I got to the con a little ahead of time, and capitalized on my Artist’s (read as: Exhibitor’s) badge to get into the Exhibit Hall a little earlier than the General Public, and talk to some publishers, as well as track down those booths that I hadn’t been able to find in the mad press of Thursday. I met with a fair amount of success while doing this, and suddenly the gates opened, and the con was in full swing again. Friday was the only day that I had any actual gaming planned, my friends had made plans to play a round of True Dungeon, but I had even worked that into my schedule for Maximum Exposure.

My Cunning Plan for spending several hours at True Dungeon was to leave my portfolio at Wizards of the Coast, since they had instituted some new portfolio review procedures. Based on the emphasis on speedy turnaround (they either were going to call you in or not) leaving my portfolio with them to Yay or Nay during the several hours that I wouldn’t be actively using it seemed like the correct play. As my friend George put it, ‘If they’re handing out lotto tickets, you might as well take one.’

However, it turned out that there was a fairly sizable stack of portfolios ahead of mine when I handed mine off. While I don’t know how much farther they got through them in the time it was there, I ended up going back for it on Saturday, unreviewed, because being without it was preventing me from accomplishing my overall objective. I wasn’t thrilled about this snag, but it was the lesser of two evils.

On the upside, I met E. Foley of geeksdreamgirl.com en route to retrieving my portfolio, and got to ask her about her website. I had spied her from afar, and had been confused by her T-shirt, which bore the site’s mascot and the phrase ‘Are you Single’ We exchanged cards and talked about the joys of T-shirt marketing.

Anyhow, following some less-than-stellar True Dungeon capers, Melissa and I hung around for the Artist’s Reception, rubbed elbows and engaged in a bit of scrimmage for cheese.

It was good cheese, which explained the long line that formed for it.

We then caught up with our other friends, and loitered at the speakeasy, where a chance encounter with John Arcadian of Silvervine Games led to another job lead. I’d spoken with John sometime last year about doing some work on his upcoming book, but some personal issues got in the way, and we’d fallen out of touch. He was still excited about working together, so we talked about doing something in the future.

Finally, we rounded out the evening with a (very) late-night round of World of Darkness, which somehow we all managed to survive.

Armed with my matted prints, I got up, showered, shaved, put on my self-promotional tshirt and loaded my business card holder, and then I was off to the show.

Because of my mad leet Artist

nor this crowd...

nor this one, nor the mob inside the convention center.

Weaving my way through the crowds, I snagged my Artist’s Badge, and slipped into the Exhibit Hall, making my way towards the Artist’s area at the rear.

The Freedom of Movement that the Artist Badge provided also let me catch a shot of this guy.

Everything went fine… until I ran out of Velcro. The Velcro I’d bought was 15 sets of dots, 1 fluffy and 1 set of hooks, which at first glace would be enough for the 10 images I had to hang. BUT, in truth, it took 2 sets (2 hooks) to hang each piece, and ideally would have been 3, to prevent them from jutting out at the bottom. In a bit of a panic, I almost ended up fighting my way back through the eager crowd of VIGs, but was saved from having to do that by Joe Slucher and his Amazing Roll of Velcro. Joe had already hung all his work, and had plenty of Velcro to spare, for which I was I was probably not outwardly grateful enough, but seriously, he saved the day.

With my artwork hung (and since in my infinite, infinite wisdom, I forgot to take a picture of it, I guess you’ll just have to believe me), I spent a little time meeting and greeting people I knew in the Art Show, and observing those whom I didn’t.

Before... No, wait, just Before. Sorry.

I actually ended up spending a lot of time explaining that I only had panels in the Show, not a table, as many of the people who heard I was showing in the Art Show assumed the best of me. I was flattered that everyone thought enough of me to believe that I’d have had a table, but, things were what they were, so I splained like Ricky was about to go Babaloo upside my head. And as it was, without the table, I was free to wander the floor with my partner in Gen Con-related crime, Melissa Dowell.

Over the last few months, we had come up with A Plan of sorts, and while I waited for her flight to come in, I scouted the Hall, and figured out where our targets were, and showed my portfolio to some other people who for one reason or another (mostly lack of time for researching fully) had not made it onto our list in the process. Every so often, I stopped back at my display and refilled the business card holders. Each time that I returned, there was a fair amount of people looking at my work and smiling, or in one or two cases chuckling, so that boosted my spirits.

