August 5, 2005

Whew, back at last. San Diego was crazy as expected. It was bizarre, surreal and fun, with a lot of hard work sprinkled in between. So without further ado, I present to you: the photographic adventures of Kean and Comic-Con 2005!

I had planned to fly into Los Angeles on Tuesday, a day before preview night began, so that I could meet up with Kazu Kibuishi and hitch a ride down with him to San Diego. However, I got a call Monday night (well, it was more like right at midnight when I was getting into bed), and it’s Kazu telling me that he was leaving early in the morning on the Tuesday with Ben Zhu, owner of Nucleus to help set up the Flight and Nucleus booths, and would it be okay if I could find my own way down to San Diego?

Well, that didn’t leave me much say in the matter, but I was looking forward to it! It would be my own little sweaty adventure through the Los Angeles public transportation system! Carrying two pieces of luggage and a box full of comics! At any rate, I got on my flight Tuesday afternoon to what would turn out to be an extraordinarily long day.

Tuesday

We flew over deserts and mountains.

When we touched down at LAX, my first order of business was to hop on a bus to Union Station, where I would then take an Amtrak train down the coast to San Diego. I got on a bus with a fellow traveller from Ireland who, as the bus driver put it, “was too pretty to be taking the bus.” And then we hit rush hour traffic. In Los Angeles. An hour and a half later, we finally pulled into Union Station. It turned out I had just missed one of the trains down to San Diego, and I would have to wait for another hour and a half for the next one. I entertained myself by eating an overpriced bagel, and taking a few photos.

The station had a pretty ceiling.

A sunset and a two-and-a-half hour train ride later, I arrived in San Diego. I had forgotten how cool the city was compared to Los Angeles, so much so that I had neglected to pack anything warmer than t-shirts and the one long-sleeved shirt that I ended up using for almost the entire week I was down there. I met Ben (for the very first time) and Kazu at the train station, and we were off to Alfred’s place (who was once again a saint to let us stay at his house) to crash. All told, I spent about 12 hours in transit that day.

Wednesday

Aaah, preview night. Even though Kazu and Ben had come down a day early to set up, there was still a lot to get done before the doors opened in the evening. Setup of the Nucleus and Flight booths took all day, although we had time to head out for lunch at a nice fish & chips place right by the convention centre with our favourite two Canadians, Chris Butcher and Peter Birkemoe of the Beguiling.

We finally managed to get our booth set up just as the doors were opening for preview night. This was more a “Friends of Flight” affair, with Flight sharing booth space with our compatriots Enrico Casarosa & Ronnie del Carmen, the Rex Steele kids (Alex Woo and Bill Presing), and animation superstar Bill Plympton. Here, Enrico and Ronnie serve one of their first customers of the day.

Then Johane Matte arrived! It was much cause for celebration. Enrico approves.

Nucleus was selling a lot of their prints, and pictured here is one of Chris Appelhans’s gorgeous pieces. But what was Nucleus really carrying in abundance…?

…Pocky! Pocky as far as the eye could see! Although it turned out there was a slight problem with that. Ben had brought too much Pocky. So at the end of the day, we loaded up 5 boxes into the back of his car, which left us absolutely no room in the back seat for any passengers…

…so Kazu ended up sitting on my lap in the front seat for the drive back to Alfred’s. I’m not even going to comment on Kazu’s expression in this photo.

Thursday

The first official day of the con, and things were off to a good start. A couple of people were already hung over from a previous night’s drinking (where’s Enrico?), but we all had our coffees, and everyone was happy. The day before, Michel Gagné was looking very tired and worried about his niece who was scheduled for surgery that day, but Michel stopped by today in the morning with the good news that her surgery went ahead without any complications, much to everyone’s relief.

Kazu and Ben to the right of the Nucleus booth.

The Dumbrella Island. Their booth layout was something to be in awe of. Every time I walked by their island booth, it was hopping with fans and customers alike.

It was a rather quiet first day, so there were a couple of people hitting up Ronnie and Enrico for commissioned art. Here, Enrico works on a watercolour of Despair, from the Sandman series. It would be the first of many Sandman commissions for Enrico throughout the con.

The afternoon rolled around, and before I knew it, it was time for the “Comics take Flight” panel. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this, as public speaking isn’t exactly a forte of mine. I joined Flight contributors Dik Pose, Justin Ridge, Michel Gagné, Rodolphe Guenoden, Kazu and Scott McCloud (who basically came right from his own panel) to talk to a packed room about the creation of Flight. The number of people was a bit of a surprise actually, since David B’s panel before ours had barely 30 people in it (to which I felt bad, because his Epileptic has definitely been the best graphic novel I’ve read this year). At any rate, it was fascinating to hear Rodolphe and Michel talk about Flight, especially since I have the utmost respect for these two masters of the craft, and as usual, Scott McCloud was a force all his own as well. I sat between Kazu and Scott on the panel, and could barely muster an intelligent word for the first half of the panel, it was all pretty intimidating for me.

