APE 2008 / San Francisco Vacation Report!
Originally published at House of Scott. You can comment here or there.
I’ve been back since Tuesday, but I’ve been unwinding and putting the regular life back together since then. The above photo is pretty much the epitome of the trip. Comics, good friends, inside jokes, and a free continental breakfast. Photos are uploaded, thoughts gathered and the full report with poorly composed photos are after the cut! Do you dare discover what transpired?
Day One where Scott discovers the best Halloween costume ever.
Thursday morning at the butt crack of dawn I drove down to Seattle with Jack and Jeff to catch a flight to San Francisco. It was all pissy and rainy but we made it there in one piece and made it through all of the useless security measures and found my seat on the Disney themed plane. Turned out our Alaska Airlines plane was one of those ones with Mickey Mouse emblazoned on the side. But it also had Disney music on the muzac inside. There was one kid on the flight.
But it was my first time in a plane in twenty years so I was a little giddy with excitement. Hence the out the window shots of the wing. The whole takeoff experience almost has me wishing I became a pilot. When we broke free of the clouds and into the blue sky was an almost religious experience.
Took public transit to the Hostel which turned out to be a much nicer place than I was expecting. An old hotel with two sets of bunk beds in each room and a private bathroom for each room made for a pleasant stay. Plus either chance of a thoughtful staff but the other room of people I was travelling with right across the hall.
So we kicked back and relaxed until Angela, Jon, Steve and Sam arrived. I had booked a room for Sam but never met him before, being a friend of Angela’s. Really nice guy, and funny to boot, so he fit in well.
Since it was Halloween, I packed a costume and found out first hand how awesomely San Francisco embraces Halloween. I donned my Charlie Brown costume and hit the streets to the APE mixer at Last Gasp Books. It was a great party held in a great bookstore. A tonne of people were in costume and we had the full run of the place. If you haven’t been, imagine Costco but nothing but indie/ art books are in stock. Heaven. Plus there’s a museum room with some fantastically bizarre taxidermy and a beautiful collection of side show act paintings.
There’s a few more pictures in my Flickr account.
The only downer for the evening was that they were down to red wine when we got there, not a huge fan of red wine but, any port in a storm… good grief that was a terrible joke.
Day Two where Scott drops a whole bunch of names.
Woke up, ate breakfast and beat the rain to the convention hall. Then the rain came and beat the attendees into a wet and sour mood. Can’t say sales were great, even good, the people seemed to be in a mood for the big names that day, but I got to meet a bunch of great people who drifted by the table. Mike Daley was nearby, Mario Hernandez, Johane Matte, Erika Moen, and a whole bunch of fabulous people were stopping by the booth to talk to one of us or another.
After the damp con the weather cleared up and it was time for an afterparty, but first, dinner. I must have had a horseshoe up my butt that day because I got to tag along with a bunch of the Day Free Press people and friends for dinner. Fortunately I kept my cool as a dined with Jeff Jacques and his wife Christie, Aaron Diaz, David Malki, Chris Yates and the fine folk I travelled with. After some great stories it was off to the Isotope Award Party!
Held at Isotope Comics it was a packed room where I met a bunch of people who’s names I can no longer remember. About the only one I can remember is Alina Pine. Wait, it’s coming back to me now, there were a bunch of people from Boston Comics Roundtable there too. If we chatted there, let me know so I can try and jog some memories. I feel kind of bad about it. But the drinks were flowing poured by the hand of a big wig at Top Shelf Comics, Brett Warnock and I got drunk to the point where I thought it’d be a good idea to take pictures of peoples crotches as I was talking to them. Most were out of focus. I don’t think I made many enemies that evening.
The Isotope Award went to Jonas Madden-Conner for his wonderful book Ochre Ellipse. Congrats! I’m pretty sure I was talking to him before he won, it’s all kind of blurry now. After that it was time for bed in preperation for another day behind the table at the con!
Day Three where the Dead have their Day.
The con went by without anything too exciting happening. Some sales, some trades, some lovely conversations with so many people I’m afraid I’m forgetting names. One of the guys from Triptych (I think it was something like that, I had a business card from them and I’ve lost it!) Press came by and said how much he dug my contribution to Historyonics, which made my day. I’m going to have to dig around so I can link these guys properly.
After the con, we dragged all our stuff back to the Hostel and headed out for Día de los Muertos. Being a Canadian, I’ve never seen a celebration like this. It was so beautiful to see these shrines around trees and people in beautifully crafted makeup with live music all over the place. I’ll end this post with some photos from that night because I’m sure you don’t want me blathering on about my trip to Alcatraz and my wet ride on a trolley car, but you can see the photos on my Flickr feed starting from Day One.
