Stumptown 2007
In continuing with my tradition of not having time to write a blog entry about a comics convention until about three days after everyone else has, I figure it's time to type out what I can still remember about this one before I start making preparations for the San Diego Comic-Con (only eight months away! Start making your preparations now!).
Who is this man, and why is he shining? Read on for details and photos:
We'd been hoping to visit Portland for a while now, ever since the mass exodus of cartoonists from the Bay Area to Oregon started about two years ago. Shaenon was invited as a Special Guest this year, and since we never turn down free hotel rooms, we decided that now would be a good time to visit.
Even better, our pals Pancha Diaz and Leia Weathington had already decided to make the trip, which meant that we could carpool our way north, allowing us to check out some great scenery and do some cartoonist bonding over the course of two 12-hour drives in the span of four days.
The initial four-passenger lineup grew to seven with the addition of Jason Thompson, Konstantin Pogorelov and Leia's friend Liz. This set off a few warning bells, since it violates one of the cardinal rules of road trips--don't travel with more than five people unless one of you has the authority to ground other people for misbehaving. Large groups need dictators to keep everyone in line. Case in point...
As per Pancha's instructions, Shaenon and I woke up at 4:30 am on Friday morning, took a quick shower, packed our last few toiletries and were loaded into Pancha's mini-van (her mom's mini-van, if you want to get technical) at 5:15 am, exactly when Pancha said she'd pick us up (and, to be really technical, Pancha arrived about ten minutes before she said she would, since she's one of those rare cartoonists with a sense of time and how it works. Must be an editor thing).
Leia and Liz were ready more or less when they said they'd be, but our biggest snag was the other menfolk on the trip. Both of them took looooong showers sometime during the 6 o'clock hour, one or both of them didn't pack the night befor, and I both of them performed long, arcane beautification rituals before stepping outside and exposing themselves to the elements.
Anyway, we were on the road out of San Francisco around 7am (an hour later than we'd been shooting for), and with the exception of a small fender-bender in the KFC parking lot, most of the drive was fun and problem-free. There was much discussion of romance novels, much sniggering at road signs. much discussion of KFC's Famous Bowls and lots of ooh-ing and ah-ing as we drove past Mount Shasta and its surrounding area.
The photo's from the drive back which was sunny and clear the whole way. The drive to Portland was notable for many, many violent rainstorms (and one snowstorm) which generally lasted about five minutes, followed by ten minutes of clear weather, followed by more rain.
We rolled into Portland around 7:30 pm, and made it to our hotel around 8 o'clock. Fortunately for us V.I.P. Special Guests (okay, okay...us concubines of the V.I.P. Special Guests), the convention took place in a large hall just across the parking lot from the hotel. We dropped off our books and boxes at the hall, and ran into Carol Lay, who was also checking in. Carol was happy to see some people that she recognized, so she invited me and Shaenon to hang out with her and have dinner in the hotel's Tex-Mex restaurant. Although she tried to cover up her excitement, I knew that *this* was the scene in Shaenon's head about two seconds after Carol Lay invited us to have dinner with her:
Dinner was good, and we had a great time talking shop with one of Shaenon's heroes, so it was an excellent evening all-around. After dinner, we checked into our room, which had one of the most comfortable hotel beds I've ever slept on, plus a nice selection of cable TV.
After a good night's sleep, we were ready for Stumptown, the most low-pressure convention we've had in quite a while. Even at a local convention like APE, we've got to try and squeeze $200 out of a bunch of broke Bay Area comic fans if we want to break even. At Stumptown, we'd gotten a free exhibitor's table and hotel room, and gas and other trip expenses were fairly minimal, so if we'd gone through the weekend without a single sale, we were still coming out of it with a few nice perks (including a one-shot comic by Shaenon appearing in the free weekly Portland Mercury).
Here's Shaenon, enjoying our table at the start of the day on Saturday (Phil Foglio is visible at the right of the photo):
And here are Leia Weathington and Pancha Diaz staffing their table:
Sales were a bit slow all weekend, but I managed to distribute a fair number of flyers promoting my webcomic, sold enough print comics that I could make a purchase or two without feeling too guilty and was generally just happy to be at a comics convention that was filled to the brim with COMICS. Not vinyl toys. Not knitted things. Not t-shirts. Not purses. Not perfumes. Not chain mail and weaponry. Not bootleg DVDs. Not vintage Transformers and My Little Ponies. Not Hollywood development companies. No sign of Herbert "Boomer" Jefferson. JUST COMICS.
I hadn't seen anything like that since the first two APE conventions I went to, and it was a really nice change of pace.
Shaenon had a pretty successful weekend, economically speaking, partly through the sale of original artwork from Edward Gorey's "The Trouble with Tribbles," and partly through sales of books and other original strip art. As is the case with APE, I don't think there was a lot of money to be had from the convention attendees (as I mentioned here), but since I think no one went into this one expecting to clean up, we were all pretty satisfied with how everything turned out.
Shaenon's Spotlight Panel on Saturday afternoon, moderated by Chris Baldwin, went pretty well. The panel was well-attended and very informal, and everyone seemed to have a good time.
