 Rich and I drove up Toronto-ways on Friday, and arrived just in time to have dinner with a bunch of people at a Mediterranean place in Kensington Market. After this we became tired and retired to the hardwood floor of Kean's friend's empty apartment. Derek, his rad friend Jeremy, Kazu, Amy Kim Ganter were all crashing there with not nearly enough bedding. Insert very bad night of sleep.  The next day we headed over to the festival proper, which was held in nice tents behind Honest Ed's, a ridiculously be-signed discount store on Bloor St.  It was coated with really really stupid signage. Needless to say, Rich was enchanted.  My schoolfriend Kate came up from London with her friend Colleen to check out the festivities. Dang, she was nice to see!  Rich and Colleen! ...No further comment!  We went out for lunch with Ryan North and Andy Runton, who were both very large men. They are some of my new favorite people, I think. We had shawarmas!  Here is Ryan with the book Colleen got in her "three dollar loot bag". She also got a Pikachu hat, some rubber fingers, and similar nonsense. Whattadeal!  Kate and Colleen had to go home to stack milk so I tabled the rest of the day. After a hard day of conning (I split my time between the Flight booth and the Dumbrella table, both not pictured), we decided to go out for dinner. Mal was off winning and celebrating his Doug Wright award so the Flight folks + Raina and Dave went out for sushi.  It was basically the worst restaurant ever. The food came slowly, out of order, and wasn't what we ordered. It took about ten minutes to get a glass of water and Rich's vegetarian donburi was covered in shrimp. F+, sushi-place.  We unconsciously divided into two tables based on race. Oh, society. After that we all went to an artist-party at a bar that the Beguiling took over for us. It was dark, fun, and very nice, drinking beers and talking to Jim Zubkavich. Naturally, no good photos were taken, but I promise it was good! Rich and I decided we were too good for the floor and used his con-spoils to get a hotel room. Mmm, maaattress. Official Nerdiest Moment: James Jean left his portfolio in Kean's car and Rich and I gave him a ride back to his hotel. He was far less huge and intimidating than I had imagined and ten times as nice. I didn't externally fangirl but inside, man, I was bustin'. So there.  As the tents went down everyone hung out in the late afternoon sunshine, talking and making plans. I remembered about the camera and took three thousand photos. That's the the award-winning Mal and the glamorous Hope Larson there with Kean and Derek. It was so nice to see them since they moved away to Nova Scotia.  Man, I like Carla Speed McNeil. She is hilarious and terrifying, a total genius and a source of hugs and sketches.  She came with a strange and mysterious roadie bearing the Finder tattoo on his arm. He had interesting shoes.    Ever the consummate professional, Rich found some wireless and updated his webcomic.  The tents were next to the back of a ludicrously-muraled gym. Some interesting stuff to stare at during slow bits of the con...  This is the best picture of the festival, I think.  Everyone drew in a sketchbook for Chris Butcher, the angel-pie who pretty much single-handedly pulled the whole festival together.  Derek didn't shower a SINGLE TIME during the whole trip and still smelled fresh as a daisy. Curse yoooou, Asiiiiaaaaaa...  Jeremy is Derek's friend from New York, and a secret cartoonist himself. He was hilarious and noisy, I liked him tons.  Jonathan Ellis of PopImage is super-cool, and has a great beard!  Heeee.  Butchie! ...no one is allowed to call him Butchie.  To know him is to love him.  Did you know Kazu and Amy are sweethearts? They are, and it fills my heart with warmth. Check your heart temperature, I bet yours is too!  Kean took Kazu, Amy, Derek, Jeremy, Rich and I to the CN Tower. I've done this before and having lived in Toronto I bristled slightly at such a touristy activity, but what the heck. There was this moose, we licked it.  Eeeew, Keeeean.  There was a LOT of this. Everyone loves a glass floor. Derek and Jeremy discovered that the scariest thing is to walk very quickly across it while looking down. Aaaaand iiit waaaas.  Rich was too heebie-jeebied to walk on the glass so he made friends with this kid instead. He was a lot less goony in real life!  Despite the face, I had fun!  ...I promise I had fun.  Post-tower, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant on Spadina and ate the crap out of some pho. This terrible sign was seen on the way.  Afterwards we met up with everybody for a closing party at the former Bordello, a bar next to the Beguiling. Everyone drank, ate freezies and special cookies, and was basically happy. Chris received his gift-book, which had been somewhat-secretly filled with really, really amazing stuff. He deserved ten such books for the wonderful show he put on. What a rock star.  The next day we all met for a pre-drive breakfast with Becky Cloonan, her friend whose name I didn't get, the exuberant Corey Lewis, Derek, Jeremy, Kazu, Amy, Chris, Ryan, Andy, and Jason Azzopardi.  It was discovered that Ryan is where food goes to die. He ate his entire big breakfast plate, then both Rich's and my extra pancakes, then some of Andy's pancake, then a cat, and then a smallish homeless man. No one would talk to him after that, it was pretty gross.  Jason is SO nice, and the word on the street is he does some meeean comics of his own. I don't even get it, there oughta be a law.  Rich is allowed to leave me for Chris.  AWWWWWW.  Party on, Wayne.  Party on, Garth.  Tall men say goodbye.  Rich and I drove home full of pancakes and shiny comics ideas. What a nice con. And it'll be even nicer to see everyone at MoCCA in two weeks. Hooray Toronto! back to my site |