After a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong and exhausting drive there and back, Heroes Con has officially come to and end. It was such a wonderful time and I am sad that its over. Lets see if I can remember how it went down:
Wednesday night—I departed around 11pm and drove about an hour or two past Toledo, OH. I was dog tired from not getting much sleep the night before (thanks Bots!) and so I pulled into a Travel Stop and slept for three hours.
Thursday—I woke up and drove on, stopping twice for gas. The mountains of West Virginia were as beautiful as I remembered them from last year. By hour twelve I was ready to kill myself for not flying down instead. Lesson learned. But I arrived around 3:30 at the hotel and checked in. I met up with Grant Gould and JJ Torres in the lobby bar and we all went to our rooms. Grant and I were hungry so we ran to Fuel Pizza (natch) to grab some quick grub while we waited for people to arrive. Then we checked in and got our badges at the con center. Anthony Harris arrived an hour later and told us of United Airlines’ massive fuckup and making him pay extra as a result. Poor guy. Then we sat in the room bullshitting and then went down to the bar lobby to hang out. We got some beers and sat around chatting with everyone. I saw some of the podcast people there and JJ and I got hungry. We both ordered $15.00 hamburgers from the bar. A great burger that came with a cup of about five french-fries. No exaggeration. Five. Anyway, we drank and I went up cause I was dog tired and Uko Smith was in our room working on a commission. I met him and chatted a bit before dozing off while talking to him around midnight.
Friday—Got up, showered and headed over to the show. It was an extremely slow Friday. My table was in the far back corner of the convention center, facing the back doors, so I knew ahead of time my traffic would suck and it did. But I met my neighbors, all super nice people. I did some shopping through Anthony Harris’ kindness of standing in line for me. I got Sketchbooks from Frank Cho, J Scott Campbell. After the show ended, Anthony and I walked up to a place called Justin’s Deli and I had probably the greatest BEEFEATER sandwich ever! It was delish! I hope we get some Justin’s Deli’s up in Michigan real damn soon! Then back to the hotel where we all went down to the bar to drink. I had two Amarettos and Sprites and about three beers before going to the bar from the room. Downstairs I had two or three more beers and a shot of Jager thanks to Andy Chang. I got loud and mouthy. Watched some girls kiss. Then decided to go pass out before I puked all over everyone, even a potential one day boss. And from what I understand, I was filmed snoring. If that footage gets out, I’ll have to kick someone in the balls. (Uko, that’s you!) ;)
Saturday—Got up and headed over to the show. Sales were much better, thank God, but still not as epic as say, Motor City was for me. Chatted with a lot of people and did a couple of fun commissions. I also did one for Andy Chang for the shot the night before. He wanted original Sulu eating White Castle. I wish I had got a pic of it, cause it was a good one. I also did a fun one of Alfred E Newman as Spock in a MAD themed sketchbook. Great fun! I love themed sketchbooks. The day ended and Anthony, JJ and I went to Fuel for quick eats. We wanted to get to the auction quickly. After sweating it out in there, I went to the auction. It was super packed and I couldn’t see any of the pieces from the crowd and there were no seats. So I didn’t stay. But I saw them sing happy birthday to a 92 year old artist who was there whose name escapes me. He got his pic taken with the auction girlies and mocked a heart attack. It was deeply touching. I think he used to work on the old strips of CATMAN and the like. I’ll have to look that up to remember. Anyway, I stayed for a couple of the auction pieces being sold but couldn’t see anything so I left. My pieces went into the silent auction the next day, but I don’t know what they went for. I met up with Anthony and we just went to the room to hang, after a late night snack run to FUEL again. We watched Talledega Nights (sucked!) and Eurotrip (decently entertaining) on TBS to kill time. Uko finished commissions, I touched up one of mine and then Grant showed up. We all went down for drinks. I stayed clear from drinking after the rough hangover thanks to Friday night’s activities. I chatted with all muh pals and congratulated Brooks on his auction piece tying a new record of $8,000 with Adam Hughes. Deeply sweet. Good for him! Anyway, stayed and talked with everyone and went back to my room with JJ to give him his commission I did for him. Then Uko, Grant and Anthony arrived and we talked late into the night. It was around 5am before we finally decided to pass out. I knew I would be screwed for sleep on my drive tomorrow, but I didn’t care. I was enjoying spending time with my friends on this, the last night of my con season.
Sunday—I walked around and bought some art supplies, a couple bootleg DVDs and a couple more sketchbooks. One from Uko and the other from Dave Nestler, who is a great guy that I never have got around to talking to. I got some good advice and great ideas from him about selling prints for next year. Sales were slow so I packed up and left around 2pm. I almost teared up a couple times when saying goodbye to everyone. Its sad when you are leaving a show cause you know that you will go home and except for the times when your family is around, you will be alone. Alone in your nerd cave, creating whats next but badly missing your friends all around the world. But you look forward to next year, when you will see them again. I said my goodbyes and left for the open road once more. It heavy, hard rained through Virginia, making driving up the mountain roads extremely treacherous. I got about an hour past Cleveland and decided to pull over and sleep. I dozed off immediately and slept a solid two hours. Got back on the road at 3am, still fighting off sleepiness the whole way. I pulled into my driveway at 5am, successfully home.
All in all, a great capper to a great convention season for me. It started off awesome with a wonderful FCBD and Motor City was the best ever! Heroes Con, while I didn’t do great sales-wise made up for it in other ways that make it even better than the others. Its hard cause you miss your family and your home but as you are leaving a show and your friends say goodbye, part of you thinks: Lets keep doing this! Like, lets stay here and do this forever! But I guess the absence makes these types of weekends extra special.
So whats next? I decided that TEXAS CON is a bad idea this year for a variety of reasons. I was entertaining the possibility of doing MID OHIO in its place in November, but I really feel that I should focus on my new goals for 2011 and get my current workload off my plate. I got a list of new goals for next year and some ideas that are really gonna change my focus and my game. I also have some personal issues that I want to address. Get my head in the right spot do what I gotta do. So, look forward to the rest of this year seeing this change and the process of change. Much more to come on that front. But for now, I am reliving the memories of good friends, great show and surpressing the memories of a long ass drive that I will never EVER do again. Suddenly, flying ain’t so bad…
Luvs, T
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