best place to eat

Burgers

Dying of hunger* with no idea where to go in San Diego and skeptical of our ability to even get there, this is how we found Just Burgers. Had we not gotten to the hotel when we did, we may never have begun our love affair with the best veggie burgers in America. I even left the pickles on. Wednesday night marked the beginning of our hotel ritual – Just Burgers and GSN.
*nobody died, but it got close.

After getting settled in a bit, we decided to go check out Preview Night. It was too late though. We got our first taste of the insanity while still safely on the bus with the really nice driver. The waves of people heading home (we had just missed it) were intimidating to say the least. We were not really sure how we felt about San Diego at this point (everything was expensive and it smelled like “fried vomit”* almost everywhere we went). I was kind of sad that we didn’t get to get in earlier, but I’m good at getting over stuff like that quickly.
*Emily said that.

Andy comes to visit as we get to the comics

Thursday meant that Psycho/Puppy Andy from Arizona (friends and loved ones should remember this agreeable fellow from our 5 minute wedding) and Dead Irish Duck/Chris from the Boards were driving up to hang out with us at the Con. They didn’t have tickets, but when we finally met up with them they had managed to find a scalper. They only got one badge which they shared, so they took turns being Dave Relf for the show. They had come hungry and, like us, more or less unwilling to pay $10 for eggs so our first job was to find breakfast. Thanks to my inability to understand any of the San Diego maps at the time*, we ended up eating at a cute little deli where we caught up and heard funny con stories. One included Jim Lee encouraging a guy to grow a pair (like Batman!) and start talking to some ladies.
*This was before we found out Chris was an Army trained human GPS.

Cafe de L'Opera

Things start to blur here as we entered the Convention Center for the first time. I had a general idea where the indie booths were, but there was so much. We had a clear enough mission at first to keep us from getting lost in the masses – our buddy Anthony needed some Ghostbusters toys, whatever we could get our hands on. We were only halfway successful because of what is my biggest complaint about the Con. When we got to the Mattel line, we were informed that it was full, and that the only way we would be able to get Anthony’s figures would be if we were lucky enough to get a Sunday ticket for the line (meaning, if we were so fortunate, we would be able to wait in line on Sunday – keep in mind this is Thursday, the first morning). Andy found out later that the Hasbro line was the same way. Bullshit. We got a picture of the Ghostbuster booth babes and bought Anthony some exclusive Minimates, so here’s hoping that is sufficient.

Andy and Chris (aka Dave Relf) hangin outside the Convention Center

People I met and book I bought

Right away I went to the Buenaventura booth and bought just about everything they had from Kevin Huizenga (I also picked up Ganges #1 from Fantagraphics, though I think I missed Or Else #4 over at Drawn & Quarterly. Damn). There’s no point in trying to be coy about it, I love his work. He is my favorite cartoonist and reading through what I got, the best of which were Rumbling #2 and Fight Or Run: Shadow of the Chopper, I can’t help but feel he is the best cartoonist working today. In my opinion at least. I just really get it. I dig it, know what I’m saying? Amazing stuff. Can’t wait for Ganges #3.

Thursday was the day I had decided I would buy things (for myself) and I generally kept true to that. I also met Jeffrey Brown at the Top Shelf Productions booth and Leigh Walton, who I had always thought was a girl before then. Leigh very smoothly deposited a little preview booklet designed to tide people over till Eddie Campbell‘s Alec: The Years Have Pants comes out in the fall. I saw Chris Staros there at the booth too, but he was otherwise engaged. Jeffrey Brown was the first professional I gave my card to and I was shaking afterward. I bought a copy of his Incredible Change Bots and he drew a sweet robot (Big Rig) on the title page.

I met Gina Gagliano at the First Second booth who was very nice and gave me a copy Campbell’s The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard (a beautiful beautiful book. I wonder how they make it feel so light?). I met Matt Furie at Buenaventura and I saw Johnny Ryan sitting next to him but didn’t have much to say.

(BREAK – Here and Now: Ursa just did a perfect roll-over for a bone. Amazing.)

I felt I had spent enough money at this point, but Emily encouraged me to not worry about it and live in the moment so I dropped 30 bucks on Dash Shaw‘s Bottomless Bellybutton at Fantagraphics. In my fancy shopping bag I also found a back issue of The Comics Journal, and an issue of Love and Rockets: New Stories. They had the best free stuff.

All I needed now was to get Rasl #5 so we headed over to Jeff Smith‘s booth where we found Terry Moore, author of Strangers in Paradise who told funny jokes neither of us got until later, and we got him to sign an exclusive poster for Andy. Andy is a big SiP fan and was riding around on the pink bus while Chris was Dave somewhere inside the Convention Center.

We got some more presents for people, including some Final Fantasy stuff and Mike Mignola‘s autograph (Emily met him and says he was very nice). I want to say that’s all I remember from Thursday, but then I recall how long the days were. We also ate lunch at a really cheap but cute Mexican place near where we ate breakfast, we walked around the Gaslamp District where Andy enthusiastically greeted the hostesses in front of the bars. We had parfaits at a little shop that was selling very cute things.

pinkies out

We were wearing down towards the end, but we got to meet Andy’s cousin Alex (Grimm, also from the Boards). Andy and he went out for the night while Chris won a contest to go party with Megan Fox and other celebrities, but Emily and I just went back to the hotel and ate glorious veggie burgers.

GasLamp District

What I didn’t do on Thursday

The very rare new Neon Genesis Evangelion remake movie, 01: You Are (Not) Alone was having a screening at the Con, but I didn’t see it.

The Dumbrella collective was giving a panel right after that on something but I didn’t go to that either. I never did get to find the Dumbrella booth, but I don’t think Jeffrey Rowland was there, so whatevs.

Heidi MacDonald aka The Beat, the comics news and culture blog I read every damn day was going to be participating in a panel on Indie Marketing in comics. I really wanted to go to this and meet her, but we were doing other things at the time:

free hugs

• You can see more pictures on my newly revived Flickr page!