Without giving the complete play-by-play (which I don’t think I’m capable of doing anyway), Thursday passed in a blur of walking into booths, asking politely about freelancing with various companies, showing my portfolio, introducing myself and Melissa to people, and handing out cards. Other events of note include walking into the Wattsalpoag Games booth and sitting down to a rousing (and decisive) round of Claim It! with Mike Raabe, the Art Director there, and meeting the dancers of the Different Drummer Belly Dancing troupe, and being reassured that belly dancing guys were, in fact, sexy. I was intrigued, but the timing just didn’t work out over the course of the weekend.

Finally, the day came to a close and the adrenaline wore off. After a bite at the Steak n’ Shake near the convention center, we caught up with some friends, hung out at the speakeasy at Union Station for a while, then called it a night.

The best four days in blog posts.

For those of you either too young or too old to remember Pokemon, its central human protagonist, Ash Ketchum, leaves his comfortable home to embark on a mystical journey filled with friendly monsters, intense training, and lots of overland travel, all leading to his ultimate goal- becoming a Pokemon Master, a worthy career choice if there ever was one in that particular universe.

When you caught the original 150, you got a really sweet dental package.

In the anime, Viridian City is Ash’s first stop on his journey, hence the title of this post. My journey to Gen Con was similar, except I don’t have any Pokeballs, and I’m not trying to get anyone to learn special attacks. Okay, so it’s not the best of metaphors, (I originally came up with it while half-asleep en route to the airport, and it sort of stuck in my head,) but I made a long (albeit significantly less perilous) journey in the interests of advancing my career, which up until this point has also featured imaginary monsters, too.

“I’m on the road to Viridian City
Meet my friends along the way (I’m on the road!)
I’m on the road to Viridian City
I got a badge and the power to play“
-From “The Road to Viridian City,” a track on “2BA Master”

Leg 1: Subway to Grand Central Station
Aside from a crowded 4 train platform, there was little to report. It was typical New York City rush hour subway congestion. I left on time, and arrived at Grand Central Station with time to spare.

Leg 2: Metro-North to White Plains
I picked up a lemon poppy seed muffin at Junior’s, and ate it on the train. The train went express, so there was not much opportunity to take photos of the scenery as it raced past. The train out to White Plains was surprisingly crowded for a 9AM-ish train out of Manhattan, but nowhere near the density of the subway. There was little to do but sit and start typing this, but before I knew it, I was at White Plains.

Leg 3: Bus from Metro-North Station to Airport
While waiting for the bus, I ended up meting a man named Cyrus, who told me about how he is working to establish a chapter of Water Keepers in his locale of South Carolina. We talked about the trials and tribulations of building a non-profit presence, the horrors of over-development, and the evils of Large Corporations while we rode the bus, then went our separate ways upon reaching the airport.

Leg 4: White Plains to Detroit
After paying $1.50 for a candy bar, (and refusing to pay $9 for a sandwich) I got on the plane. There was a little delay with the takeoff, then a fair amount of turbulence from heavy cloud cover that the pilots skillfully navigated through and above, but I managed to doze off while reading my way through Digital Character Design and Painting, by Don Seegmiller.

To my credit, I managed to wake up just in time for juice and peanuts, as well as catching the eye of the fellow next to me, one John Velonis, who asked if I were an artist, and conversation ensued. He told me of the games that he had designed (like “Venus Needs Men!” which sounds like a fun time) and was in the process of designing, and I told him of the work that I’d done. Noticing his “Gamer For Life” shirt, explained that I was going to the con to meet and greet publishers and so on, and that I had a space in the Art Show. We talked of the games that we played, and he mentioned that he would be helping out at the Z-Man Games booth, and I said that I would stop by and demo with him. I did go looking for him, but we were apparently not meant to demo, as I kept missing him.

Leg 5: Detroit to Indianapolis:
While walking up to John to explain that my flight was “the later flight to Indiana,” I found myself introduced to Rone Barton of Atomic Array, RPG Countdown, and Open Design Podcast, along with another fellow whose name I can’t remember for the life of me, but he was an adventure writer. We talked for awhile, and as fate would have it, he was in the process of collecting artists for representation. I gave him my card. The four of us talked for awhile until it was time for them to board, and then I busied myself with finding my plane’s gate.

En route to the gate, I stopped in at the Online Cafe, and bought an imposing plate of nachos, along with some wireless access to while away the layover.

Nachos: $10, Internet: $7. Not a bad deal.

I also fielded some calls, most notably some mildly frantic calls from Jason Thompson of King of RPGs fame. Nothing major, but there was a definite sense of urgency.

