Baltimore Comic Con recap…
I truly had an amazing time at BCC. I had never been to Baltimore, and truthfully - I saw very little of the city beyond what was in the Inner Harbor between my hotel and the conference center - but, the trip was extremely productive (and exhausting) for me. Here’s a quick day-by-day recap for those interested in details of what went on beyond the reports/interviews you’ll read from me on Bleeding Cool and Geek Girl on the Street:
Friday: After a crazily frustrating day of travel, I arrived in Baltimore at my hotel at about 4pm. Given that I had been up since THREE-AM, I decided to check in and try to take a nap while I waited for my friends P and T (and, T’s Mom and their friend Bob) to arrive. As I was extremely amped up, I had a hard time sleeping, so I got up and worked on my column for Bleeding Cool.
Once T and P had finished setting up their booth, they came over to the hotel and checked in. T, T’s Mom and B went off to do their own thing and P and I went to dinner. After that we went to the bar at the Hyatt where we met up with some other comic creators, including S (a good friend of both P and T). That’s where I also met for the first time IRL Amber and Ashley - Amber writes the occasional “Sex Geek” column for Geek Girl on the Street, so it was cool to be able to put a face to a name, etc.
On our way out of the bar I met Amanda Conner and rambled at her in a my sleep-deprived state about my lost luggage. Apparently I didn’t sound like too much of an idiot, as P told me in the morning that I succinctly pitched her my series of interviews with female comic creators and secured agreement for an interview at some point over the weekend.
After that we went back to the hotel and went to bed.
Saturday: I got up around 9-ish and finished my Geek Girl on the Street Reports: Where Are The Women In Superhero Comics? After finishing that up, I headed over to the con center and tracked down P and T’s booth. I then made my rounds of the floor to say hello to friends and track down people I wanted to interview.
I found C and A at the Kill Shakespeare booth and shot the shit with them for a while. Then, I happened to run into Nick Tapalansky and Alex Eckman-Lawn (Awakening) and Brian Smith (The Intrepid Escape Goat) and Billy Tucci. I hit them up for interviews the following day. I re-introduced myself to Amanda and tracked down Louise Simonson and Danielle Corsetto (both of whom I’d scheduled an interview in advance with) to say hello.
After the floor closed, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the Harvey Awards (of which I was a VIP guest… helps to know people, yah?)
After getting glammed up, we headed back over to the Hyatt for the cocktail reception for nominees/presenters. Over drinks I chatted with former DC Editor Joan Hilty, Art Baltazar and Franco. That was pretty damn cool.
Cooler still?
Stan Lee was at the aforementioned cocktail reception.
I told T (who actually designed an “Excelsior!” glass which was being given out in the swag bags at the Harveys) that I’d go in for the photo op if he’d go with me. So me, T and T’s Mom headed over to say hello. In the process, I ran into Barry Kitson - who was British and charming, as one would expect. After waiting a bit I got to talk to Stan - whom I thanked for my childhood memories of Spider-Man. He said to me, “Well I must have done a good job making an impression in your childhood if you’re here at the Harveys tonight!”
I then told him about my Bleeding Cool column and working for Wizard World Digital and we sang the Spider-Man theme song together. (Really, we did. T was there, he can verify.) T chatted with Stan, too and told him he’d been the one who designed the Excelsior! glass and Stan told T’s Mom the glass was great and said, “He came as close as anyone could to capturing how handsome I am.”
T’s Mom also had a picture taken with Stan. I don’t remember if T did or not, but presumably he did.
We then went into dinner… the four of us were sitting at a table with two VIP ticket holders, DC colorist Laura Martin (nominated for a Harvey) and DJ Kirkbride and Adam Knave (winner of the Harvey for Best Anthology). We had a great time chatting and being silly. Dinner was delicious. Then the award ceremony started. While T (who was nominated for Love and Capes) and C/A (nominated for Kill Shakespeare) didn’t win, it was still a good evening with a lot of deserving creators taking home Harveys. Read who won here.
Mark Waid (who I briefly met) presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to Stan and, of course, Stan’s remarks brought the house down.
After the awards ceremony, A and I reposed to the bar in the Hyatt where I was introduced to the CEO of IDW Publishing. As it was stupidly crowded, we went upstairs to the VIP Lounge where P’s good friend Denise was and sat around shooting the shit with T, P, S, A, Denise and Shannon Wheeler until about 2am.
Sunday: This was a crazy day for me. Before hitting the con floor I wrote and turned in my Harvey Award recap for Bleeding Cool. Then in the course of six hours I interviewed Nick Tapalansky, Alex Eckman-Lawn, Brian Smith, Billy Tucci, Danielle Corsetto, Amanda Conner, Laura Martin, Joan Hilty, Louise Simonson and the Kill Shakespeare guys.
You can look for those interviews on Bleeding Cool and Geek Girl on the Street over the coming weeks.
It was after this that I decided I was pretty done for the day, so I just chilled out behind P and T’s booth until 5 when breakdown started.
After everything was closed up, we headed back to our hotel where we quickly got cleaned up and went out to dinner with Rich Faber (Comic Book Diner podcast), Bob and a few other people. After that… well, my memory gets a little fuzzy… but, I seem to remember ending up back at the Hyatt Bar chatting until the wee hours with Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson, Steve Conly, Barry Kitson, Shannon Wheeler, Todd and Craig from the Perhapsnauts, Charlie Adlard and Mark Nathan (the con organizer.) I believe Kitson and I planned some sort of revolution and judging by the headache I had the next day, I drank about five big glasses of red wine.
At about 1am T and I extracted our social butterfly, P and we headed back to our hotel to crash.
Monday: After getting up, having breakfast and checking out of our hotel - I bid P, T, T’s Mom and Bob goodbye as they dropped me off at the train station in Baltimore.
From there I took a train up to Washington, D.C. where I had lunch with my high school friend AM. After lunch I decided to go to the Smithsonian - but, when I got over there the line was way too long and since I only had a few hours to kill before I had to go to the airport, I knew there was no way I’d get in and out in time.
So, instead, I decided to take a walk in the sun and quiet around the Mall. I took a lot of pictures, which you can see on Facebook.
I saw the Washington Monument (which was good timing, because apparently after yesterday’s earthquake on the East Coast it’s due to start leaning,) the White House, the Treasury Department and the Capital Building, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial and the new WWII Memorial (from a distance.) I also went to the Daughters of the American Revolution museum and the Renwick Gallery.
It was almost time to head to the airport when I got out of the Renwick, so I grabbed and iced coffee and just sat outside being quiet. Which was quite nice.
From there, it was the airport and home… I landed about 10pm and Meg picked me up (thank you, Megggg!) We stopped and grabbed a late dinner on the way home and then she dropped me off and after being greeted by my tiny jumping, licking ball of love better known as Max - I fell exhausted into bed.
And, so ended my BCC weekend.
I just wanted to thank Mark Nathan and the whole staff of BCC again, it was a truly wonderful show, everyone was so friendly and welcoming — I had a great time. I’m very much looking forward to coming back in 2012.
