I arrived at the media guest area shortly after the con opened for the day, but there were hundreds of people already in line for almost every guest. By my estimates, I would have had to arrived and gotten a place in line at least an hour sooner to have a reasonable chance of getting the autographs before my scheduled panels for the day. This was a total fail, and I hope I'll be better prepared the next time.
I have a feeling that there were a great deal more people this year than last. Sure, there were crowds last year, but it just seems as though there was a noticeable difference in attendance. There were times where I thought it would be better if the venue were bigger than the Washing Convention Center, which is fairly large.
As for the accomplishments for the day, I was able to visit Brian Pulido for another round of autographs and another Lady Death ECCC exclusive cover (see below). Brian is a nice guy and I enjoyed talking with him. I will be making a separate post regarding my experiences with him this weekend. I also visited Tyler Walpole, who did some of the cover artwork for the recent Dungeons & Dragons series put out by IDW. If you're a fan of D&D, I suggest checking the new title out. The writing is great, and the writer has several credits to his name that I enjoy... first and foremost is that he's the creator of the animated series Jackie Chan Adventures.
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| I just got the issue, not the print. |
When I went to go visit Greg Capullo, it was an interesting experience. There was a long line, with a minion at the end. I made a couple of passes to see if the line would die down, with no luck. I came back after about 10 minutes and decided to take my chances. I asked her if I could get in line, and she said yes. Safely in line to visit Capullo, I readied my books for signing as one of the other artists in the area came to the minion and complained that the line was interfering with his traffic and requested that the line be formed in a different direction later. It was agreed that I would be the end of this line, especially since Capullo had a panel at 12:00pm and it was getting closer to that time.
As I drew closer to Capullo, there was a great deal of discussion with the minions about when to cut the line for him so he could get to his panel on time. During that discussion, a guy came up to my left, with Batman books in hand, and stood there until he was able to weasel his way into the line behind me. The only real saving grace is that they did actually open it up to a few others shortly after that jerk got in behind me.
When I finally reached Capullo, he was as nice as I remembered him from about 16 years ago in Seattle. Back then, he and Todd McFarlane were promotion the new Span HBO cartoon series. At a lull in the show, when everyone else was occupied by McFarlane previewing the cartoon, I visited Capullo and not only got him to autograph several of my books, but he also did a sketch of Angela for me for free. I still have that sketch and may scan and post it at a later date.
Even thought I didn't find anything on my comic book wishlist, I did find several good buys on graphic novels. There was one booth that was selling them at 70% of their retail price. I got 3 books for less than the price of any one of them. There's a part of me that wants to go back Sunday and find more there... that part of me is not my aching back that is reminding me that I may be too old and to worn-out to do these conventions. We'll see.
Because of poor timing on my part, I didn't make it to as many panels as I wanted to go to. I was able to make it to 3: Talkin' Dead with Jon Bernthal & Laurie Holden, ECCC Spotlight Series: Brian Pulido - 20 Years of Lady Death and Zombie Orpheus Entertainment's Webseries Premierathon!
I was disappointed in the Talkin' Dead panel as I waited over 45 minutes to get in, the panel started 15 minutes late, there wasn't much in the way of "good" content and the panel ended on time... meaning that we were shorted 15 minutes. This was a panel that I was seriously looking forward to, and it failed. I really wished I had made it to the Robert Kirkman Q&A on Friday to get the information I was hoping to find. Oh well. I guess I'll have to rely on the internet for that kind of information.
Through all the setbacks, I did enjoy myself this year. They already have dates for next year: March 1-3. At this point, they would need to bring in some seriously great guests to bring me back. I feel that my body isn't up to the task, and I take full responsibility for that. I think I will resolve myself to getting into better shape this year and I might have a better outlook on going next year.
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