Freedom City

The Saturday/Sunday cusp has never been a strong time for me, con-blogging-wise. It all gets to be a blur. But, sitting with an hour to go before I hop on a plane to DFW and thence to CID, I feel a little bloggy.

Saturday was a swirl of commerce. People are still surprised to find entire books for sale besides pinups; several people flipped through the first volume of The Fairer Sex and were disappointed it wasn’t a sketchbook. But Numbers sold out. Numbers always always always sells. Zoo Force almost sold out; the last copy got held, considered, and laughed over many times. Lost In The Wash did well, too.

I even finally figured out the short version of what Shades and Angels is about. It’s aboit how two superheroes and a group of homicide cops view the same series of events. Explain something enough times and you’ll find the nugget.

I also seem to have written and drawn Fragmenta 4, currently titled Megacontemplations. I should ship one back to the old First Baptist Church and see what they think of that.

Drawing with crayons at the table really drew people in. I had some nice chats with kids about how fun it is to draw with crayons, kept busy, and sold well. Between that and the Iowa flag on the table (an idea I lifted from the great Pam Bliss, who has had an Indiana flag on her table since forever), things stayed busy and kept the traffic flowing.

Sunday as a result felt very different. I’ve always said that if I went to a con like Megacon what I was fifteen, I’d never want to leave. Usually Sundays are full of wondering if you’re ready and packed and what time is it again and maybe I’ll take one more pass at the movie tables or a Neutro I should look for Neutro, yeah. This time I drew and wrote and felt fine. It’s still weird to think that at this moment no trace of Megacon remains at the Orange County Convention Center. So many people, so much going on, it’s as if it was always there waiting for you. But these things have to disappear and recharge, refill with new and new old goodies or bring the same old $150 Mazinger for you to moon over. Same with creators: despite creating a book at the con, I wouldn’t want to make them all that way.

Megacon is still the same wonderful inclusive gender-balanced con it’s always been. It’s not orchestrated by the big comics companies; in fact there are no big publisher booths; dealers go up front. The pulse of Megacon isn’t timed to incrementally informative press releases about books you don’t read anyway. It’s just a fantastic place to spend three days, no matter which side of the table you’re on.

A pretty great day, saleswise. I’m almost out of Zoo Force and lots of folks are promising to come back Sunday. Generally about a fifth of those remember or manage to do it.

Talked a while with a nice young man getting ready to ship out with the Navy. He was exceedingly polite and interesting. He’s a medic, so we talked a lot about that sort of training. I gave him a copy of Dirty Hands, as it’s CLP policy to give folks shipping out a free comic. Good luck, seaman.

In order to stay at the table and look interestingly busy, I popped by Walgreens for a sketchpad and crayons. See, I drew a picture in Sunday school many tears ago that caused a bit of a stir. It was captioned “The god of the king is going into the lion’s body.” A lion and a king lie on seperate tables while a torch burns and lightning flies everywhere. Jeremy framed it for my birthday several years ago and in turn I drew a sequel piece called The Lion Ascendant. So I did a ten or twelve page story with art in that world. It’s pretty nuts. It drew plenty of people to the table, almost as many as recognized the Iowa flag. Must remember to keep it up.

We ended up at The Pub Orlando, where I had a fantastic rueben and a magnificent whiskey bread pudding. That did me in. More tomorrow.