Das Konvention mit Komiken!
(That's not real German. As far as I know.) Here is my con report. It lacks pictures because...I have to actually get them developed. That's right. Despite the fact that Lee has a totally awesome digital camera, we didn't take it with us. Be warned. Lots of geek talk, but lots of un-geek talk too. I am Queen O' Digressions.

Day Zero: Wednesday

We fly! We fly like tired beetles to Sandy Eggo. The flights are smooth and lacking in anything resembling excitement. The second flight includes a young girl native to Sandy Eggo, returning from a reunion with her biological father. He's Christian and very pious, she's non-practising Jewish--needless to say, her culture shock was high, and she was stressed out because of the visit. She (Danielle) is also a Harry Potter fan. She tells us she cried when the bookstore misplaced her Harry Potter pre-ordered copy the night book five came out. (I probably would have too.) She is, however, SHOCKED to hear that some Harry Potter fans (I'm talkin' about you, Ali and Cassie) not only like the Slytherins but write racy fan fic regarding Draco and Harry, Draco and Hermione, Draco and Ron, Draco and Snape, Draco and the entire Quidditch team in a full-on orgy. Her eyes get big. (It is right after this that I find out that said seatmate is only sixteen--which was a surprise to me. I worry that I am corrupting the youth of America.)

We land in Sandy Eggo without mishap. It looks just like I left it, which is always eerie for me. In fact, I often suffer strange time dissonances unless a place changes. I feel almost as if I never left, and if somehow, all my time in North Carolina was just a dream or a distant memory. This is pretty disconcerting.

We taxi to the hostel. Travis and Kelli are waiting for us, and they help us with our bags up to the room. The room is small and narrow and has two bunk beds. We have one--Travis and Kelli have the other. We plop down on our bunks and fall asleep.


Day Ein: Thursday

Would you believe that I forgot towels? I had never stayed in a hostel before this, but I knew that they didn't provide most of the amenities of a hotel. We discover the lack of towels about the time we are all getting up sunshiney early to take showers before the rest of the hostel residents awaken. Right. That whole communal showers/bathroom thing. (Technically the showers and bathrooms are all separate, but you have to share them with everybody else, and find one which isn't being used right when you want it.)

Fortunately, there is a Ralph's down the street. Lee and I wander down to the Ralph's, determined to find towels. I tell Lee I will bathe with a dish towel, which I KNOW most grocery stores will sell. (The dish towels are either next to the dish soap and scrubby implements OR next to the pseudo-tupperware and rubbermaid.) This is Sandy Eggo, however, so there are beach towels. Which is fortunate, because normally I require two towels--one for the head and one for the body--and a single dish towel would just not cut it. While purchasing towels, we run into the first Sandy Eggan on my list of people to see and hang out with: Anna. Anna is purchasing breakfast and lunch in the Ralph's, which is The Place To Shop During Con Outside of Con(tm). We chat, I mention Travis and Kelli's booth, and we part. Anna, of course, being a smart cookie and having pre-registered AGES ago, already has her badge.

We do not have badges. After dressing and heading over to the convention hall, we manage to get filtered into the wrong line. Normally this would be a Bad Thing, as we have been filtered into the line for pre-registered folk. But we are not the only completely-not-registered-at-all people to have been sent this way. Apparently we were supposed to stay outside as punishment for our lack of foresight, but instead we are allowed as a small group to cluster at the very front of the currently non-existent on-site registration line. We fill out forms, and stand behind a patch of incredibly rude young men. (The rude young men threaten the security guard with silly threats and treat him condescendingly. It never occurs to them that this security guard has probably seen more Comic-cons than they have....maybe even more than they've been alive for. He is retiring next year, or so he says. He was a nice security guard just doing his job, and really a decent fellow, unlike Security Bastard on Day Two. More on Security Bastard later.)

Eventually we are let in, just in time to stand in another line, and finally at ten o'clock, they let us into the exhibit hall, a few clumps at a time. We are in! First job: Find home base at Travis and Kelli's booth, who being exhibitors are let in waaaaaay early so they can set up.

It is really hard to find Travis and Kelli--in fact, we stumble over them less than twenty seconds after entering the exhibit hall. We say hi, hello, and immediately abandon them for the delights of Con.