I got to catch up with Jesse Hamm (and his wife, Anna) over the weekend, and he kindly showed us two Portland highlights, Periscope Studios and Powell's Books. I also got to catch up with Steve Lieber, Indigo Kelleigh, Bill Mudron, Jen Wang, Carla Speed McNeil, Graham Annable, Garrett Izumi and about half a dozen other folks that I always see at conventions. I also took the time to meet Shannon Wheeler, who's probably been to a dozen of the same conventions I've been to, but I just hadn't gotten around to introducing myself before. I also met Jenn Manley Lee, Kip Manley and Anne Moloney, and pretty much everyone in Portland was incredibly friendly to us throughout the trip.
The hubcap-headed guy up top, posing with Dr. Eldritch, was another show highlight. Just as Sunday exhaustion started to set in, he walked through the room with his spinning-hubcap head and his funky boombox, and all was right with the world.
Sunday dinner was the roadtrip crew, Phil Foglio, Phil's faithful convention assistant Alice, Jen Wang and Jesse Hamm. We followed up dinner with another trip to Powell's (four floors of books, taking up almost a city block, more or less--it requires *at least* two trips), then the Dead Dog party at a Portland coffee shop/Internet & gaming cafe.
The return drive was pleasant, for the most part. We had a great lunch at a nice diner just off of highway 5 (something with "Heaven" in the name), and loaded up on lots of great made-from-scratch desserts.
The biggest revelation of the trip was that there's a fruit called the Marionberry, and that we weren't just hitting a whole string of diners that named their desserts after the former mayor of Washington, D.C.. Until I saw it in print on the way home, I'd just assumed that he'd grown up in Oregon, or that his recovery from crack addiction was particularly admired by Oregonians.
The last quarter of the roadtrip was when tempers started wearing thin. Shaenon passionately and angrily defended the movie "Punch Drunk Love," which marked the first time I'd ever heard her stick up for Adam Sandler. The romance novels being read aloud in the car were suddenly very sex-free and boring, and the whole car was feeling restless. No two people had to go to the restroom at the same time. Music selections from the iPods plugged into the mini-van's stereo system kept getting worse and worse. Finally, mercifully, we hit the East Bay around 9pm. We met Jason Shiga for dinner at Cybelle's Pizza, and presented him with the coveted Stumptown Trophy Award for Best Writing, given for his work on Bookhunter.
After that, we drove back to the city, dumping off passengers one by one, and eventually making it back home...and starting discussions about how to improve things when Stumptown rolls around next year.
Thanks for reading THE LAST STUMPTOWN BLOG. I think. Is anyone else later than me on this?
Who is this man, and why is he shining? Read on for details and photos:
We'd been hoping to visit Portland for a while now, ever since the mass exodus of cartoonists from the Bay Area to Oregon started about two years ago. Shaenon was invited as a Special Guest this year, and since we never turn down free hotel rooms, we decided that now would be a good time to visit.
Even better, our pals Pancha Diaz and Leia Weathington had already decided to make the trip, which meant that we could carpool our way north, allowing us to check out some great scenery and do some cartoonist bonding over the course of two 12-hour drives in the span of four days.
The initial four-passenger lineup grew to seven with the addition of Jason Thompson, Konstantin Pogorelov and Leia's friend Liz. This set off a few warning bells, since it violates one of the cardinal rules of road trips--don't travel with more than five people unless one of you has the authority to ground other people for misbehaving. Large groups need dictators to keep everyone in line. Case in point...
As per Pancha's instructions, Shaenon and I woke up at 4:30 am on Friday morning, took a quick shower, packed our last few toiletries and were loaded into Pancha's mini-van (her mom's mini-van, if you want to get technical) at 5:15 am, exactly when Pancha said she'd pick us up (and, to be really technical, Pancha arrived about ten minutes before she said she would, since she's one of those rare cartoonists with a sense of time and how it works. Must be an editor thing).
Leia and Liz were ready more or less when they said they'd be, but our biggest snag was the other menfolk on the trip. Both of them took looooong showers sometime during the 6 o'clock hour, one or both of them didn't pack the night befor, and I both of them performed long, arcane beautification rituals before stepping outside and exposing themselves to the elements.
Anyway, we were on the road out of San Francisco around 7am (an hour later than we'd been shooting for), and with the exception of a small fender-bender in the KFC parking lot, most of the drive was fun and problem-free. There was much discussion of romance novels, much sniggering at road signs. much discussion of KFC's Famous Bowls and lots of ooh-ing and ah-ing as we drove past Mount Shasta and its surrounding area.
The photo's from the drive back which was sunny and clear the whole way. The drive to Portland was notable for many, many violent rainstorms (and one snowstorm) which generally lasted about five minutes, followed by ten minutes of clear weather, followed by more rain.
