+Intervention 2011
Its an age of MERCHANDISING (MERCHANDISING!)
// Cei and I were the first to buy a copy at the Guilded Age booth during Intervention. Its no surprise they sold out rather quickly. The creators were kind enough to give us some of their time, talk about the comic and even included some free stickers! It was just outright great to meet em.
Edit 9/24/11: Iunno what I was trying to tiptoe around when I first wrote this, but I think general work fatigue mussed up my mental state. So let me give a stab at this minus the "drink the koolaid" tone.
Intervention was a fine convention. Although the disorganization of some panels was surprising, if not disheartening, I think such matters can be easily corrected with time. Re-tooling of the panel discussions with things such as layout/discussion plans or distinctions of lecture panels vs on-the-fly conversational panels will clear up plenty. Having such a general topic as the "internet" doesn't assist in roping the curriculum easily. Fine tuning takes time. I'm sure the raffle incident for example will not happen again (or least hope it won't). Namely the experience reminded me of the unknown and discreet days of Bakacon before becoming the now gargantuan Sakuracon. Rough, "whacky", somewhat all over the place, but still rather fun.
Should it continue to embrace webcomicing and online ventures it will eventually line up with prominent conventions. I plan on going again next year, hopefully this time with a booth to share with team hiev.
And like all conventions, this experience fell into "hang with friends and eat a shitton of amazing food". Joe's is damnably tasty Szechuan, albeit painful. A delicious, wonderful pain.