Within an hour, I have located David Mack, Bob the Angry Flower, the Penny Arcade boys, the Pants Press gang, the Dumbrella boys, Anna again, Brian Froud, and various and sundry indy comic artists. I have purchased paraphenalia from Bob and the Dumbrella boys. Meanwhile Lee has located the Artist He Idolizes--He who is known as Brom. Apparently, Lee went up, talked to Brom, had a decent conversation going, and then another fan started talking, and Lee who dislikes feeling like he is butting in where he isn't wanted, bowed out graciously. Now, he had been talking about video games, and what it was like to balance parenthood and art, and other topics, so he didn't want to have Brom think that he'd just gotten bored and walked away. So he went back a little later to try and explain himself, and fanboyed, and embarrassed, walked away again. Now, I like Brom's work too, and I wanted to see Brom and talk, but Lee wouldn't go with me or even direct me exactly to the booth, as he worried that Brom would think he was a stalker. (He is so cute when he is paranoid.) So I went all by myself, and talked with Brom, and couldn't help pointing out that I'd had to find the booth all by myself since my boyfriend was afraid and thought that Brom would think he was a stalker. Brom didn't seem to think that this was terribly unusual and passed no real comment on it, which is why I assume that he must get freakier fans than us--he is Brom, after all--and I thought it was no big deal. But to Lee, this was the equivilant of getting caught with your shorts down or something similar. He was very embarrassed and I was in disgrace.

That day I got sketches from Bill (Mudron, of Anne Frank and the Moon Nazis) and Dylan (who drew me a smashing Genevra) and David Mack (some masky thing) and John Allison (Unit Daisy from when he was drawing Bobbins, except it was new Unit Daisy and not original Unit Daisy) and several other folks. (Travis also drew me a rocket shaped like a penis. The guys at Champions from Hell--the booth next to Trav's and Kelli's--kept shouting, "Blast off for Uranus." They were very proud of their wit. Trav wanted to write, "Blast off for Neptune," just to confound them.)

I really wanted Tycho and Gabe from Penny Arcade to go to the Kevin J. Anderson panel and shout, "You are fucking Frank Herbert's corpse." Gabe said he'd pay twenty dollars at least to see that, but I didn't seem to have convinced them. Oh well.

Purchased a "Republicans For Voldemort" T-shirt at Dumbrella. So going to wear that to Utah. Also purchased the bumper sticker for my car.

I also got a free book--an advance reader's copy of Tamora Pierce's Trickster's Queen, which was a thoroughly satisfying sequel to her Trickster's Choice. (She started making her books thicker, now that J.K. Rowling has proven to her publisher that American kids will read fatter books, so this series is only TWO books instead of her usual four books.) I saw it on the Del Rey table, and blurted out, "Omigod! Is that out? Can I buy it?" and the nice nice Del Rey man let me have it for FREE! It is now my duty (Del Rey man did not say this, but I know why they give out advance reader copies) to tell you that it is a smashing book. I actually think Aly jumped straight to the top of my favourites by Tamora Pierce, besting even her mother's character, who was the main character of the first Tamora Pierce book I ever read.

Actually, it all begins to blur together now. I can't remember precisely what day I visited Artists Alley--I got some prints from Brian Despain (he's got some work on conceptart.org that I adore and some pics in Spectrum) and we chatted with several folks down that way. But now I don't remember quite if it was day one or day two.

After Comic-Con had finished for the day, we went and got lovely Thai food, and while we were trying to get Thai food, Brom and his family passed us, leaving Lee twitching with embarrassment because you just know that LEE IS A SCARY STALKER BOY! (Brom, if you for some reason ever ego-surf your name online and come across this journal entry, you need to know that Lee is a professional game artist with awesome skills and a slight propensity to turn to jelly in your presence. We don't blame you. We're seeking help for him.)

(Any bets on whether or not Lee will make me censor this journal entry? Any takers?)

We pretty much fell asleep soon after reaching the hostel.

Day Dos: Friday

Some Security Bastard power-tripped the door tending, and wouldn't let us in for a good ten minutes after Con had already started. He wouldn't explain why either. AND then he let a crew set up a camera right in front of us. I resented being typecast as the frantic, obsessed nerd, even if I am one, and eventually went to another door. Ran into Mike and Kyle, who were also being balked by the Security Bastard.

I wore my ears. Not the rest of my costume, but that didn't seem to matter to most of the people who kept trying to take my pictures.

These ears: They go out to here. <------ --------> They are about six or seven inches out of the head, I think, and they are awesome. These are not your anemic, run-of-the-mill elf ears, which cause people to confuse you with vulcans. These ARE the best fucking elf ears EVER. Ironically, they did not begin life as elf ears though. No, they began life as Goblin Ears. The Woochie people really need to learn how to label things. Anyway, my beloved ears are just the exact shade of latex pink which goes really well with my skin tone. So well that people kept asking me if my ears were real.