Probably one of the highlights of the trip for me was meeting up with these two fine individuals, Emotion Eric (who I had met at last year’s Comic-Con) and Doug Holgate (who had made it out all the way from Australia, and who I was meeting for the first time; it was love at first sight, I’m glad to report). The rest of the day was a bit of a blur for me. I was likely delirious with lack of food (I don’t remember eating anything at all that day). Luckily, the Flight crew had been invited out to the Scholastic Party being held just down the street, where I tried to scarf down hors d’oeuvres as politely as possible without completely passing out. The alcoholic beverages helped too, I imagine. I hadn’t managed to say hello to a lot of people at the con, and it was good to see many of them again (Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, Tyler Page, Cori Doerrfeld and Marion Vitus, just to name a few), as well as saying brief hellos with several of my idols (Jeff Smith actually remembered who I was!).

We later found out that Vera Brosgol won a Friends of Lulu award for Best New Talent, which was awesome news (the Flight anthology tied with Shaenon Garrity for Lulu of The Year as well, for promoting diversity in the comics field, but no one was on hand to pick up our award, I think?)! The night ended with some New York -style pizza (I had never heard that term used before; pizza by the slice, basically) and hooking up again with Kazu at the end of the night for the drive back to Alfred’s for some precious, precious sleep.

Friday

And so began the madness. In the early mornings of the con, I tried to make my rounds to all the tables to say hello to people and try to buy a couple of comics before the con got really crazy, when I ran into Nathan Stanton. I had actually met him before in a bar at the Ottawa Animation Festival a year ago, and it turned out he was here at Comic-Con with his Pixar posse, E-Ville Press, promoting their new anthology, Afterworks. It was pretty cool to see a book put out by those guys.

By mid-morning, things had really started to pick up (I hardly had a chance to take any photos at all), and we started to see more of the con-goers in full superhero/anime/Star Wars/Lord of The Rings/Pokemon regalia, and we were feeling a little bit jealous. Why did they get to have all the fun? We were super busy all day manning the booth, sketching and signing in books, but we weren’t too busy to construct the PockyBot 2000:

The PockyBot 2000 wants only one thing…

…more Pocky!!

By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired. Jeff Rowland “relaxes” in an aisle after the con closed down for the day.

Jeff and Andrew Bell after a quick meal at the local food court. Apparently Andrew was drinking a Coke the size of his torso? At any rate, we popped over to the Westgate Hotel to meet up with the rest of the Dumbrella crew to head out for the huge Sketchbook Session being held in the bar of the nearby Marriott.

Look, it’s Sam Logan (who I did not know was based out of Victoria, BC), Sam Brown, and someone with a very smart-looking cardigan (or is that a windbreaker? I can’t tell)!

Me drinking a beer.

Me drinking my beer erotically.

Waiting for the elevator, Rich Stevens gets his Garden State on.

We arrived at the Marriott to find Phil Craven and Johane already at the Sketchbook Session, drawing away.

So without further ado, we got down to business. A round of drinks and a Tupperware box of Sharpies later, we were into thick of things.

Even Eric was drawing! He draws good tanks.

Badass Sam Brown.

Jon Rosenberg in his natural element.

Many of these photos were taken by Eric, who had somehow gotten a hold of my camera. I would later find quite a few photos of him mugging for the camera.

Rich really loves his Sharpies.

Ben sketches away merrily.

Hands down, the best drawing of the night, courtesy of Sam Brown. There was a weird theme of unicorns and ninjas in a lot of the drawings that night. And with that, we called it a day.

Saturday

The busiest day of the con, and things were insane. The aisles were packed with people to the point where you couldn’t even move. I think I only left the Flight booth once or twice for the essential potty breaks (oh, and one other time to speak with Mike Mignola), but other than that, I was too scared of the crowds to really leave the safe confines of the booth. The weekend also meant that a lot of the Flight crew based in Los Angeles that had day jobs were also able to make it down to the Con, and it was like a great big family reunion.

A bird’s eye view from behind the Flight Family booth, from left to right: Bill Plympton, Bill Presing, Alex Woo.

Ronnie del Carmen, Enrico Casarosa’s arm.

Enrico, Johane and Kazu.

