Comic-Con: Day 1
Thursday July 20, 2006 • Howard Tayler
The first day of Comic-Con is "Preview Night," which is really just a half-day that starts late. This year the doors opened at 5:30pm, and the fans swarmed the floor until 9:00pm. But that's not where MY day began. No, I started with breakfast in an italian diner a couple of blocks from the hotel, followed by a quick circus-trick with my car. I drove Jim Zubkavich to the convention center, dropped him off with three of my bags, and then waited. Actually, there was no place to wait, so I drove around in circles until Jim called me. He grabbed a bag of his stuff from the Udon booth, and I picked him up and we drove back to the hotel. Aaand then we walked back to the convention center. It is a ten-block walk, and we both decided it wouldn't be worth it to carry a bunch of junk that far when I had access to an actual automobile, like a true modern human. Later I got to repay the favor, helping Jim and Erik unload a bunch more Udon stuff while maybe double-parked (I'm not sure if they were double-parked or not -- that's why we hurried). I got the Blank Label Comics booth all draped out in orange, and it looked really good. A little later the rest of the team showed up, and we got the shelving up, a schedule put together, and all the rest of the booth accessories in place. During this entire time the A/C was not on in the convention center. After we got the booth set up, I took another 10-block walk so I could shower and change clothes. If butts could have armpits, that's what my whole body smelled like after sweating like a butt-armpit for six hours getting stuff ready. Another 10-block walk back to the convention center, smelling like roses rather than imaginary body parts, and I was ready for the show. We got swamped with fans -- Dave Kellet was whipping out Sheldon sketches at high speed, David Willis sold original strips and cool shirts, Kris Straub was hocking CDs of original music (when did he find time for THAT project?), and I autographed books and cranked out a couple of commissions. We were busy pretty much non-stop until five minutes before 9pm. It starts again tomorrow at 10:00am. I'll be ready.
