Freedom City
John Ira Thomas writes books for Candle Light Press. He also puts things on the internet, as putting them in the hollow oak hasn't worked so well.
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Seven of Nine. A lot of this is the pose. A good costume can fail on a bad pose. Seven knows her stuff.
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Forgot this little gem from Friday. There are a lot of magazine boxes and a lot of movie booths, so I thought I’d look around for some missing issues of PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO. The movie guys know it but don’t have it (they’re just selling movies and posters, so that’s fine); the magazine guys have never heard of it. At one booth I am directed to the “Old Guy”, who makes jokes about how old he is, be hasn’t the first grey hair. “Ask me something before I decompose,” he jokes. So I ask. He’s never heard of Psychotronic either, and I catch myself patiently explaining it’s from the 80s, which…were…30…years…I have to go lie down.
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So this is us, purple 8 and 9. The day started by me nearly freezing to death. In our area they have some massive HVAC blasting away above us. I was shaking well before opening and I thought I was just being a wuss until I saw other people reacting to it. I purchased an awesome Godzilla sweatshirt to save my life. No kidding.
The venue area is much larger this year, with the room divided in two, separated by a permanent wall with paths around either end. The main room is all dealers and big deal comics personalities. The other is Artist Alley, the tv/movie/everyone else autograph area and more dealers. It feels right. I’ve been to enough cons where half the foot traffic in Artist Alley was people who emerged from the dealer jungle and were burning to find a way back in. This works well enough.
The Iowa flag on my table has produced sales and conversations. Lots of Iowa expats down here. One Zoo Force I sold here is on its way back to Coralville on its own.
Saw Brittany, an artist we met the first time we came here and enjoy seeing each time. Folks are cheerfully taking exclusive cards, and I hit the movie booths with some abandon. I wanted to get Sars Wars for the movie society back home, composed of me, Dan, and Lisa. We saw a trailer for Sars Wars on our last Pinku night and knew we had to see it.
Also nabbed a couple Polish movie posters: Aliens and Apocalypse Now. Oh and the Argentinian Flash Gordon poster.
Broke my vow and ate con pizza. Felt deep shame.
Dinner was at Cuba Libre. Had me the first pisco sour since Chile and a lovely dish with coleslaw on top of pulled pork on top of mashed yucca in a pool of spicy black bean sauce. Why it’s not called Devil’s Tower is beyond me.
Artist Alley in general didn’t seem to be racking up sales. Even the more familiar players among the sketch and pinup crowd could be seen with downtime on their hands.
My trick this con is to wipe the eager look off my face and be more creator-y. I finished the ABC Movie of the Week book (The Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky and Hutch, Get Christy Love, and that Cathy Lee Crosby Wonder Woman movie that sucked so much were all MOTWs!) and started a hardcore Philosophy of Science book by Wesley Salmon on the logic of scientific inference. I find reading at the table makes people feel less like they’re about to catch the hard sell. Plus I think it helps me look less like a sales rep and more like the guy responsible. Though if I’m not careful I’m gonna absently hand some passerby my iRiver instead of a con-exclusive card.
But now it’s bedtime, so signing off. More adventures tomorrow, and no more pictures of my feet, unless you’re into that sort of thing.
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His back was to me initially, but when I saw the machine gun leaning against some dollar boxes, I knew it had to be The Shadow.