Now I understand that Comic-con is that magical, wonderful place where people can just be themselves, and some of the people being themselves include folks with really extreme body mods. There is the Tiger-Cat guy, for example, who has a split lip designed to look like a cat's muzzle and implanted sockets for whiskers and more piercings than you can shake a stick at. But the ears seem to cause people to act really oddly. For example, a guy with a tail seemed really really bowled over by the fact that my ears were a little longer than normal. Yes, that's right. A guy wearing a furry tail seemed bowled over by EARS. The guy with the TAIL.

I went to a panel on art direction that had Kimuko S. Croft, Roger Dean (the Roger Dean who I blog about adoringly because of his pod houses), Irene Gallo, Charles Vess, Donato Giacono, and some other people who I can't remember right off the top of my head. The panel was pretty cool, although Q and A was dominated by some dork who spent the entire session telling the panelists about how crappy some other art director had treated him. I wanted to smack him, but while I was trying to come up with a question which would justify me taking the microphone away from him, Q and A ran out of time. I did get to talk a smidgen with Irene Gallo and Roger Dean though. Roger Dean stopped halfway through talking to me, and said, "I'm sorry. I still can't get over your ears." I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not, but given that he said it in a beautiful English accent, and he is Roger Dean, I don't really care. He gave me his signature. I forgot to ask Irene for hers, but there were people directly behind me with actual portfolios and business cards, and I am a bad and unproductive monkey who needs to bring such things to Con.

(Irene is, according to Bill Shunn and John Scalzi, a smashing art director. She works for Tor. I swoon.)

I kept trying to make contact with Killersquirrelz all day but it just wasn't coming together. If he wasn't at a panel, I was, and vice versa. And I had an appointment to eat lunch with Anna and her brother, and to see Neil's panel and showing of Mirrormask.

We ate at the Octopus Garden, which has nice inner decor but absolutely no service during Con season. They got our order wrong, we had to wait for our drinks, we only had three out of four place settings until we pestered the waiter, and they were VERY slow in settling the check. Still we made it out in time to go hunt up a place in line for Mirrormask.

Except there was no line. They weren't clearing the room, which was flocked full of people for the Pixar/Incredibles panel. Since that would be something we wouldn't mind seeing anyway, we went in and sat down and got treated to scenes from the Incredibles. Some very funny stuff about why superheroes shouldn't wear capes. (Have you ever seen a superhero sucked into a jet engine?)

Eventually the Incredibles panel ended, but they were giving away schwag--including a Mike Mignola Incredibles poster and a Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide Towel. Oh. Sweet, sweet dilemma! See Neil or get the booty? Anna and I made her hapless brother save seats for us, and we did both!

Mirrormask looks pretty awesome, by the way. Neil kept referring to what he jokingly calls a "music video" but it's actually pretty sweet. (Better than most music videos I've seen, which are always disappointingly mundane. Except for Chris Cunningham who makes a pretty awesome music video. But that's neither here nor there.)

James and Dyana showed up with Lili after all the schwag had been collected. We wandered over to the Ugly Doll booth together and purchased an Uglydoll for Lili and several in various sizes for myself.

We went for Thai food at the exact same restaurant. (No Brom this time.) We had wanted to go gaming with James and Dyana after dinner, but we were tired, and asked for a rain check. Lee fell asleep within minutes of getting back to the hostel.

Day Trois: Saturday

I wore the full costume. You can probably find pictures of me somewhere online if you are dutiful enough--lots more people asked if they could take my pic and post it to their website. I am even supposed to mail some of them because they gave me business cards and said I could ask for a print of the pic if I wanted.

I went to Brian Froud's booth and dropped a LOT of money on various fripperies and books and prints. Brian had been walking away from the booth when I was approaching, but by the time I had raided the ATM, he was back. He said that my ears were great, and he could tell on the floor exactly where I was heading to. His wife complimented me on my costume, which was pretty neat, because she sculpts faeries and then sews clothes and outfits for them and so on. (For the unaware, Brian Froud did the concept art for Labyrinth and the Dark Crystal. He knows elves.) Toby was there--looking much larger than I remembered. (Toby was the baby in Labyrinth. I wonder how he feels knowing that Jennifer Connolly has probably clutched him to her bosom at some point. Some people might be envious of such a fellow.) I told them how Lee had wrapped my Christmas present of the Dark Crystal DVD right in front of me, telling me the entire time that it was a gift for my sister. They thought it was funny and gave me a free t-shirt for patronising their booth. (Oddly, the T-shirt wasn't one of theirs at all--it was a Michael Whelan Meatloaf shirt. The woman helping them sell stuff said, "In case your boyfriend might want something." I thought that was kinda funny, given my boyfriend history--Adam once gave me Meatloaf CDs. He always claimed that he had them because an ex- of his had declared "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" Their Song. I admit that explains owning Bat Out of Hell II but what explains owning Bat Out Of Hell I???)

