This is turning out to be a hell of a show!
I woke up sometime around 6 AM on Friday, then spent much of the morning working on my computer. Hallelujah for wireless!
I finally got Cajones out of bed sometime around 9:30 AM. The show opened at 10 AM, but we weren't in a huge rush because -- get this -- 10 AM to 4 PM at the show was PROS ONLY. Six hours of raw schmooze time before the public were to be released into the Javits Conference Center! WOW! Cajones and I naturally wanted to enjoy this time as much as possible, but it still wasn't going to prevent us from snagging breakfast at an excellent diner.
And dine we did! We located the Skylight Diner about a block away from the hotel, right on our route to the Javits. I noshed on a lox omlette, simply because it looked interesting, and I was rewarded for my adventurousness. Mmm! The place also had a case packed full of decadent desserts, which we vowed to sample later.
We then braved the nasty, windy cold and walked the last couple blocks to the convention center. We eventually scored our badges and were allowed inside.
The hours before 4 PM were spent schmoozing and investigating the show. The main sales/publisher floor is probably on par with Wizard World Chicago in breadth and variety: small when compared to a 800-pound gorilla like SDCC, but otherwise containing just about any comics thing you could ever want. The artist alley was small, but contained some pretty huge names (Gene Colan, Joe Shooter, Keith Giffen (!!!), Bill Sienkiewicz, etc.). The program rooms were downstairs, but since I couldn't find any sort of programming schedule at all, I never investigated them.
Despite passing through the DC booth every half hour to 45 minutes during the day, Cajones and I never did run into Nachie Castro. This was frustrating, but it did enable us to talk pretty frequently with Fletcher (our favorite booth runner at all shows) and Matt (one of the Sales guys who is way too pretty for this business). We also got to chat with Paul Levitz for a while about various things, including Siegel and Shuster, and the time-honored tradition of comics' artists' girlfriends being dragged into the business to color and letter. We also got some decent face time with Dan Didio, which really doesn't hurt. (There's a man with an impressive convention personality.)
Also on the main floor, we ran into Chuck Satterlee at the Markosia booth with his cohorts. He seemed relatively upright and healthy, so that was good. I bought the trade paperback of Smoke and Mirror from him, partly so I could really see the Spinal Tap drummer effect the book seemed to have on colorists.
We located art dealer Albert Moy on the main floor as well. (A couple weeks ago, Cajones and I purchased some original Darwyn Cooke art through Albert, but one of the pages wasn't one that we'd ordered. I brought the page to NYC so I could either trade it or get a refund.) I didn't trade in the page yet, but I did drool over the highly expensive original Berni Wrightson paintings. (My god, Albert has the original May painting from Cycle of the Werewolf.)
Upstairs in Artist Alley, Cajones and I ran into Paul Storrie, who is always a delight to see. He frequently popped up during the day, since he was wandering around like we were, and not tied to a table.
Paul introduced us to some very charming gents in the alley: writer Jack Briglio, fellow Johnny DC artist Alex Szewczuk, and fellow colorist Jason Millet (whose colors grace Athena Voltaire). We all got along famously, so I wandered past that table many times during the day just to chat. There was much talk of DC Comics politics, the pros and cons of writing family-friendly material, and the like. Alex and Cajones also traded portfolios and had some mutual admiration going on; Alex's comment was, "Man, I was kind of hoping you were going to suck, but this is amazing stuff."
We also ran into Joe Staton and his lovely wife (I think her name is Hillary. It's an H name.). Surprisingly, he actually remembered both Cajones and I from when we were driving him around St. Paul a couple years ago, and seemed genuinely pleased that I was now working with him on Femme Noir. He even showed me the pencils for Femme Noir #2, which feature a giant robot (!) with a tommy gun (!!). I LOVE THIS BOOK.
I also asked him to sketch Guy Gardner for me. Yay!
It's now time to go to breakfast, so I have to go shower and get my schmooze on. Things/people I must write about in the next installment:
Ramona Frieden
The search for Bill Sienkiewicz and Keith Giffen
Devil's Due
Green Ronin
Gene Ha and our gaming dreams
Pizzaria lunch
Cajones' DC signing
The guy with the canvas and pens
The guy with the truck
The guy with the Batman sketch cards
Finding a cab to McGee's
The DC Comics private party
Discussing Star Trek with Thom Zahler
"I think that's Bill Sienkiewicz"
Instant friends through waitressing
Drunkening with Michael Wright and the British dude ("I've sodomized my brain")
Table overboard
FINALLY finding Nachie
The Very Loud Bar
Late-night dinner at Tick Tock
SLEEP.
