Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Terrible, Burning Sun (aka Spokane ComiCon 2011)

Well, we went down (Over? Possibly under?) to Spokane last weekend for the 2011 Spokane ComiCon. A great time was had by all and much in the way of tomfoolery was made. There were also fajitas, but I digress.

The con went along swimmingly. It’s starting to get sizeable and there was always a crowd of some sort. There were also a lot more costumes this year, of which I got some pictures (head on over to the Wayfarer’s Moon Facebook page to check them out).
There was one disturbing incident, though, which I feel I must detail for you all.

At around 3:30, the fire alarm went off. All the attendees quickly shuffled out of the building, leaving all us exhibitors sitting there looking at one another. Those of us with large, more complicated tables wondered how we were supposed to get everything out quickly while others simply swept their wares into bags and boxes.

The following is an actual excerpt from the conversation that ensued between tables:

“Are we supposed to leave?”

“I dunno. What about our stuff?”

“I think we should just leave it.”

“Well, I’m not gonna leave if no one says to.”

This just goes to show that we are not perhaps the brightest bunch on the planet. Presently, the organizers came by and confirmed that yes, we had to leave. I grabbed our cash box, Leigh grabbed the bag of 3 Musketeers and outside we went.

Into the harsh, terrible, burning sun. Seriously, it was hot and sunny outside. We were not prepared for this. We tried to cluster near the shade of the building, but were quickly told that we had to move away. This meant that we HAD to stand in the sun, as the only shade was dozens, if not scores, of yards away. Far, far too far for any of us to walk.

So we stood in the sun for about thirty minutes, as the firefighters checked out the building and presumably snorted into their face masks when they saw the three rooms full of comics. Then after giving us the all clear, they went off and did really manly things like wrestling bears or bludgeoning Vikings with clubs made out of dinosaur bones.

Anyway, we all made it back inside safely and with, perhaps for the first time in many years, our daily allotment of Vitamin D.

NOTE: I think the whole thing was a plot by our mothers to actually get us outside.

So, despite the near death encounter with the sun, the con continued and then we went out and had fajitas.

Many of the usual comics crew were in attendance, including:

Jason Metcalf, artist extraordinaire

Jason Martin of Super Real Graphics

Eric Trautmann, a writer of many comics and all around nice guy

Brandon Jerwa, who I met for the first time and who is also a nice guy and writer

Mark Rahner from Rotten

Cari from Toilet Genie, who once again scored a primo booth spot (not that I’m bitter)

Randy Kintz, another great artist

Chuck, Shawn, & Travis from Creator’s Edge Press

To wrap up: good con, bad sun, excellent fajitas.

Cheers,
-Jason

4 comments:

Buzzcook said...

Your mom says that sun light will help with that seasonal depression disorder too.

Insectoid said...

If what you say is true, then I'm sure that bag of 3 Musketeers was not-quite-solid when you got back inside... ;)

I'm totally jealous that you're going to SDCC. I would totally buy a 1-day badge, take public transportation down there, and stand in that horrible long line at 9 in the morning, just to come visit you guys. (I know these things because I went last year.)

Jason Janicki said...

I don't have seasonal depression disorder, I'm just a grouch :)

Well, Insectoid, we were there last year as well, so you must have missed us :) And the 3 Musketeers were consumed well before we got back inside (to replace the calories burned going outside) ;)

Insectoid said...

@Jason: I admit it—I did. Even by last fall I was kicking myself for not spending more than 5 minutes in the Small Press section. By now my list of favorite WC's has grown to well over a dozen, from whatever it was in July (maybe half a dozen), so I'm more likely to see familiar artists at a Con if I were to go now. Perhaps I'll go next year; we'll see.