I finally got to meet up with Paul (Killersquirrelz) and some of his friends. They gave me free comics, which was nice of them, and we took pictures (Paul, did you get those up yet?) and meandered around. I lost them somewhere around the Brom booth, but we all eventually met up again and wandered into the front part of the Convention Center where we watched two giant Uglydoll mascots duke it out.

The giant Uglydoll mascots were easily my favourite memory of this con. (Sorry, everybody else. You all were awesome, but you are hard put to be more adorable than a six foot tall Ice Bat trying to use a pay phone.) The people inside the costumes were excellent and having a lot of fun with the mascots. They would make them fight, or poke around unused cash registers, or sit on benches, or chase Con patrons down the hallway. They were so adorable, and if you didn't see them while you were there, I pity you and your empty empty life.

While all these people kept taking my picture, I was asked by the THQ people to do a promo for their upcoming Incredibles video game. I was supposed to say, "This November be Incredible. Play the game. See the movie. T-H-Q!!!!" I kinda squeaked through it, because the instant I get in front of a video camera, I turn into a twinkie. They patted me kindly on the head and gave me a container of Punisher Punch for my troubles. Punisher Punch is kinda toxic tasting, and I don't really recommend it.

James and Dyana left early, so we agreed to eat with Travis and Kelli, and meet up with James and Dyana after dinner to play games. Instead of Thai, we agree to do Indian--yummy yummy Indian--and naturally, while we were at the Indian restaurant, Brom and his family came in and got seated nearby. Lee ducked and twitched some more. (Fortunately, being there first kinda negates that whole stalker vibe, right?)

We played Citadels with James and Dyana and another game which I don't remember. And then we went back to Ye Olde International Hostel and slept the sleep of people who have worn pseudo-Berkenstocks all day long. Oh, my aching feet.

Day Four: Sunday

The last day. We found a couple of artists for comics that we hadn't been able to find before. We pinned down Tom Beland, whose comic True Story, Swear To God, we had discovered only last year, when he had a booth just down the aisle from Travis and Kelli. We discussed menstruation and other bodily fluids (he was very gracious and shared a story about how he learned that ejaculations were NOT a symptom of cancer) and he sketched for us. Then we found Craig Thompson, who as many other people have noted, is a beautiful human being who will continue to sketch and sign even past his lunch time.

We de-stalker-fied Lee. He and I went to the booth o' Brom, where he was finally able to have a conversation with Brom without feeling abnormal or overly fannish, and at the culminatation of said conversation, Brom gave him a card with contact info on it, so that Lee could send him and Brom's kids a copy of UC2. (When in doubt, bribe artists.) Lee stopped twitching.

Having noticed neither Zim nor Seven (Jeremy) during Con, and having assumed that I would probably run into them at some point, I began to wonder where they might be. On the off chance that Zim was at home, instead of at Con, I called the house, having lost his cell. And lo, it turned out, he had not gone to Con at ALL. Instead, Seven had to call off his trip to Sandy Eggo, and Aaron had put out a message on the message board, instructing us to call him, unaware that we had already departed. James, Dyana, Lee and I all trooped over to Casa Zimmerman to meet up with him and get some grub.

Eventually it was time for all of us to part, and part we did. James and Dyana drove north, and Robyn left for the airport, followed shortly by us. Lee had forgotten his Terrada poster book at the hostel though, so we had to turn back to get it, and as we turned back in our taxi down a side street, lo, there was Brom and his family, cheerfully walking down the street. It made another odd counterpoint to our strange Con synchronicity. We retrieved the Terrada, skibbled to the airport, and flew home, and went straight to work, because we are insane people.

That was my weekend. It rocked. (Unlike the week that has followed, which has SUCKED!!!)

I can't wait til next year.

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I do feel awfully slothful, having nothing to show for another year. I know I've been writing, but I could do something....comic-related. Robin wants to see a bit of story I was telling her--she wants to use it in True Porn 2, despite the lack of gratuitous nudity. (It's actually a chunk of Motown, although I had thought of contributing to TP2 in other ways.) Anyway, the creative juices are flowing. The first order of business is to finish off some of my official writings, and get those sent off though. Can't start new projects until old ones finish off. :)