Freedom City

Resting up from the frivolity of the weekend today. I went up to Des Moines on Friday for a little post-birthday treat before the Iowa Comic Book Club’s annual I-Con in Altoona. I drove up early and scoured two huge antique malls there. Found a few goodies, such as a couple first edition books by Alden Knipe (Captain Of The Eleven and A Maid of ‘76). After that, I went to Half-Price books and found a sealed copy of Mark Evanier’s Jack Kirby biography for 15 bucks. I have a really high tolerance for hunting high and low in these places and the opportunity to set my own pace was a lot of fun.

Met up with Carter and Rebecca, and Will later on. We kept it low-key and woke Saturday with vim and vigor.

I-Con is actually a good deal smaller than is used to be. Word is they overexpanded back when they were at the fairgrounds and now they’re more cautious with the show. That’s a shame, as for a time it seemed poised to mimic all the best elements of the Twin Cities’ SpringCon. Iowa’s inability to have a medium-to-major comics show mystifies me completely. We have AnimeIowa at the Sheraton in Coralville and it crushes I-Con in attendance. But Colorado seems to have the same problem, even though it, like Iowa, is jammed with comics fans.

We ended up dead center in the middle of the room, right across from Tony Bedard and Tyler Kirkham. Traffic was mostly steady, and the slow bits were filled with our consternation at the Iowa Hawkeyes’ performance in the first three quarters of the Pitt game. I was getting updates via my Nook Color and it wasn’t pretty. It’s become a running joke at I-Con that the Hawkeyes always seem to blow an easy game the day of the con. Even though they’re mostly Cyclone fans in that neck of the woods, they’re entirely sympathetic and kid that we’re gonna stop coming to break the jinx. Happily, Vandenberg found his last Miraclo Pill for the fourth quarter and broke the jinx.

Syphilitic Cowboys sold well and spoke with several folks who had it already and liked it. Even sold a Numbers because I always sell at least one copy of Numbers. Carter and Will did good trade in sketches and prints.

I had an interesting conversation with a young lady in a Green Lantern costume about the history of sci-fi. I mentioned that the sci-fi novel’s origins lie in a second century work by Lucian of Samosata and I think she was surprised I knew this. I only studied under David Larmour, one of the guys in Lucian scholarship. She was this close to buying a Zoo Force: We Heart Libraries but the call went out for the group photo for all costumed attendees and alas she never made it back. But I made sure she knows she can get it at her local bookstore, through our website, or even Amazon.

The dealers saw some business, but I get the feeling that if this show wasn’t close, it wouldn’t be worth it for them. There were lots of 50% off signs early and often. The show just need a kick in the pants and I think it could really make a big leap forward. Altoona is just too remote for a lot of potential con-goers. I realize there’s venue expense and all, but it would be worth it to go to an even smaller size for a while just to get closer to the center of the city. Build the excitement and interest, then expand. This is all very easy to type, I get that.

In all, we had a nice time and will of course be back next year. For dinner, we went to the East Village and ZOMBIEBURGER! This is a hell of a place to have a burger. I had a double-tap Fulci with a Tallahassee shake. Read the menu to see what’s in those. I’m still digesting it, but it was really good. Carter had the Boomstick, which has a layer of deep-fried chili. No, I’m not kidding.

Next day we went to a lovely brunch at Carter’s Mom’s place, then went bowling at Air Lanes. After a stop at Cup O’ Kryptonite (a very cool place—while not nearly the stock of Mayhem, it is the place to talk about comics that the also-very-nice Mayhem isn’t). We stood in the parking lot of Co’K ginning up more fun bits for the SPROCKET sequel until it was time to make the trip home.

In all, it was a great time, with some excellent loot acquired (comic and non-comic). It put me off a week on the Movie Somnambulist, but I’ll be back on that pony in a day or two.