So I got up 'early' and opened the booth up for BatDan, and lo and behold if Tex isn't still here in the room working on that same piece. He's started adding some heads and arms at the bottom to make the group being chased look more 'crowd-y':
Anyway, here's shots of the Convention Hall with no one in it, a sight one does not see very often:
Lionman, the booth across from Dan eventually opened, and had a signing with Jim Kelly from
Enter the Dragon:
And this guy showed up in the booth next to us and must have a death wish:
Then BatDan showed up and I head back to the room to find Tex still at work on the painting, and you can now see the crowd forming at the bottom of the painting. Frankly, he's spent entirely too much time on a painting he's only being paid $1,500 to produce, especially since he'd worked on it already for several days before coming to Con. Rest assured, everything I tell you here, I've said to Mark's face
:
Then I came back inside after awhile, and when I began walking around in a section I hadn't yet explored (which ended up being largely devoted to video games) I found the end of a line that had been winding along the wall for some distance:
After I snapped the pic, an Asian kid (who I then didn't take a picture of like an idiot) asked me why I took it. I had no real explanation, so I answered with a question: "What are you waiting for?" To be perfectly honest, the torrent of verbal diarreah that came out of this kid was largely unintelligible, but I got that it had something to do with the Twilight series. There was some poster and a hat and some other goodie I didn't catch and a picture with with someone connected to the Twilight series.
After circling the section for about half an hour, I ended up back where I'd started and the Asian kid was standing in the exact spot he had been when I left him before. "I just saw you half an hour ago, are you telling me you haven't moved at all?"
He hung his head sheepishly, "Yeah."
I was finding these lines everywhere, and almost always the line would be 'closed'. Some lines would even make the last person hold a sign saying the line was closed.
I'll try to get a pic of one if I can, this should be a very common problem come Saturday.
Anyway, I spotted some original art from one of my favorite cartoonists, Chris Ware. I include these examples largely so you'll pay attention to the price tags:
But after taking the those pics, I turn around and looking for Jim Woodring art at same table is Matt Groening:
Costumes!:
This guy was an awesome Spider Jerusalem:
I thought Professor X pushing his own wheelchair was pretty amusing:
Then that night, we ended up getting tickets to a comedy show nearby that was MC'd by Graham Ellison:
And featured G4 spokesman Johnny Hardwick (who was always pretty funny in his stand up rountines):
Noted comics reader Brian Posehn (a favorite of mine):
And a special guest appearance by another noted comic reader Patton Oswalt:
And headlining, one of my favorite comedians, Doug Benson:
Here's BatDan getting Doug to authograph his CD:
As it turns out, Posehn and Benson are staying in our hotel, but I didn't want to snap them eating their complementary breakfast.
Next: The Dreaded SATURDAY!!
