CCI, way after the fact
As I'm on holiday with family, and going online only at fugitive intervals, I haven't had time to add my voice, either as writer or reader, to the chorus of collective memory (thanks, Tom) in the wake of the latest Comic-Con International in San Diego, a chorus already on the way to fadeout.
I don't have a coherent account of those four days, though I was there (and lucid) for the whole deal. I just want to say thank you to the people who helped humanize my experience of those days, days of sprawling, swirling, chin-deep happy fizzing madness: my sons Coleman and Nick, of course, and our friends and local hosts Joseph Thomas and Katie Strode (who gave us a whole different, non-Convention Center, non-Gaslamp experience of San Diego), and my brother Scott (smartest guy I know) and his fellow teachers Paul and Charlie, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on the convention floor. I only wish I had had time to spend much more time with them all. I thank everyone for putting up with my four-day adrenaline high.
I've realized that the craziness of CCI makes me value all the more the few personal conversations I get to have while there. An island of friendliness and conversation in the midst of the madness is so appreciated. Here are some people, besides the aforementioned, that I remember talking to at the Con (in no particular order):
John Morrow, Jim Kingman, Bob Beerbohm, Jaime Hernandez, Eddie Campbell, Dan Best,
Gina Gagliano, Lauren Wohl, Mark Siegel, Gene Yang, Nick Abadzis and his wife Angela, Lark Pien, Dan Nadel, Lauren Weinstein, Alvin Buenaventura, Diana Schutz, Peter Birkemoe, Leigh Walton, Tom Devlin, Robert Goodin, Jim Woodring and the wonderful Madame Woodring (that is, Mary),
Ben Saunders and his wife Larisa, my sometime students Ben Costa, Dana Shukartsi, Naomi Carrington, and Jeb Whitlock, Rocco Versaci and his friend Patrick, and Mike Royer. My memories of the convention floor are mostly a function of my conversations with these people.
In fact, though I went to several panels (witness the photos here), did some roaming around the floor, and gave a presentation on my own (an extract from my Kirby book in progress), what I mostly remember are the conversations I had. A special thank-you to First Second Books, including Lauren, Mark, and Gina, for a wonderful evening of dinner and conversation!
No news here, folks, sorry, just a plateful of gratitude, and, as a bonus, this video clip of Jaime Hernandez fulfilling a very unusual request for a sketch:
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