Long story short: Through seven degrees of separation, I ended up being his go-to guy for postcard distribution at Gen Con. The only problem was that our mutual 7th-degree friend contacted me while I was about 20,000 feet in the air, and unable to receive calls, much less packages. Between the time difference and the last-minuteness of it all, it was pretty tight.

After this initial confusion was cleared up, Jason and I got things straightened out, and he rush-ordered a stack of postcards to the address I was staying at to arrive on Friday, so I could put them out on Saturday.

I hung around the airport until it was time to board, and arrived in Indy without further incident. My host picked me up without a hitch, and we went to the local art and craft stores in search of mats, so I could hang my artwork in the Art Show.

Despite the density of stores, there was little selection- or inventory of what I needed. It took trips to three separate stores to acquire a total of ten mats, and they didn’t even all match because they were different brands. The colors were close enough, so I did not complain. I picked up some Velcro dots as well, and we went home. We had a light dinner, and I spent the night listening to Three Days Grace and gluing my prints to mats, with a fair amount of success. Finally, I toddled off to bed.

So without further ado, I present to you my photoblog of Sunday at the New York Comic-Con 2009.

Sunday was a bright and, well, sunny day, a well as being Kids’ Day. As I walked to the convention, there were children being hoisted on shoulders and being told all sorts of fanciful half-truths to conceal the fact that they were being led to the con, most likely to surprise them.

Getting there is half the Fun.

The place was jumping when I arrived in the early afternoon, and the crowds were eagerly taking it all in. Faker stirred up a fair amount of surprised reactions,  and the crowd continually surged around him as they went into the Dealer’s Area or paused to take photos with him. Somewhere on Eternia, Adam is sharpening his magic sword.

Faker stands tall over his admirers.

I don’t know what this guy was, but people seemed to be very into him. More so when his head stopped bobbling and he wandered around the con.

Sits right on the dashboard- if you're Galactus, maybe.

Kids love an armored space guy. But perhaps the craziest thing that happened that day was when that black guy in the left corner…

They really do love Space guys. I'm telling you.

turned into a Stormtrooper! I quickly fled the scene before the Force turned me into an Ewok or something.

Magical Transformation into a Stormtrooper... The Force was not quite as strong in that one.

After hiding out in a panel or two, I figured it was safe to walk the floor a bit more. That was where I was wrong. As I made my way around, some wild Pokemon appeared. I managed to get away safely, but it was a close one, let me tell you.

Charizard and Venasaur were up to no good. Me and my Tentacruel were having none of that.

While I tried to be discreet with taking pictures of the Desktop Heroes booth…

Crikey! Look at that booth!

I was quickly spotted, and any hope of capturing these gentle creatures in their natural habitat was shattered. I stowed my camera and fled before I did any more damage to their fragile convention ecosystem.

It was like when that plane flew over that undiscovered tribe, and the warriors started throwing spears at it.

There was so much awesome going on with this group that they made my camera go blurry.

I figure that they're vampires or something when they're not cosplaying.

I’m serious. These were the best two out of a large handful of pictures that I shot of them during the day.

Maybe half-vampires. Or possibly reverse vampires, considering that it was the middle of the afternoon.

While walking down a lonely stretch of carpet towards the back of the convention, I found CC the Banana. He was in good spirits, (as you can see across his peel,) and posed for me.

He's got fan appeal.

While I’m not excited about the upcoming GI Joe movie, I was excited about this guy’s costume. It was sweet. I wish that my camera was better so I could have shown you all the details. Funny thing was that he was pretty short, almost like a Mini-Cobra Commander.

Evil. Now in bite-size!

I don’t think that I’ve ever seen anyone dress up as a Disney Princess at a convention, and Belle as a commoner is probably the last one I would expect (with the first being Princess Jasmine, and the second probably being Ariel, and Aurora from Sleeping Beauty as a close third), so there was something there that wasn’t there before, as far as this reporter’s concerned, anyhow.

Want something more than this provincial life? Visit the NY Comic-Con!

Finally, the magic ended, and the convention offically closed. Faker was still vigilant, but only seemed concerned with people who might be trying to sneak into the con, so I snapped a few pictures of him as I walked out. If this one hadn’t been so blurry (lousy QuickCam Traveler…) It’d actually be a really good shot.

I probably used up all of my Artistic Photography powers with this one.

Finally, there was nothing left to do but join the masses leaving the convention, and walk back to 6th Avenue to take the train back to Brooklyn, and await the Comic-Con’s return in October.

