Thursday night:

At the preview night, three different people recognized us from the photo posted with Joe and me looking at the comic as it came off the press. Things seem pretty normal. Perhaps the calm before the storm?

Went to the hotel bar, which was playing music way too loud. Couldn't even hear what anyone was saying, so just nodded my head a lot.

Friday:

*Breakfast at Denny's:

One coming in, one going out.

They saw each other over the cashier counter. They made eye contact,
and an instant look of recognition passed between them.

It was as if in that moment, they suddenly knew each other better than they would after hours of conversation over a steady stream of drinks in the hotel singles bar. They had so much in common. They were simpatico. Soul mates.

"Nice shirt," he said, smiling and motioning to the bat silhouette arched across his chest.

The other one smiled back.

"Thanks," he said, touching the bat on his own.

*Dinner time, at some sleazy little Mexican restaurant:

After walking the convention floor all day, pitching our comic and looking at the huge variety of titles available, Joe and I spent dinner discussing our next project.

The only two subjects we couldn't find at WWC:

A zombie porno comic; and one featuring poop and small, furry animals.

So, from that, we've developed the following working titles:

The Fucking Dead

and

Scat and Mouse

*At the hotel bar, 12 a.m.:

The bar and lobby are full of drunken comics nerds, and someone has puked on the terra cotta tile of the hall outside the bar in a trail about 18 inches wide and six feet long. Judging from the chunks, I'm guessing they had a Chicago-style stuffed pizza with extra mozzarella cheese for their last meal. Most of the drunks are oblivious to the trail, and are blindly stumbling right through it, tracking it across the open lobby.

Oh, and I met a bunch of editors and publishers, traded my comic for the 2005 Xeric grant OGN "Winter Beard," and got the Chicago Comics Shop to take a dozen copies of Literotica on consignment.

It was a good day.

Saturday

* Breakfast at Starbucks:

Two guys behind us speaking Croatian. Girl at the counter acts like she's in a Saturday Night Live Skit.

"I'll have the turkey and bacon English Muffin," Joe says.

"You know that's low fat?" the girl says with way more enthusiasm than necessary.

"Uh, yeah," bleary-eyed Joe says, "I didn't realize I had to say that part."

We left a couple copies of Red Flags in the magazine rack.

* Wandering around the convention floor:

It's packed today. Monstrous crowd. There's a seven-foot-tall black Thor walking around with a plastic magic hammer. I want to get our picture taken with a girl in a chainmail bikini, but can't find one.

Met several small independent creators that weren't in Artist Alley Thursday or Friday, and had some interesting conversations.

Walking past the DC booth, noticed there was nobody at the Vertigo table, so I slipped two copies of Red Flags on the shelf under it, where the next guys manning the booth would find them. I'm hoping they will think the previous guys put them there because they thought they were good, and so will read them.

I'm not above guerrilla marketing. I wonder if I could bribe a hotel security guy to let me into the DC editors' rooms so I could read my comic to them as they slept?

All in all, a successful weekend. Gave away more comics than we sold, but made lots of contacts.