First off I’d like to congratulate Eleanor Davis, who won the Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award for her work on Stinky. If you haven’t seen it yet you should check it out. The Eisner Awards Ceremonies were very cool and it was an honor not only to have been nominated for the Russ Manning, but also to be seated among so many talented people that I’ve admired for so long, like Sergio Argones, Mike Mignola, Terry Moore, Neil Gaiman and many many others. This was our first year at the con, but evidently the awards were in a brand new venue to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the convention, and so things were a little swankier than I’d expected. I had looked up some previous awards on YouTube, and expected casual convention going attire to be the standard dress, but this year people were in suits and long dresses, although there were a lot of suits with sneakers. I was almost relieved when I didn’t win, because I felt so underdressed. If I’m lucky enough to be up for anything in the future I’ll be sure to bring some snazzier clothes.

I enjoyed the con a lot. I did a bunch of sketches, some of which I’ll be posting later this week and sold a bunch of books. This was the first con that I’d brought some sketch books to as well, and I sold a bunch of those, so I’ll be bringing them to future cons also.

It was bit hot and very very crowded, but otherwise very fun. Of course I was at my table sketching and selling books most of the time, so I didn’t get to see nearly as much of the show as I would have liked, but I did get up to see some things and meet some people. I stopped by Phil Foglio’s booth to say “hi” and pick up a signed copy of the latest Girl Genius trade. I also complimented him on his masterful ability to keep things moving at the Masquerade, despite the rowdiness of the crowd. Phil was one of the very first people to respond to our earliest emails asking other webcomicers for feedback. He’s also local, so I get to see him at ECCC every year. I also stopped by to chat briefly with Christian Scott Sava of The Dreamland Chronicles who seemed to be doing gangbusters. Unfortunately I missed the chance to meet Tracy Butler, who does Lackadaisy. She literally sat behind me for the entire convention and I didn’t get up to go say hello until Sunday, and although she still had people at her booth she had just left to catch a plane. Drat. Because it’s such a large convention you can expect that during the peak hours you might have a little trouble getting to anyplace you’d like to be, but if you want to see something or someone on the show floor, early morning seems to be the best time, since that’s when most attendees are upstairs at panels or movie screenings.