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

I was overwhelmed, but not by this. Well, maybe a little.

I arrived at the convention a little later than I had wanted to, but made my way through the frigid New York February air to trek to the Javits Center for my day’s destination- the New York Comic-Con. Armed with the ‘Professional Creator’ ‘badge that I”d picked up on Wednesday, I waltzed past the gathering throng (as well as the ‘Faker ‘statue out front), and was promptly overwhelmed.

A distinct shortage of information had prevented me from creating a proper itinerary- there were a large number of booths and organizations that I had no idea who or what they were. In addition to that, a failure of the ‘I-Con’ setup caused the program to lose not only my bookmarked exhibitors, but my registration as well, so I was unable to print it before I left. So it goes without saying that when the entire convention sprawled out in front of me, I was somewhat without a proper sense of orientation. Nevertheless, I was determined to make the best of the time that I had before the general public was admitted to the convention.

Picking a direction at random, I wandered to Quirk Books, asked about their art submission guidelines, and was referred to their lead designer, who wasn’t there on Friday. Shortly afterward, I found myself at Stone Arch Books‘ booth, having my portfolio reviewed. It went well, I believe. At this point I found that my camera wasn’t working properly, and as Fate would have it, it would’t be working right until Sunday.

Following that, I picked up a copy of Complete Warrior (a Dungeons & Dragons supplement that I’d been meaning to get my hands on for awhile,) from a retailer whose card I forgot to get. My next stop was a friend of mine, a sword seller (never thought I’d be able to say that) named Xavier, who we had met at Wizard World Philly awhile back. He and his team were still setting up, so I left them to their work, and stumbled over Jesse and Matt (Matt? I think it was Matt) of Desktop Heroes.

Pictured (L-R): I don't know who the girl is, Jesse, and I believe that is Mike. I may never have seen Matt.

Desktop Heroes is a series of short films that the two of them write and direct. We talked shop, as I was interested in what they were doing, and they seemed interested in what we do here. They promised me robots and laughter, so I joined their mailing list. I’ve since watched two episodes and saw no robots, nor did I laugh. I feel kind of hollow inside.

A few minutes and several random encounters later, I was having a longish conversation with Jorge Medina of Mas Media Studios, LLC. I was thinking of going back and buying their ‘Street Journal‘ comic; it looks like a promising comic, but I never made it.  Ambling along, I had another longish conversation with Eric M. Cooper about his novel, Knight Seeker, along with some artists that he was hanging out with. The Knight Seeker book seems like an appealing concept, and his money-back guarantee was very tempting, but I was not sure if I wanted to drop $15 for a paperback novel on the first day of the convention. Unfortunately, the location that Eric was in was off in a corner, so I never saw him again.

Then I made a brief stopover at the Entophilezzz! booth. While I’m a fan of insects, and their designs are pretty slick, their merchandise was girl-sized t-shirts, or straight-up girly underwear, so it didn’t really work for me. I’ll check back and see if their webcomic ever gets underway.

A drift through Artist’s Alley found me discussing the business of art with Randy Gallegos, and Jason T. Kruse, creator of ‘The World of Quest‘, each separately. I will probably get a copy of Quest down the road; it looks like a fun read. By this point, I had missed the seminar I’d planned to attend, so I kept on seeing what I could see before the doors were flung wide.

I hung around the Penny Arcade table to get some UFS cards signed for my friend and Minion, Omar, and then ogled Susan Heidi’s pin-up art after being handed a flyer. I then stumbled over Rampart Press, and discussed the merits of print vs. online business models with Justin Murphy, as well as the extensive research that went into making the graphic novel Cleburne. I didn’t get it that weekend, but it’s on a list of things I’d like to have.

My feet led me past the Manga Entertainment booth, where I watched the trailer for ”Cyclops’,’ (or at least I thought it was Manga Entertainment. A search of their site that has exposed me to more Equifax ads than I really care to recieve has turned up nothing. Synopsis: A cyclops gets captured, then proceeds to tear stuff up in Rome.) then talked with HC Noel’s wife about ‘Mr. Scootles‘ after she gave me a flyer. I even read a few pages. The concept is really, really interesting, possibly moreso to me because it’s similar in theme to Cottonfluff Hollow. However, neither the writing nor the art grabbed me from the bit that I read, so I let it go and wandered on.

After I stood staring at Rio Dayne’s opulently decorated booth- it looked like a lounge, complete with Perrier bar and leather seats along with life-size cutouts of the characters from her upcoming comic, Oracle of Seven, Rio welcomed me in.

