I’m still high on the afterglow of TCAF (and the creeping con crud). So many classic hangs with kewl people. Thanks to everyone who came by my table or shot the shit with me at the parties, great to meet all of y’all.

This past year was the first time I’ve tabled at out-of-state cons. Each was an amazing experience for different reasons, but the one common thread is how strong comics are. I mean, look at my TCAF haul, so many fantastic books and I couldn’t afford a third of what I wanted:

I’ve only read a few of these books so far but I’m really into Victor Kerlow’s hilarious new book of short comics Everything Takes Forever, Alabaster’s impeccably put together new minicomic fantasy series Mimi and the Wolves, Tim Sievert’s Clandestinauts minis that collect the eponymous fun and bloody dungeon crawl webcomic, and Jen Tong’s beautiful screenprinted comics.

It was a bummer that Josh Burggraf couldn’t make it (here’s a poignant comic he made about why) but I was lucky enough to be seated next to the hilarious Mike Winters (check out these NSFW Time Professor comics) who was super friendly. It was his first time exhibiting at a con and I think he’s been spoiled for all others. Look at how stuffed the first floor was:

I only took an overview picture of the first floor of TCAF even though I was on the second but the crowd on our floor was equally crazy. On the last four hours of Saturday there was a huge line to get into our room, probably because of the super popular webcomics and YA folks in there with us.

My table just wasn’t as colorful without Josh’s comics. Pat gave me some copies of Rub the Blood to hawk. I sold out of those and the ten Tranz #2 minis I made. I’ll probably make some more of those minis soon and sell them on my site.

Now I’m just going to give y’all a brief travelogue. I ate plenty of good food and drank good beer:

That teriyaki tofu melted in my mouth like fried butter.

I got to hang out with the Hic and Hoc crew, Philly folks, people I know through Josh Burggraf like Victor Kerlow, some friends who used to live in Austin, and too many awesome others to list them all here. Even though I’ve been working with Pat Aulisio and Ian Harker for years, this was only my second time to hang with them IRL. I didn’t take any pictures of people, but fortunately Jen Vaughn captured this one at a hungover Monday morning super greasy breakfast joint:

We coincidentally chose sides on a gender divide. Top row: Jacq Cohen, Jen Vaughn, Rutu Modan. Bottom row: Robin McConnell, me, Murilo Martins.

I had intended to check out the sf book shop Bakka Phoenix but instead I tagged along with that crew to The Beguiling. I got this interesting-looking manga of sf short stories in French and English:

Heaven’s Door by Keiichi Koike.

I don’t know when I’ll be back to TCAF, but it’s the gem in the crown of North American cons, so I hope it’ll be soon.