Con Report, Part 2

 Saturday was another fine day.  I understand that next year the con is going to be in February again.  Too bad!  This year having it in April made getting to and from the Javits Center much pleasanter.  I'm sure the fans waiting on line outside were much more comfortable, too!  Oh well, be prepared to freeze your tuchus off next year.

 I can understand why they want to move it back, tho.  As I mentioned in my last post, Joe Rubinstein had to leave early Friday for Passover and return Saturday afternoon.  I'm sure there were lots of other Jewish professionals-and fans-who weren't at the con as much as they might otherwise have been.  It was also close to tax time, so I think folks might not have been as free with their cash as they might otherwise have been.

 Anyone seen Bob Wiacek lately?  There he is, right at the top of the page!  Hadn't seen Bob in a very long time.

 Next we have Sebastian "Sal" Mondrone and Winston Wolff (not the guy from Pulp Fiction) of Stratolab.  I spent a good deal of time at the Stratolab table Saturday.  Sal is also the co-creator and writer of Beastball, which I swear you'll see as soon as I can put it together with lettering and coloring, etc.  I had also done some work for Stratolab--check my site under "illustration".

 At the table next to Stratolab was Griffons Claw, headed by smith Aaron Schwartz.  He makes a lot of very cool one-of-a-kind knives and swords.  They're real too, and real sharp.  Wish I'd gotten a photo of that table.  All the girls wanted to check out the pointy shiny things, too, which made me wish I were sitting at Aaron's table.  I like the kind of chicks who like fantasy blades.

 Jamal Igle is at the bottom of the column of photos.  He had the table next to Rubinstien's, so we got to chat a bit.  He kept his cel phone handy at all times because his wife was expecting and it was possible he could've gotten "the call" at any time.  The baby stayed in for the duration of the con, tho.

 Sunday was, well, mostly more of the same.  I ran around talking to publishers of various sorts, looking for outlets for my various creations.

 I was at Rubinstein's table for most of the afternoon.  Carolyn Kelly stopped by and we chatted for a long while.  Carolyn is, among other things, Walt Kelly's daughter and an artist in her own right.  She was continuing Pogo at one point--gee, I guess it must have been about a decade ago now.  I even inked some at the time.  Mine didn't look like Walt Kelly.  It looked like Dave Simons imitating Wallace Wood imitating Walt Kelly, and that's about the best that can be said for it.

 Towards the end of the day I finally ran into Alan Weiss and we dashed over to Rich Buckler's table to say hi.  It seems that another Weiss dinner excursion was in the offing, but I had set up a meeting of my own at a nearby diner.

 That meeting was with my writers:  Joe Donnelly (Helldiver), Sebastian "Sal" Mondrone (Beastball Saga), and Judson Femine (The Citizen).  More for marketing strategy than story, it was the first time we'd all gotten together.  Quite productive, now we just have to follow thru on our plans, or "action items" as Sal calls them.  I think I started referring to them as "funtime action plans" or something.  I've worked in children's television too long.