Baltimore Comic Con

Okay so I'm going to do what I believe is my first official con report. It's gonna be loooonnngg winded, get comfy . Baltimore was pretty cool this year. Marty and I have definitely had some way more exciting comic con experiences but that was when we were younger and it was more alcohol and hangovers than it was comic professionalism (Damn you Matt Baise). This year it was mostly business, well mostly.

This takes me into day one. Well, not day one of the con but the Friday before.

So I spent most of Friday before actually driving up trying to get everything together and packed first thing in the morning. I had spent the night before having one too many beers at a Mexican restaurant and several more while playing Call of Duty 4 online with some friends instead of packing like I was supposed to (it was a rough week at work).

Once I had everything together I had to make a few pit stops a Jerry's Artarama, the bank, and Food Lion to pick up some antacids (damn you acid reflux), and then I was off at probably around 11:30 a.m. .

Now if you had seen the national weather reports you would've known that a nor'easter had hit the east coast around Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Thursday it was at it's peak, the daylong torrential downpour almost kept me from getting home (my neighborhood and downtown Norfolk in general is very flood prone, especially with a steady consistent rain). Well by Friday it hadn't totally cleared up. This made driving especially fun.

Long story short it was about four and a half hours of rain, accidents, and traffic jams. If I was still a smoker I'd would've proclaimed it a two pack day.

So I finally get to Matt's house around 4 p.m. We then headed to the now infamous Cat's Eye Pub (no fights to break up this time I'm sad to say) and met up with Matt's girl Jen and their mutual friend Tom. It was a few hours of Yuengling draft and discussions of mortgage crisis politics, interrupted only by the "what the hell is that white stuff coming out of the old barfly's ass?"incident. There is a regular at that bar, an old weathered looking marine who decided that it was a good idea to keep a bottle of Elmer's glue in his back pocket and then sit on it. Ahh the sexual innuendo afterwards, thank god I hadn't ate yet.

Afterwards Matt and I went to Brick Oven Pizza, grabbed some more beer and then watched the presidential debate. Those extra beers, not a good idea. My stomach wasn't really in fighting shape when I got there and now I had punched it several times in the face until it fell and then went in for the U.F.C. style ground and pound. I didn't sleep well at all.


I woke up around seven and started to get ready. By the time I had all my stuff together Matt was up and I was watching "The Joy of Painting" while trying to wait out the monsoon that had started while I was showering. Baltimore better have met it's rain quota for the year this weekend 'cause I swear the sun only came out once all weekend. Once the rain had settled to a temporary drizzle I bid far well to Matt and headed off to the con.

Now I won't go into too much detail here but parking in the downtown area is kind of expensive if you don't get there early enough. Those who aren't early risers can expect to pay in excess of fifteen to twenty dollars for eight hours of parking. I was able to find a cheap one for both days, yay me.

Comiccon day one I'd have to say was a lot different experience than previous years. We've usually had a third person with us so it's given Marty and I plenty of time to wander the floor and schmooze with other creators. Not that I'd really wanted to wander around, seeing as how I felt like I was going to blow chunks at any moment and I was popping Rolaids like they were Mentos. It actually wasn't so bad though because it gave me plenty of time to rock out completed sketches for people. Normally I charge about five dollars for regular red and lead pencil sketches with no inks. I also try and get them done fairly quickly so that the customer doesn't have to come back. This year was different however. I gave myself a half hour cushion to rock out some really nice sketches with completed inks and greytones using the Faber Castell five pack for the inks and a Cool Grey 30% Prismacolor for the gretones. This worked out really well. Not only did people really like them I had one repeat customer and several people buy non commissioned sketches that I was doing for fun. From what I can remember on Saturday I did two Batmans(commissioned) , one Harley Quinn(non commissioned but given away), and a two character Riddler/Scarecrow(commissioned and my best sketch of the con). Yeah it was a Batman themed day.

We sold a decent amount of posters and minis. Marty and I were also able to talk to an old school indy comic colleague extraordinaire. His name was Dan Nokes, he's the man. You've probably seen Dan's name on my blogroll if you frequent this blog, there's a reason for that. We all go waaayyy back. We're all veterans of cons past and Dan always made the experience exponentially funner. He also had a bowl of candy every time too, mmmm Neslie Crunch Bars. I swear they're the cure for hangovers. Dan has a lot of stuff out nowadays most notably his twelve issue series "The Paranormals" and the more recent "Pistoleers". He also has tons upon tons of pin ups on his comic space site, so please make sure you check them out.

After day one wrapped up there wasn't much to report. I checked into my hotel room at the Ramada Inn Limited and ate Arby's for dinner. Matt left for a fishing trip in North Carolina so I was on my own. I'll have to say though, having a king sized bed to yourself is awesome. Their continental breakfast however...sucked.

Day two was kind of the same. Marty and I took a little more time to walk around the con. We also were able to get in a few more commissioned sketches, Marty having the weirdest one of the day. Some kid asked him for a pirate ninja/cowboy astronaut, and I'll have to say Marty pulled it off like a champion.

I also got to talk to one of our old booth neighbors Scott Derby and Dave Perillo. These guys are awesome, I definitely recommend you check out their stuff. I'll be adding them to my blogroll.

Not too much exciting stuff to report but it was fun overall. The images at the top, if you're curious, are some sketches that I didn't sell. So I decided I'd bring them home and put them up here until I can get back in the swing of things.

For those of you whose address' I have, I'm going to be sending stuff out to you sometime this week. I should be able to get a post in this Friday and next Monday so be on the lookout for that. Next week will be a crapshoot however.

I have to leave on the ninth of October for Washington state. My youngest brother Ryan is getting married to his fiance Katie and I'm the best man. I'll be back on the fourteenth so everything will get back to normal by then...I hope.

Oh and one last thing. If you are reading this and I did a con sketch for you, please, please, please, do me a favor. Send me a scan of them. I would really like to get a collection of sketches so that I can put them on the site in the future. This would be greatly appreciated.

'night guys.

I