We managed to reproduce the “Flight Effect” again this year by packing as many people as humanly possible in behind a booth. Standing room only, kids. From left to right: Jake Parker (who made a surprise trip to the Con!), Chris Appelhans (directly behind Jake) and his girlfriend Maurene, Amy Kim Ganter and Kazu.

Shifting the view a little to the right, we can also make out Johane in the blue t-shirt, and Khang Le standing to her left.

Really, Doug’s expression says it all.

The amazingly talented Rad Sechrist and Phil Craven.

Eric and Mandy, Rad’s wife.

Phil works on a Batman piece.

Once the con was over for the day, we all crawled out of the convention centre for some dinner. On the recommendation of one of Johane’s friends, we hit up a little Indian restaurant in the Gaslamp district called the Star of India. It was pretty damn good. Everyone was in a goofy mood after the meal…

So what happened next was kind of odd. Khang had to leave dinner early because he had to drive back to Los Angeles that same night, but about 15 minutes later we get a call from him telling us he still had Amy’s things in the back of his car, and since we were meeting up with Amy later in the evening, could he maybe swing by the restaurant and give us the things to hold on to? We said sure, and a few minutes later Khang shows up with Amy’s backpack, her lightbox, and a giant blanket. I walked back into the restaurant and sat back down at our table, trying not to pay attention to the stares (which is actually kind of a weird coincidence, since a woman had already recognized Emotion Eric and asked to take a photo with him before our dinner began).

Me and Amy’s blanket.

Me, Johane, Phil and Amy’s blanket.

I squish your head!

Even our waitress got into the act. She dazzled us all by balancing a fork and spoon on a toothpick on the edge of one of our glasses. We were all impressed.

And then Chris one-upped her by balancing a coffee cup on his hand.

Once dinner was over, we started the long walk back to the car.

It was a pretty night, though.

On the road back to Alfred’s.

Sunday

The last day of the con. We were all pretty exhausted at this point, and just dragged our sorry behinds into the freezing convention centre. For the past couple of days, they had cranked up the air conditioning to full blast in the morning, to counteract the number of people that would show up later in the day, bringing with them a lot of body heat. The lady on the PA informed us that “[we were] not allowed to huddle together for warmth.” Much of the day was spent saying goodbye to a lot of friends as they ran off to catch their flights home.

Some time during the day, we were visited by the Brazilian contingent of Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba (an amazingly talented pair of twins; I’ve loved their stuff ever since discovering their work in Dark Horse’s Autobiographix anthology), and Kako, who wowed everyone at the booth with their talent and charm. Kako’s portfolio had many people falling over themselves just to get a glimpse of it.

All during the day, we had a running feud with The Those Guys, who were right across the aisle from us. Rubber bands and even a couple of baby tomatoes were shot across the aisle between our two booths. It was all in the family though, as Justin Ridge and Dik Pose were the chief culprits, with Israel Sanchez (who had one of the best-looking sketchbooks for sale at the con) and Matt Spangler the unwitting accomplices.

Although The Those Guys had their very own man in a chicken suit, which was way cooler than anything we could ever manage. Here, Dik and the chicken get it on.

Chris and Maurene made a food run to a burrito joint (I totally forgot the name now) about 45 minutes north of San Diego to bring us back the best burritos ever. This photo doesn’t do it any justice (especially after I had scarfed down half of it), but those are french fries in there. Sooooo good.

As the day started to wind down, we all started missing Khang, so we constructed our own Khangbot. Even better than the original!

And at the end of the day, cleanup began. More sweatiness, more lifting of heavy boxes, and Doug gets a phone call from his ladyfriend Jen from Australia (who apparently thought I had a deeper voice than she was expecting?).

Poor Pikachu gets deflated.

Saying goodbye to the Dumbrella crew one last time.

One last photo of the remaining Flight crew. What a great bunch of kids.

We had our last dinner in San Diego at the picturesque Pier Cafe, and then that was it!

I just wanted to thank everyone who made this year’s con what it was, especially to Alfred and his wife Claudia for being such gracious hosts (did I mention how cool their coffee table is?). I also wanted to apologize to everyone that I didn’t mention here (and there sure were a lot of you this year, it was great meeting people like Chad Townsend, Reagan Lodge and Lark Pien for the very first time, and seeing familiar faces like Debbie Huey, Ed Brisson and Doug TenNapel again). And thanks again to everyone who came by to pick up a copy of Flight, we really appreciate it!

Coming soon: part two of my Californian excursion… the houseguest that would never leave!

Other San Diego Comic-Con photo essays:
Debbie’s report
Johane’s report
Raina’s report
Doug’s report
Michel’s report
Enrico’s report