Current mood:

accomplished

Cow on the Edge!! (NYCC '07)
Con report tiiiiiime!

Hoo boy! This is probably the first time I've attended a show of this size, so I'll do my best to report accurately. (Which means I just sorta post whichever photos I feel like, make some random comments, and let everyone fill in the blanks. Good thing I'm not actually a member of the press...)

In any case... wow was it crowded!! I believe the show was sold out, and the floor was clogged with people on saturday. In certain spots (especially the artists alley) it was tough to even move.


Holy crap! Nerd Explosion!


But let's back it up for a minute so I can begin at the beginning. I had kind of an interesting travel experience where I was originally planning on staying with my friend Andy in Ossining and then commuting to the con everyday by train... but due to a bunch of unforseen circumstances, I ended up staying at this nifty Bed and Breakfast place instead. (Ooh la la!)


Tah-daaah! Grand staircase at the B&B.

I'd never stayed at a Bed and Breakfast anymore, but I totally loved it! It was this huuuge old house full of antiques and whatnot, and I got to stay in the "Victorian Suite". These types of places mostly exist to pamper ladies, don't they? I felt significantly pampered, and probably took too many random pictures, harhar.


My bedroom! It was actually a lot bigger than this photo makes it out to be. It had this gigantic bathroom and little side TV room thingy. Also the fireplace was fully functional! There were logs, and I could have built a fire if I was so inclined, but the room was really warm already.


Pretty sun room with all the newspapers you'd ever wanna read...


Taxidermied peacock named Sam?! There were actually quite a few taxidermied birds throughout the house.


This is kind of random, but the stuff in the frames are these little frilly scuptures made with human hair. Apparently people got really bored in the early 1900's and would sit around making scuptures out of... hair.


This is also kinda random, but there was this collection of period hats, and the innkeeper kept encouraging people to try on the hats and take pictures and stuff. I didn't wear the hats, but I did take a blurry photo of 'em.

But anyway. After a lovely night at the B&B in Ossining, it was up and at 'em, and off to catch the train to Manhattan! The actual view from the train was pretty crap, but I did manage to get a pic of the huge and splendiferous windows at Grand Central Station.


Spiffy! I think I'll install windows like this in that mansion I plan to build someday. Ahaha.

Sad thing is, I got to do very little New York related stuff outside of the con... I didn't get many good pictures, either. Here's one I got of the nifty skyline outside the con. The hudson river was right nearby so there were seagulls flying around, and the atmosphere was kind of amazing. The photo is kinda lackluster, because I have this irritating habit of thinking that I'm somehow going to capture the feeling of being there with my camera. It just never seems to work though, and my photos always look kinda dull.


You can see like, one seagull I think.

Alright, alright. On to the con stuff!! I managed to grab a few photos from down on the main floor. I didn't get any pics of the artist alley, but honestly, it looked like every other artist alley ever... (that isn't to say that the main showroom didn't look like every other main showroom ever, but oh well.)


Haha, home base, the Tokyopop booth! It looks like some kinda battleship with a big screen TV for a figurehead. I should have taken more pics, because there was a stage in front, a store on one side, and a lounge on the other! Fancy fancy. There was also a graveyard with a coffin and some dirt that was set up to promote the book "My Dead Girlfriend" or something like that. I spent a lot of time sitting on the coffin.


DC/Vertigo was our neighbor on the right. This is pretty much the crappiest photo ever of their booth setup.


And here's an equally crappy photo of the Marvel booth! ... or at least of their banners. There were always this big crowds and lines for stuff over there, so I didn't get too close.


Lord Pikachu descended from on high to mingle with the nerdy plebians...

Hmmm, what else did I do at the con? The panels/signings I was scheduled for all went really well, and kept me very busy. I even got shoved into an extra artists panel on Sunday, which was totally cool, and I was very glib and outspoken (translation: total opinionated loudmouth) ... except for the bit where my cellphone went off and I kinda jumped around and scrambled to turn it off and mumbled, "uuuhh, that was embarassing.." into the mic. Everyone seemed to think it was funny though, so I guess I'm off the hook. *grin* There's probably photo documentation of my panels/signings somewhere, but I don't have any pics myself.

Ooh, and speaking of panels and stuff, I got to meet and speak and sign and hang out with SO many cool people! I knew a lot of them online previously, and it was super cool to finally meet them in person!! So here's some people pics! ... of like, my friends and stuff.


Continental breakfast at the hotel with artists/friends Rivkah, Amy Mebberson, Amy Reeder-Hadley, and TP editors Tim Beedle and Lillian Diaz-Przybyl.


