Chicago! Land of useable mass transit, fried food, and god-sized buckets of potable water. Chicago’s just a wee bit different from our home, the car-loving-tofu-munching-drought-ridden SoCal. But that’s why I love traveling to conventions. I fall in love with every unique place I visit, and get a new appreciation for my home base at the same time.
Another reason I love conventions is because of the new people I get to meet and the old friends I get to hang with. At Wizard World Chicago, I got to see my friend Randy Yarger for the first time since last year’s Comic-Con. He’s the creator of the Strange Matter Universe and writer of Sangrael.
He can also play guitar and sing the back-up vocals (en español) on Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash. Oh yeah, that’s my friend. M-I-N-E. Go get your own kewl friend. With Randy’s girlfriend Ann we formed a full frontal quad geek force of extraordinary magnitude.
It was because we were going for the full house of nerds (coupled with a perverse desire to experiment) that we got a small press booth, as opposed to our usual artist alley/small press table. This was a great decision comfort wise. It was not the best business decision, unfortunately. Our booth was in a convention dead zone. There were tubleweeds tumblin’ down our row while the rest of the convention floor was wall-to-wall geeks.
This was the first convention where we haven’t been able to cover the price of our exhibit space. We didn’t expect to, but we had hoped to cover at least half of the cost. We’re so moving back to our artist alley/small press hood. But it was cool to at least check out life in a booth. It was like staying in a rich friend’s mansion for a few days instead your own cozy apartment.
But plenty of good stuff happened at WW Chicago to keep us smiling despite the economic bummerage. James and I got to see the men behind the printers at Ka-Blam They had a page from Project ElOhIm in their print sampler, which I thought was a great honor for my main artist man Zeu.
We also saw Brett from Boomtown Comics, whom we first met at WW Chicago two years ago. He inspired me to get over my fear of calling myself an artist and start selling prints. I’m hoping to get some ready for San Diego Comic-Con. But wait, am I an artist or cartoonist? Something new to fret about . . .
Another welcome and familiar face was that of The Defuser, Jarrett Crippen, the winner of the second season of the Who Wants to be a SuperHero? on the SciFi channel. We went over to his table to see if he remembered helping us haul our trunks up the stairs in Seattle, and he did! We got to meet his awesome wife Norma. Fellow geek chicks shout out, holla! Jarrett and Norma gave James and I Defuser T-Shirts, and I drew him a sketch of a Little Defuser taking down a Little Burglar, which he seemed to love.
Randy and I both got interviewed for podcasts, which was a first. I got to promote Little Vampires by doing a video podcast with not-the-artist-of-Watchmen Dave Gibbons of Drunken Zombie. Randy pimped all our Strange Matter stuff with Kai Connolly of ComicM!x.
The greatest “you really want us to do that?” honor I think we got was signing a T-shirt for the Hero Initiative to auction off. Randy and I both signed the shirt, and I got to draw a Little Vampire right above a bat signal drawn by some guy who’s a better artist than I am that has drawn Batman at some point. Whoah.
There was awesomeness outside the convention center too. We actually got to see some of the city we were in this time around. James and I hopped a train to the Field Museum in downtown Chicago before the convention set-up. Why there? I’m a huge fan of the Dresden Files series of books by Jim Butcher. The Field Museum and Sue the T-Rex skeleton play a role in Dead Beat, one of my favorite books in the series. I had to see Sue!
We later escaped to see The Incredible Hulk with Randy and Ann at the Muvico theater near the convention center. Watching this most excellent of movies with friends in the VIP section of the theater was first class, baby! And to close the convention, Randy and Ann took us to Ed Debevics, a crazy diner downtown, for fried food and milkshakes.