Zub Tales

Con season slowly begins.

Spent the weekend at the Paradise Comic Con here in Toronto. I hadn’t really anticipated much coming of it and even though sales at the Udon booth were sluggish I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

Friday: Vegged out for a few hours after the booth was all set up. Adam ”Speakeasy” Fortier threw a great get together at the Bishop after the show closed. Good people, good booze and good conversation. It was nice seeing folks and feeling like it was actually possible to relax for an evening. Highlights included Tom Fowler describing the ins and outs of DC comics and talking at length with “other Scott” from Scholastic.

The basement of the Bishop was bursting with comic kids

Saturday: The show clipped along at a pretty good pace. Chris from the Beguiling recommended some kick ass comics for me to dive into including Scott Pilgrim and Lost At Sea by Mal, Sharknife by Rey and Daisy Kutter by Kazu. It’s nice seeing this kind of variety coming out of the comic industry even while the industry trudges through tough times.

I ended up hanging out with a bunch of different people over the course of the day. It was fun bouncing between independent artists and mainstream ones, getting a good mix of what’s out there. Meeting Kean Soo and chatting about webcomics, indy artists and Flight was excellent, as was yucking it up with the Hive boys. When the show finally wrapped up for the day a slew of us descended on the Chun King Chinese restaurant on Spadina and ate ourselves silly. By the time we arrived at the official con party, I was unbelievably tired and ended up cutting out early.

Sunday: Waking up early to man the booth for the last day of the show, traffic was extremely slow but socializing and reading was good. Hanging with David Mack and Adi Granov chatting about how Adi could create his own country called Granovia was memorable. David’s always got a crazy amount of energy at these shows… it’s infectious.

A crisp morning before the show starts.

Last night Gal and I had dinner, drinks and played a few card games with two Mikes from Halifax. Mike Drake was someone we knew from our days shopping at Strange Adventures while we lived on the east coast. Seeing him at the con was great and we decided to invite them out for an evening of kooky banter and hanging out. Tipsy and amused, they left around midnight. Afterwards I read until falling asleep around 2 am.

Today’s more project management juggling, a chiropractor appointment and ideally getting some decent sleep tonight.