I woke up sometime around 6 AM on Friday, then spent much of the morning working on my computer. Hallelujah for wireless!
I finally got Cajones out of bed sometime around 9:30 AM. The show opened at 10 AM, but we weren't in a huge rush because -- get this -- 10 AM to 4 PM at the show was PROS ONLY. Six hours of raw schmooze time before the public were to be released into the Javits Conference Center! WOW! Cajones and I naturally wanted to enjoy this time as much as possible, but it still wasn't going to prevent us from snagging breakfast at an excellent diner.
And dine we did! We located the Skylight Diner about a block away from the hotel, right on our route to the Javits. I noshed on a lox omlette, simply because it looked interesting, and I was rewarded for my adventurousness. Mmm! The place also had a case packed full of decadent desserts, which we vowed to sample later.
We then braved the nasty, windy cold and walked the last couple blocks to the convention center. We eventually scored our badges and were allowed inside.
The hours before 4 PM were spent schmoozing and investigating the show. The main sales/publisher floor is probably on par with Wizard World Chicago in breadth and variety: small when compared to a 800-pound gorilla like SDCC, but otherwise containing just about any comics thing you could ever want. The artist alley was small, but contained some pretty huge names (Gene Colan, Joe Shooter, Keith Giffen (!!!), Bill Sienkiewicz, etc.). The program rooms were downstairs, but since I couldn't find any sort of programming schedule at all, I never investigated them.
Despite passing through the DC booth every half hour to 45 minutes during the day, Cajones and I never did run into Nachie Castro. This was frustrating, but it did enable us to talk pretty frequently with Fletcher (our favorite booth runner at all shows) and Matt (one of the Sales guys who is way too pretty for this business). We also got to chat with Paul Levitz for a while about various things, including Siegel and Shuster, and the time-honored tradition of comics' artists' girlfriends being dragged into the business to color and letter. We also got some decent face time with Dan Didio, which really doesn't hurt. (There's a man with an impressive convention personality.)
Also on the main floor, we ran into Chuck Satterlee at the Markosia booth with his cohorts. He seemed relatively upright and healthy, so that was good. I bought the trade paperback of Smoke and Mirror from him, partly so I could really see the Spinal Tap drummer effect the book seemed to have on colorists.
We located art dealer Albert Moy on the main floor as well. (A couple weeks ago, Cajones and I purchased some original Darwyn Cooke art through Albert, but one of the pages wasn't one that we'd ordered. I brought the page to NYC so I could either trade it or get a refund.) I didn't trade in the page yet, but I did drool over the highly expensive original Berni Wrightson paintings. (My god, Albert has the original May painting from Cycle of the Werewolf.)
Upstairs in Artist Alley, Cajones and I ran into Paul Storrie, who is always a delight to see. He frequently popped up during the day, since he was wandering around like we were, and not tied to a table.
Paul introduced us to some very charming gents in the alley: writer Jack Briglio, fellow Johnny DC artist Alex Szewczuk, and fellow colorist Jason Millet (whose colors grace Athena Voltaire). We all got along famously, so I wandered past that table many times during the day just to chat. There was much talk of DC Comics politics, the pros and cons of writing family-friendly material, and the like. Alex and Cajones also traded portfolios and had some mutual admiration going on; Alex's comment was, "Man, I was kind of hoping you were going to suck, but this is amazing stuff."
We also ran into Joe Staton and his lovely wife (I think her name is Hillary. It's an H name.). Surprisingly, he actually remembered both Cajones and I from when we were driving him around St. Paul a couple years ago, and seemed genuinely pleased that I was now working with him on Femme Noir. He even showed me the pencils for Femme Noir #2, which feature a giant robot (!) with a tommy gun (!!). I LOVE THIS BOOK.
I also asked him to sketch Guy Gardner for me. Yay!
It's now time to go to breakfast, so I have to go shower and get my schmooze on. Things/people I must write about in the next installment:
Ramona Frieden
The search for Bill Sienkiewicz and Keith Giffen
Devil's Due
Green Ronin
Gene Ha and our gaming dreams
Pizzaria lunch
Cajones' DC signing
The guy with the canvas and pens
The guy with the truck
The guy with the Batman sketch cards
Finding a cab to McGee's
The DC Comics private party
Discussing Star Trek with Thom Zahler
"I think that's Bill Sienkiewicz"
Instant friends through waitressing
Drunkening with Michael Wright and the British dude ("I've sodomized my brain")
Table overboard
FINALLY finding Nachie
The Very Loud Bar
Late-night dinner at Tick Tock
SLEEP.
Current Mood: 
amused
amusedMake Observation