I’m back!!! Reportback coming soon. I’m pretty beat. All in all, it was my first con where I was there as an invited guest and panelist. There was plenty good and educational, but so much more that turned out to be shocking and pretty terrifying. More coming soon.
This was not my first convention by any means, having been to the last 2 comics conventions in New York. But it was the first where I was there as an invited guest, tabler, and panelist. It was also my second excursion into Boston. I was there around 11 years ago, mostly passing through since I was on a road trip to New Bedford with my best friend at the time. There was an added element of terror since I was making this long train trip alone with just my DS and a copy of Tactics A2 to keep me entertained. It did the trick. Another horrifying tangent was that I was also to do 3 panels, one about Webcomics 2.0, another about my webcomic, and a last one talking about the manga storytelling process. Though I’m somewhat of a natural when it comes to public speaking, I never get over the shakes.
Day 1
I arrived at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge on Friday around noon, a little early for the con, which was setting up for 4PM. I checked into my room, dumped all my stuff near the door and inspected my room a bit. Unfortunately, the view from my room didn’t overlook the river and greater Boston. I got the ass end of the hotel, a pretty fitting initiation for a D-list comics artist like myself. I then stepped out and explored the lobby and came upon the hotel’s restaurant, the Zephyr on the Charles (quit snickering, you). I made the mistake of treating myself to the open buffet, unaware that it cost like 16 bucks. After paying my bill, I returned to my room and turned on the TV but pretty much everything worth watching cost 10 bucks and over to watch, so I just turned it off and started calling random people on my cell to kill time ’til the convention opened.
Quarter to 4 rolls by and I’m heading to the lobby to find Steve. Steve Horton is the writer of the book I illustrated last year. He was also the one who hooked me up with this free trip to pimp our work and wares. I came ill-prepared, not having any books or merchandise to sell, save for Webcomics 2.0 and rushed flyers for my webcomic. After roaming around for a few minutes, I locate him. This is the first time I’m meeting the guy in person, so I pretty much shadowed the first person who resembled the weak photo on the con’s website. Lo and behold, I spot a guy with a box labeled Cengage, which was the publisher of our book.
Far be it from me to openly shit on someone else’s labor, but the convention was terribly organized. Steve and I didn’t have an assigned table and this wasn’t an exclusive situation. Apparently lots of folks tabling at the con didn’t have designated spots at the convention, so the rule of the day turned out to be open-air table poaching. Our first table ended up next to a drafty-ass door exposing us to the best that late autumn Boston weather had to offer. Our second poaching effort landed us 2 tables away, behind the restroom pillar. I ended up having to draw a sign entitled “Awesome Stuff behind this pillar” to let people know we were there. It was done graffiti-style and with a few miscellaneous drawings around it, including a Wilford Brimleyesque old man, a drawing of one of my webcomic characters, Riotgirl, and some random animu shit.
We tabled next to a pudgy cosplayer selling his friend’s book entitled “Anything I Ever Really Needed To Know I Learned From Anime”. I fell out of the anime fandom some years back so I wasn’t going to sacrifice any of my limited scratch on an anime book. Pudgy cosplayer guy was in his best Vash the Stampede outfit and had all his random animu drawings splayed out on his friend’s table. They were all kindergarten level. I kinda pitied the guy and had a mind to buy one of his pieces as a commemoration of my first tabling experience, but that pity would soon vanish. Dude had too much Joss Whedon growing up and would spit out the coolest thing his brain could convincingly try to pass as wit. Uh…no. He’d commit more egregious sins beyond the 8th deadly sin of Whedonism the following day, but more on that later.
I thankfully managed to get away from the chaos of the ill-run convention for a little dinner. The organizers set up a room full of deli meats, bread, condiments, cheap junk food, and various little snacks and desserts for themselves, volunteers, and guests of the convention. Anyone looking for decent nutrients was shit out of luck in that room so I stocked up purely on a good helping of forest ham, swiss, whole wheat bread and mayo, not realizing this would be my main food source for the following mornings. Not that it was bad, it was pretty tasty, but I’m entertaining veganism at the moment and the delectable deli flesh wasn’t helping at all. I’d say the most entertaining moment in that room was hearing the husband of the lady organizing the entire event air out his issues to other organizers while getting his food ready. He made mention of the first convention his wife organized, which prompted me to ask him how it went overall. It inspired an abject look of post-traumatic, war-inflicted horror on the bald man’s face, a nigh-timeless pause, and him eventually saying ” I lost 90,000 dollars.”
Fan traffic was flaccid on Friday and much of what would pass by were smatterings of jailbait, mostly there as a result of 2 cast members from the recent Twilight flick, whom were to appear later that night at the con. I did have a mind to get some convention pussy, but practically all the pickings were in the statutory rape category. It’s even creepier when their folks are around to remind you of the rapeworthiness. We eventually tired of being behind that lobby pillar and decided to poach a better spot.
There was an unclaimed table next to the elevators. I was a little surprised it wasn’t poached earlier. Our new spot was directly across from possibly the most impressive tablers at the entire con, an art/commission outfit self-entitled “ZodiACK! Productions”. Mind you, their wares exhibited the worst elements of amateurish girly animu, but they rolled deep and were EXTREMELY well organized and prepared to clean house. We also sat right next to a dude pimping his furry superhero comic, SAM, Fate:Revolution. The sheer awfulness of the free souvenir booklet I got from his table merits its own post, but for now I’ll just let their website speak for itself. It’s possibly the first time I’ve seen a bronto furry mechanic in action. It also brings up further taxonomical questions as to whether or not an anthropomorphic brontosaurus qualifies as a “furry” since the animal is reptilian and therefore has no fur to speak of.
9PM rolls by and Steve and I are ready to call it a night. I bought a few hard-to-find manga books from a pretty good dealer, then rolled out to bed. I got really awesome reactions throughout the day for my portfolio display. I had pencils from a new series I’m working on with one of my bestest buds called “The Tower”. It got the most reaction and head-turning from elevator passers-by. I’m redoing the pencils sometime soon, but for now they don’t look half-bad. The only emphatic reaction I got for my own work on Edge came from a pair of Japanese dudes who happened upon the original art for Aryel’s boobies. I still remember the lightning-fast thumb uppage. 
I slept well that night, if without any pleasurable ahem…companionship, in an extremely comfy king-sized bed, completely unprepared for the following weaboo mania that would transpire the following day.
To be continued in Day 2, coming soon!
Back from MTAC! Feel free to ask questions and provide comments. I’ll be doing a short reportback soon and officially announcing the ETD book. If you haven’t bought it, BUY IT NOW! Get the first 7 chapters of ETD with print quality superior to any pixely ass computer screen and new covers for Chapter 6 and 7! Have it all in the palm of your hands! 