Svetlana Chmakova, and some cosplayers for her book Dramacon!!! Gah, that's SO AWESOME!! I hope people to come to cons dressed as my characters someday!


The lovely Frederica Manfredi, and Dean Haspiel! Dean totally smooched me on the cheek, in greeting. Do I have bragging rights now? *grin*


Of course Me n' Amy Reeder-Hadley had to take a goofy photo on the "My Dead Girlfriend" cutout... kyahaha, smoochieface! Oooh, and speaking of bragging rights, I TOTALLY sat on Amy's lap when we crammed about six people in a cab to go to dinner! Aren't you just sooooo jealous?! C'mon, I know you are.


June Kim, Becky Cloonan, Svetlana Chmakova, and Meeee. I love Svet's face in this photo, and I suspect that Becky and I were the only two who realized our picture was being taken...

OH, and I gotta say... the Tokyopop dinner on Sunday night? HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEKEND!! It was the most new-yorky thing I got to do while I was in New York! My brilliant Editor Lillian found this restaurant called "Ninja" and I swear to god, it was like a Universal Studios ride. You make a reservation and when you get there they put your party on an elevator and take you up to the next level. Then, you walk up throught this long dark tunnel and ninjas jump out and scare you! The entire staff were dressed as ninjas, by the way... and the menus were on little ninja scrolls. I was so amused.)


All of us at the Ninja table! Frederica Manfredi, June Kim, Dee Dupuy, Svetlana Chmakova, Marty LeGrow, Amy Reeder-Hadley, James Barry, Lillian Diaz-Przybyl, Rivkah, and Tim Beedle.


And one from the other end. Marty's redeye is looking particularly evil in this pic... I'm pretty much the worst photographer ever.


Even the FOOD was ninja themed! This pic is totally blurry, but it was this mix of beans and fruit and fish on top of a hollowed out orange. There was a piece of dry ice inside the orange or something, because when you pull the samurai sword out of the orange, all this smoke would come spilling out all over the place. It was SO pretty.


Heehee, Lillian ordered the rose chocolate, and kept the rose! Rawr! I think this is my favorite pic of the weekend.

GAH, and I'm so sad because my camera ate the photos from this, but we had entertainment at Ninja, too! There was this guy (dressed in ninja garb of course) named "Cardone" who was this tattooed Italian ninja magician ventriloquist! (Just... just think about that for a minute. I dare you.) He did this whole ventriloquism act where he'd throw his voice into an empty sake case, and then he did all these nifty card tricks and what not, and I'm not joking with you, it was hysterical. I was dying. ... Incidentally he was also a comic fan, so we had a nice little rapport going for that, too.

Sadly, after dinner at Ninja, my weekend was pretty much over, and I had to catch a cab back to Grand Central and take the train back to Ossining the same night. It had snowed, so getting back to the B&B was kind of a pain in the bum, but I managed with the help of my friend Andy Sands, who was kind enough to drive out to the station at one in the morning to come pick me up.

Whew, and about that snow... it snowed QUITE A BIT, so getting to the airport the next morning was a challenge too. I took a few photos from the car, because the town we were driving through was none other than Sleepy Hollow!


But... but where's the headless horseman?


Nifty Sleepy Hollow church under a blanket of snow...

What then followed is barely worth mentioning... because it involved a lot of delayed flights due to crappy weather conditions. I missed my connecting flight back to Dayton and got stuck in the Cleveland Airport for five hours, which pretty much killed the rest of the day for me. Luckily I'd bought a lot of new comics to read, so I never really got all that bored.

But I digress. WHAT A WEEKEND!! There are no words to express my happiness and gratitude at meeting and hanging out with so many wonderful and talented people! YOU GUYS/GALS ROCK, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! I always come back from these things with all my inspiration and love of comics renewed, so I suspect I'll be seeing an increase in productivity in the next few days? Maybe? I hope? ... Actually, I think I'm going to start drawing right after I hit the button to post this report, but first I gotta add one more thing:

I titled this report "Cow on the Edge" based on a conversation I had during a lovely dinner with Lillian, Svet, and Dee. They were joking that after a long day working/talking/shmoozing on Saturday, I had this look in my eye not at all unlike that fight-or-flight look worn by a herd of cattle about to stampede. These events stress one out something crazy, but we laughed for a long time about my being a "cow on the edge" and after a nice quiet dinner in lovely company (and rather a lot of fangirling about stuff) I was back to normal. I love those girls, and I'll do my best to hold back the stampede until next year! Hah!


Back to the drawing board,
~Jo