddy.
Rhode, Bosco and I drove down to San Diego on the Tuesday before the con, breaking the trip with a stop-over in LA that night, where Tony and Gale played host to the three of us, and we all shared an enjoyable meal at their house. Later, we watched “Still life with animated dogs“, which is a really unique film by Paul Fierlinger, in Tony and Gale’s newly built home theatre.
The good vibes continued when this year I managed to side step the annual screw up with my hotel reservation. It was becoming something of a tradition for me to be jerked around by whichever hotel I was booked at. My buddy Bosco wasn’t so lucky however, having found himself checked in to the Hillbilly Hell Hotel, so he came and shared the suite with Rhode and myself.
Despite the cramped quarters and nightly snoring wars (poor ole Rhode being caught in the crossfire of honking blasts coming from me and Bosco), we all got along great (especially after Jenny gave Rhode some earplugs).
To the left is a sketch of Rocket and the Professor that I did for Russell Vossler while at my booth. He was kind enough to email me a scanned copy.
This year, in addition to the usual suspects, such as Ronnie and Enrico (who had briefly toyed with the idea of NOT exhibiting this year), The sketchbook sessions guys, and the folks from B-Minus, even more of our pals got into the act as exhibitors, namely the E-Ville press crew and the Bunny Mouth kids.
Each night we were able to take some time to socialize in Town, even managing to pull off the amazing feat of seating about 20 of us in one restaurant. I find that most nights I want to spend time with so many people that organising such a big get-together becomes impossible, but somehow we made it work at least once. Plus, the sushi was great.
I was able to hang out with a lot of people (which I regreted not doing much of last time) and I got to meet some people who I’d only previously known through email or by their art websites. (including Douglas who took this pic) So it was nice to be able to match faces to the talents.
The con isn’t the same for me without one of our mini-traditions, a Sunday night get-together over hot-dogs at Derek’s parents’ place in San Diego, and this time it was done in their newly purchased home. A very pleasant evening was spent eating hot dogs and geeking out on comics lore (even some people who’d prefer not to admit it were geeking out… HARD).
The drive home to San Francisco on Monday was a straight shot up boring old Highway 5, but interrupted briefly by a tasty evening meal at HARRIS’ steak house. A possible NEW con tradition that I learned last year from Bosco.
I picked up a lot of neat books.. but even so, if I have any regrets about this year’s con it’s just that I didn’t do more shopping around… and that I missed out on hooking it up with Vampirella again…
Oh well.
