Doing time in Southern California

So, yeah, Comic Con 2003.

It was big. Crowded. Had to sift through to find the comics.

But before all that, Kip and I were in LA visiting with Lori, and then joined by Patrick. Which was awesome—I spent the most time I ever have in LA, at least Culver City this trip, had excellent cuban food and sushi and the chance to peruse the Museum of Jurassic Technology again, check out new exhibits and hear details of those in progress. The Museum staff in general were very kind in allowing us to borrow a bit of their office space in order to do some last minute work for San Diego.

I really enjoyed just being able to hang with Lori and Patrick before descending into San Diego madness—bopping around Japanese food marts, watching a couple of episodes off of Patrick’s Isis tape. Ah,the 70s! where all the hair is shaggy, girls are named Bobbie and most of the grown men look
like they are involved in some aspect of the sex industry—even in a kid’s Saturday morning program.

Patrick also introduced Kip and I to Our Lady of the Spheres by Larry Jordan which was full of cut paper animation featuring Victorian etchings and appearently inspired the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Definitely reminded me of colored and animated Max Ernst. And there is no way this film wasn’t
an influence on Terry Gilliam.

Then on Thursday Lori drove us all down to San Diego—got there later than we had hoped do to last minute complications and traffic. After some misdirection on exactly where I was to pick up my badge, I jogged down to join my table mate Christopher. I had a bad reaction to the mid-day crowd and so after I bought a cookie, I pretty much stayed at the table. So thankfully people came to see me, like most of Pants Press, Indigo Kelleigh, Merlin Goodbrey, Linda Medley, Jeff Parker, Scott and Ivy McCloud. (And some others I’m probably blanking on)

Then off to dinner, with a whole gaggle of cartoonists and others including me, Kip, Patrick, Scott, Lori, Indigo, Cat and a couple others I didn’t know. We were soon joined by Shaenon and Andrew—and then Justine who had driven in from Oakland (crazy person). Then half of us went off to the Bitter End pub
for the Friends of Lulu Award Ceremony and desert. The Bitter End has a lovely upstairs lounge in which
we had planned to keep chatting in after the award presentation except they cranked up the dance tunes—which really didn’t go with the small comfy space full of leather furniture, in front of a fireplace and box beam ceilings.

The next two days were very similar for me—short excursions onto the floor where I quickly got overwhelmed by the press of humanity (Klingons, Stormtroopers, Liquor Man) and so back behind the table and attempts to pitch and talk about Dicebox. Which was odd, reducing everything to a couple of lines, like “what is it like to be a migrant factory worker in space?” I also did on the spot sketches for people, which was new to me and I eventually started to to get comfortable with towards the end. Though it’s hard for me to leave my sketches sketchy. And I owe a couple people sketches—which hopefully can happen at APE.

I much preferred the end to both days—dinner with a large group of people, not quite doing what one had intended but having fun none the less. Kip caught the spirit of the second evening, Saturday, quite nicely, though he neglected to mention how Vera had rescued me from absolute crankitude from low blood sugar with a packet of airline pretzels before she and Erika went foraging for snacks and drinks. (yeah, I missed lunch–bad me, I know better, etc.)

My only big disappointment was not meeting various people, such as fellow Girlamatikers Spike and Lisa—I didn’t even see Lea til after the Modern Tales panel Saturday. I finally felt good to move about the floor and approach crowded tables on Sunday, so I was able to buy some comics and garner some sketches—one of my favorite sketches for sheer performance was from Madison Clell, who punctuated the activity of drawing with assorted primal screams. Other low points include losing my wallet (which has been found and is being sent to me) and having our copy of Blankets go walkies in the LA Airport (I at least hope somebody is enjoying it). And the only panel I made it to was the Modern Tales panel.

But all in all a good trip, though I don’t feel I did a lot. (I have many plans for next time.) And kudos to Lori’s exceptional driving skills that got Kip and I to the LA Airport just in time to make our plane.

Photos!

By rights I ought to have more to show, but many of them just came out bad.
So here is my modest offering in three parts:

From table U-2:
shots from me sitting down at the table that is.

Dining Out: shots from around the dinner table.

Out and About:
randomness, with and without tables.