Holiday Wars

All in all, The Baltimore Comic-Con was a great show. Saturday was intense. I’ve been going to the convention for eight or nine years now and it was the most packed I’ve ever seen it. Plus it’s really become a fun show that in a lot of ways is more for the creators.

It’s more chill than SDCC or NYCC but it’s still a big show with a high quality guest list. (That’s the Th3rd World booth pictured above with co-publisher Jon Conkling).

We had a packed booth all weekend with tons of cool people. Above, from left to right, is Co-publisher Mike DeVito, Keith Dallas (“Omega Chase” & “Ghost Busters”), and Mike Raitch (“The Stuff of Legend).

There weren’t too many costumes at the convention. The basics were there: Iron Mans, Supermans, Batmans, and so forth. I did see a few Ramona Flowers and an Ang from “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” but my favorite had to be this Ghostbusters dude.

I got tons of cool stuff at the convention, including twenty or so graphic novels that I bought for only $2 to $5 each! But my favorite stuff from the convention is pictured above.

This is my most favorites thing I got, which is wierd cause I’m not really into “Green Lantern.” Bullfinch‘s TL Collins did this for me and he spit the thing out in a matter of minutes. I simply told him to “draw whatever you want” and he ended up doing this sweet Hal Jordan.

One of the things that was on my “Must Get List” was a copy of “Cleopatra in Space.” I just love Mike Maihack’s line work and character designs. So when we went to get it he talked us into picking up the first volume of “Cow & Buffalo.” He did the sketch above on the first page.

The convention was crazy so I didn’t have time to look at anything I had bought until I had gotten home. However my girlfriend had tons of free time and she devoured the first volume of “Cow & Buffalo” like I’ve never seen her read before. She was literally laughing out loud and then spent the whole weekend quoting it. So of course on the second day of the convention we had to visit Mike again and pick up the second volume. This time he did a quick sketch and dedicated it to her.

This sketch came with my copy of “Cleopatra from Space.” I’ve obviously read the comic online and I follow it, but what I was really excited to see was the bonus material printed in Book 1. If you’re not already reading it, you should totally check it out.

I LOVE the artwork on “The Guns of Shadow Valley.” So it was great to pick up their preview of the webcomic and get David Wachter to do a quick sketch on it. He also had some really sick sketches of Marvel and DC characters. I’m not normally into that kind of stuff, but even I was tempted to buy one.

Another cool thing I got a the convention was the first volume of Zorphbert and Fred. The creator of the strip, Dawn Griffin has to be one of the nicest people I’ve met at a convention. She’s very social but in an appropriate way so it’s never awkward or so there’s never a lull in the conversation. If you don’t already follow her on twitter or read her comic, you really should.

I’ve been reading “Girls with Slingshots” since the 2006 SPX, cause that’s the first time I ever met and spoke with Danielle Corsetto. So then ever since I got into webcomics myself I’ve been wanting to go back and re-read GWS from the start, but she just hit the 1,000 strip mark so that’s a daunting task to do online. That’s why I picked up the first volume (I’ll get the rest at SPX in a few weeks) and was uber excited when she did a quick sketch of a kitten.

Oh man the Baltimore Comic Con was great! I didn’t expect to meet so many cool people nor did I expect so many people to come over and say “hi” or to mention “Holiday Wars.” Boy was I pleasantly surprised! So THANK YOU to everyone. It was an awesome show and was more “fun” than work. My only hope is that SPX in a few weeks turns out just as good.