I had the most incredible weekend!

This weekend, as some of you know, I attended a Free Comic Book Day event in Edmonton on Saturday. I also had an Artist Alley table set up for the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo on Sunday. Without a doubt I had the most amazing weekend of my artistic career!

FCBD was a blast! Kevin and I got up at 6 am to make the jaunt up to the 'Chuck to be guests for our friend Jay, owner of Happy Harbor Comics. Thankfully we had a very uneventful trip up, and amused each other with our typical banter. We even utilized some of the time to plan the near future of Out of Mind Studios. There are big plans in the works, but more on that at a later time. Once we arrived at Happy Harbor we were greeted by Jay dressed head-to-toe as DC's Captain Marvel. Sweet costume by the way. After settling down and meeting our fellow camper's for the day it was time to get to work. For me, this meant copious amounts of drawing which I totally love. And for Kev, well, this was an excellent time to grab up some free comics and scope the place out for beautiful women. Trust me, this day would turn out to be an incredible day for meeting beautiful women! So... long story short ( I could write a novel on how great of a day it was) I drew several sketches, met alot of people, picked up a copy of the Comic Talks book that HH published covering the sessions several of us local creators participated in, Kev got us some great photos, I fell in and out of love 37 time, and we were given a great opportunity to create with fellow creators and enjoy the love of comics together. We even managed to make Kev draw a picture! The girl was cute; that in itself was a great motivater. Oh yeah, since this is my blog and it needs to be said, either Catwoman (who I'm told is a friend of Jay's) or Harley Quinn (the wonderfully talented Erin) need to marry me!!!! They were terrific!

Anyways, after an exhausting but rewarding day, we started out for home and bid farewell to our friends of the north. We stopped in Leduc for a quick bite and quickly found out that the McDonald's there has the most beautiful staff of any that I've been to. I'm moving there tommorow! Okay, I'm not....for now. In total I spent 15 hours on Saturday sitting on my ass ( 7 in the car, 8 at HH), got Home, felt stoned, realized I wasn't and went to bed. End of Day 1.

On Sunday we got up at 7 am to get ready and drove to Kev's parent's place to pick up their van which was packed full of comics for the Expo. 16 comic boxes to be exact. And when we arrived at the Big 4 we quickly found out that the unloading and transporting of our goods to our final destination inside the hall was going to be one hell of a long, back-braking journey. You see, from the point where you enter at the back of the building to the place where our table were located is the equivalent of several football fields in length. Not good for 2 dudes with 4-5 hours of sleep! But like the hardcore troopers we are, we managed to make 4 trips. Then we decided to find a cart to make things easier. One load later and we were good to set up.

We weren't quite sure what to expect as far as a turnout for the show this year. In previous years the only Calgary events we attended were held at the Red and White club, a significantly smaller venue that averaged between 400-600 people yearly. That wasn't the case this year. The Expo boasted the best talent line-up ever for a Calgary show, and any doubt of there being a poor showing was extinguished by the droves of people that poured in the door at 10 am. I was later told by my buddy Dwight that people were waiting up to an hour just to get inside. And the traffic inside the Big 4 showed it. It was packed!

From the moment the show started right up to the very end I was a busy, busy man. I drew countless sketches (seriously, I don't know an exact number), sold many prints and comics, met fantastic people, and got a true taste of what being behind the table at a event like this is like. And for the first time at one of these events, I was charging for sketches. I hadn't planned on it, believe me, until my first customer insisted on giving 5 dollars for my time. It felt very weird at first. "Who the hell am I in the grand scheme of Comicdom?" I thought. Well, I guess I'm somebody who gets 5 dollars a sketch. And I gave everyone the best I had. For 5 bucks, I'm going to give people their money's worth. And everyone I sketched for went home happy. I might even get a few commissions out of this! Several people told me they were framing my stuff. My fucking stuff!!!!! This completely blew my mind. But this is something I was told I have to get used to (thanks Dale!). If you give people quality stuff, they'll reward you. I feel very rewarded today. I am very honoured that people liked my stuff and a big thanks to everyone who stopped by. You made my day. I want to cry now, I'm so happy! *sniff*

Moving away from the sketching and crying and on to the event itself. The show this year was a total blast! The Vicious Ambitious guys are starting a new webcomic and had flyers to promote it. They we good enough to include several of the Maple Ink Comics people in the strip, including Kev and myself. They even cut off my drawing arm. I love those guys, even if they are trying to kill me! I will have my revenge!!! I also picked up a copy of the Comic Jams book that our good friend G. Gerald Garcia made up for the event which I was lucky enough to by a part of! Had dozens of people stop by for autographs on the pin-up I did for the Expo Sketchbook. I was truly honoured to be showcased in a book filled with so much talent, especially knowing all proceeds from the sale go to the Christopher Reeves Foundation. I got to meet several other creators, had a great conversation with Dale Berry (great guy!) and even had Humberto Ramos stop by and say hi. * Insert geek out moment here* I met up with my friends from the north
(shout outs to Jay, Brain, Rudi, Daniel, and Erin), got to visit with Devon and Ryan, Rove and Nate stopped by, and local legend in the making Fiona Staples even chatted me up. So it was truly a great day. Oh yeah, we even made some cash today! Yay for us:)

I'm looking forward to next years con in a big way. We'll have more stuff, more talent lined up, and we may even get another day of con goodness. Thank you very much to Kandrix and all the people who worked hard to make this show a success. I think it paid off! And an extra special thanks to the 3500+ people who attended this year for you have made it possible for us to do this again next year. I desparately need sleep now. I'll post to you all again on Tuesday when I wake up from my coma. Must go sleepy now............