I am Kane. I can help you organize your convention space.

She told me the basic plotline, which seems like an nice premise with a lot of good intentions behind it, but the information was hard to get to, because, well, she was hard to get to, seated in a fancy chair behind the cutouts, who were at the perimeter of the space, almost like bouncers. I suggested how she could make her booth (and herself) a little more accessible, and went on my way, like Kane from Kung Fu. I never made it back there, so I didn’t find out if it worked or not.

Another tour of the Artist’s Alley led me to two old friends, Keith Williams and Steven Belledin. We caught up and talked shop. Then I met Carolyn Blefeski, her partner whose name I don’t remember and may never have known, and her comic ‘Curls’. I picked up a book from Carolyn, because it was a dollar, and it made me laugh.

One of David Foox‘ minions gave me a card, and I strolled past Angry Drunk comics and met Jason Yungbluth, (which I was kind of excited about) and found that Weapon Brown had a new 2-part series coming out. I bought Part 1 of Blockhead’s War, which he signed. By this point, people were coming into the Dealer’s space in droves, I had been on my feet for about 6 hours without stopping, and I was about to miss another seminar. I also had no idea where the seminar was, so I did miss it, and decided to have lunch. One overpriced (but decent) chicken sandwich and black tea later, I was ready to rejoin the convention crowd.I even read Blockhead’s War while I had lunch, but more on that in another post.

25 years, but not that much to say, really.

I made my way to the 25 Years of TMNT panel, which was largely uninteresting, because despite being a fan of the Turtles since I was about nine, I’ve read maybe 3 issues of the comics. Mostly because neither I, nor anyone I know really ever saw them in stores. And I live in New York.

But, I digress. The point is that as neither Eastman nor Laird were in attendance, (one of the presenters even commented that it was funny how “the millionaires don’t have to show up to conventions,”) I spent an hour listening to four people I’d never heard of (however important to the cause of the TMNT they might have been) talking about how great it was working on the comic, all the while hoping that the presentation might suddenly get better. It never did. Once the panel was over, I had another engagement, so I left the convention for that day.

I wasn’t able to attend the convention on Saturday due to real-life obligations, (I really wanted to go to a few things on Saturday, but I just couldn’t get away) so I went on Sunday, which was Kids’ Day, as well as bright and warm, compared to the gray Friday Morning that this convention adventure began on. I also had my camera working, so I took the photos that litter this posting then.

I caught the very end of  ‘Resources for Creators’, then slipped into the second half of ‘NYCC Classes: Comic Strips’, featuring Chris Eliopoulos, Chris Giarusso, Danielle Corsetto, Brad Guigar, and Tom Wilson (the Second, as it turns out. I was under the impression that this was the first Tom Wilson, and had found myself struck by how youthful he was.) I didn’t really come away with any breakthroughs, but I did want to thumb through Mr. Guigar’s book on webcomics later. Naturally, I never made my way back to his table to do that.

That guy, not that guy.

I stuck around for ‘NYCC Classes: Comics for Kids’, and spent an hour learning that there is no real method for writing for children’s media (but it’s great), and listening to the panelists make inside jokes amongst themselves. After that, there was time for another trip around the Dealer’s Room floor, where I ran into a friend I knew from real life, and we wandered the con together. I took a handfulof photos, some of which are in this posting; the rest will go up next week.

Joss Whedon spotted...! Maybe.

We did some celebrity-spotting as we went, in addition to the autograph-signing crowd (and the small herd of babies on the other side of the autograph tables that day), Joss Whedon was apparently out and about, posing with people and being real good about it. I didn’t recognize him, as I never knew what he looked like’¦ And’¦ I pretty much still don’t. But my friend JR knew who he was, got this photo, and was kind enough to point out which of the indistinct blobs was actually Mr. Whedon.

However, the real celebrity highlight of the day was finding CC the Banana, and have the photo to prove it. I only got to talk to him briefly before he was called away by his adoring fans, but it was good to see him nevertheless.

Despite grevious wounds, CC still puts on a brave face for this reporter.

The rest of the day found me cruising the aisles and I bought two comics: Silver Surfer #1 and #8. Total cost $6.50. Not bad. I’d never owned #1, but #8 was the first comic I can remember owning as a child, and naturally, I wore it out, as I took it all over the place without a care for it.

Then finally, the lights went down and it was time to go. The dealers began closing up (and still taking last-minute purchases) while volunteers yelled at us to leave. We made our way through the place one last time and bid the convention adieu until it returns in October of 2010.