Emeraldcity . . . . . I left my heart there but also a lot of my wallet! Part 1

So here is the more indepth report of my time at the Comicon.

I left the airport and grabbed a bus into the city. I was a tad early and had a few things to try pick up so I did a little nostalgic sightseeing. I went to a little sandwich place in the centre of the Public Market at Pike Place and I ordered one of their World Famous Meatloaf & Cheddar Sandwichs on 8 Grain Bread". This was a meal I haven't had in 9 years and the staff were quite impressed that I came back for more. I also stopped into the first Starbucks Cafe (The one were the logo is more realistic and you can see the Sirens Breasts. I couldn't make out which was non fat and which was half & half.



After that I went into the Westlake Centre were I used to hang out during lunch breaks from my job. I was looking to find a sweet the sold in a candystore there and try to pick a cell phone (Ref: Wo ist meine Handy?). In both stores they told me they didn't stock what I was looking for but to try the drugstore across the way. It was so weird when you're in a store that is specialised to what you are looking for but then they say no the drugstore has a better selection. So after a quick run to the food court to have a look at the Indian place me and my friend Paddy ate at religiously (Bombay Wala, you weren't open, what a shame because I could have murdered a Tikka Masala), I decided to head up to the Convention Centre.

Here is where I made my first mistake. I had no idea of the size of this Con. I arrived an hour before the doors were to open and this is were I ended up.












And that was the outer waiting area there was another one in the next room with even more people! In fairness to the con the lines moved fast and I'd say I was inside about 30 mins after the show started. Unfortunately most of the exclusives that were done for the Con were gone at that point. And even worse the freebies too. Though they were reloaded a couple of times I seemed to be queing for something else every time. As I was still carrying everything I brought with me I was a little worse for wear. Fortunately for me as I was handing some of the candies out Aaron Williams' lovely wife let me stow my back pack under their table. What a difference that made! Once I was able to stand upright again I was able to move around the Con with a smile on my face. As I was walking around handing candies and stuff, I was passing them out to the Artists and Guests I knew. But when I had done that I started handing them to people whos work I thought was cool or if they had a cool costume. A few people were a little wary of taking candy from a stranger (Though given there were wookiees, storm troopers and even a guy dressed as Mojo Jojo I wasn't anyway near the strangest) so I borrowed a line from a friend and told them all "Strangers have the best Candy".

And back to the "Legend of the Irish Candy Man", I had given out a few bits here and there and apparently the Guests had started telling each other about it. I know Scott Kurtz wanted to rub the Guinness items I had given him in Wil Weatons face (It's ok I had hooked Wil up too!). As I was getting a sketch done at the Penny Arcade booth I was talking to Mike and he was thanking me again for the goodybag I had left them. But as we were talking he let slip that there was a lot of talk about the stuff I handed out, using the term "Legend of the Irish Candy Man" (which to me sounds like a knock off horror movie title). While it's cool I made a mark it does mean I'm going to have to keep this up if I do anymore conventions in the States. ($30 worth of candies is not enough).

Whilst I was able to get anywhere near as many sketches as I would have liked (Though the ones I did kick Ass!!) I did get to watch a lot of the artist going through their requests lists and see how they creat such amazing work. My favourite was definitely Bruce Timm drawing Harley Quinn, that was fantastic. It was also good to see the artist stressing a little as they didn't want to mess up on a sketch (If they still get that way there's hope for me yet future posts may announce the long awaited launch of my own attempt at a webcomic). Besides hanging out around the Nodwick table I did spend a lot of time chatting with Jennie Breeden (The Devils Panties). I did manage to get a photo with her.

She wanted a couple taken to show that out boots matched so when Alina Pete (WereGeeks) was taking them I asked her to take one on my Camera. The result is to the left. It was great to hang out with here and I ended up learning about a lot of the background characters in the strip which I wouldn't have initially gotten. I even ended up chatting with her after the con as we were waiting in the convention centre lobby.


For about half of the first day at the con I was hunting down the Boys from BSG, Ray Park & Jewel Staite for different things and everytime I spoke with them I came away with the feeling that these people were genuinely, friendly people who loved to meet their fans (especially Ray Park, I lost track of the amount of times I was in his queue waiting to head somewhere else afterwards and he'd be talking to other fans for 5 -10 mins with the staff trying to get him to move on and keep the line moving. But still Top Bloke!) At one point Michael Hogun (Colonel Tigh) offered to get a drink with me later to find out more about Gaelcon. (Yes I was pimping the Con where I could).

The second day was pretty much more of the same, hunting people down for photos and autographs but I did have a little trouble with Grampa Hatey! Some of you know him some of you may not so there will be a post later to explain the history of that horny little puppet. Somehow he managed to escape from me two or three times. It took a bit of effort to track him down but if I managed to put myself in his mindset it usually did the trick.





I'm going wrap up for now as I'm about to board a plane to take me from Atlanta to Mississippi.
I'll conntinue the post when I get to me hotel.


And why the hell not?!