We rolled into Portland around 7:30 pm, and made it to our hotel around 8 o'clock. Fortunately for us V.I.P. Special Guests (okay, okay...us concubines of the V.I.P. Special Guests), the convention took place in a large hall just across the parking lot from the hotel. We dropped off our books and boxes at the hall, and ran into Carol Lay, who was also checking in. Carol was happy to see some people that she recognized, so she invited me and Shaenon to hang out with her and have dinner in the hotel's Tex-Mex restaurant. Although she tried to cover up her excitement, I knew that *this* was the scene in Shaenon's head about two seconds after Carol Lay invited us to have dinner with her:
Dinner was good, and we had a great time talking shop with one of Shaenon's heroes, so it was an excellent evening all-around. After dinner, we checked into our room, which had one of the most comfortable hotel beds I've ever slept on, plus a nice selection of cable TV.
After a good night's sleep, we were ready for Stumptown, the most low-pressure convention we've had in quite a while. Even at a local convention like APE, we've got to try and squeeze $200 out of a bunch of broke Bay Area comic fans if we want to break even. At Stumptown, we'd gotten a free exhibitor's table and hotel room, and gas and other trip expenses were fairly minimal, so if we'd gone through the weekend without a single sale, we were still coming out of it with a few nice perks (including a one-shot comic by Shaenon appearing in the free weekly Portland Mercury).
Here's Shaenon, enjoying our table at the start of the day on Saturday (Phil Foglio is visible at the right of the photo):
And here are Leia Weathington and Pancha Diaz staffing their table:
Sales were a bit slow all weekend, but I managed to distribute a fair number of flyers promoting my webcomic, sold enough print comics that I could make a purchase or two without feeling too guilty and was generally just happy to be at a comics convention that was filled to the brim with COMICS. Not vinyl toys. Not knitted things. Not t-shirts. Not purses. Not perfumes. Not chain mail and weaponry. Not bootleg DVDs. Not vintage Transformers and My Little Ponies. Not Hollywood development companies. No sign of Herbert "Boomer" Jefferson. JUST COMICS.
I hadn't seen anything like that since the first two APE conventions I went to, and it was a really nice change of pace.
Shaenon had a pretty successful weekend, economically speaking, partly through the sale of original artwork from Edward Gorey's "The Trouble with Tribbles," and partly through sales of books and other original strip art. As is the case with APE, I don't think there was a lot of money to be had from the convention attendees (as I mentioned here), but since I think no one went into this one expecting to clean up, we were all pretty satisfied with how everything turned out.
Shaenon's Spotlight Panel on Saturday afternoon, moderated by Chris Baldwin, went pretty well. The panel was well-attended and very informal, and everyone seemed to have a good time.
I got to catch up with Jesse Hamm (and his wife, Anna) over the weekend, and he kindly showed us two Portland highlights, Periscope Studios and Powell's Books. I also got to catch up with Steve Lieber, Indigo Kelleigh, Bill Mudron, Jen Wang, Carla Speed McNeil, Graham Annable, Garrett Izumi and about half a dozen other folks that I always see at conventions. I also took the time to meet Shannon Wheeler, who's probably been to a dozen of the same conventions I've been to, but I just hadn't gotten around to introducing myself before. I also met Jenn Manley Lee, Kip Manley and Anne Moloney, and pretty much everyone in Portland was incredibly friendly to us throughout the trip.
The hubcap-headed guy up top, posing with Dr. Eldritch, was another show highlight. Just as Sunday exhaustion started to set in, he walked through the room with his spinning-hubcap head and his funky boombox, and all was right with the world.
Sunday dinner was the roadtrip crew, Phil Foglio, Phil's faithful convention assistant Alice, Jen Wang and Jesse Hamm. We followed up dinner with another trip to Powell's (four floors of books, taking up almost a city block, more or less--it requires *at least* two trips), then the Dead Dog party at a Portland coffee shop/Internet & gaming cafe.
The return drive was pleasant, for the most part. We had a great lunch at a nice diner just off of highway 5 (something with "Heaven" in the name), and loaded up on lots of great made-from-scratch desserts.
The biggest revelation of the trip was that there's a fruit called the Marionberry, and that we weren't just hitting a whole string of diners that named their desserts after the former mayor of Washington, D.C.. Until I saw it in print on the way home, I'd just assumed that he'd grown up in Oregon, or that his recovery from crack addiction was particularly admired by Oregonians.
The last quarter of the roadtrip was when tempers started wearing thin. Shaenon passionately and angrily defended the movie "Punch Drunk Love," which marked the first time I'd ever heard her stick up for Adam Sandler. The romance novels being read aloud in the car were suddenly very sex-free and boring, and the whole car was feeling restless. No two people had to go to the restroom at the same time. Music selections from the iPods plugged into the mini-van's stereo system kept getting worse and worse. Finally, mercifully, we hit the East Bay around 9pm. We met Jason Shiga for dinner at Cybelle's Pizza, and presented him with the coveted Stumptown Trophy Award for Best Writing, given for his work on Bookhunter.
After that, we drove back to the city, dumping off passengers one by one, and eventually making it back home...and starting discussions about how to improve things when Stumptown rolls around next year.
Thanks for reading THE LAST STUMPTOWN BLOG. I think. Is anyone else later than me on this?