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Sunday
Well, the arms felt all better at least. I think the long sleep helped a lot. I still got up early on a lovely Fall day to go for walkies into town, passed the statue of James Cook which someone had crowned with an Angler fish mask over his head. I made a sketch. I found the Blue Fox Café I remembered from years ago. Long line up. The tables are decorated with customer drawings of the Blue Fox under glass, so I did one on a napkin. Unfortunately, when some jam spilt on the cover of the book I was reading I couldn’t use the napkin to clean it up! I wandered away from the tourist district, lots of old buildings in Victoria. It’s quite nice here, although obviously little Victoria is not immune to big city problems like homelessness. I picked up a few books from Russell’s and went back to the con, arriving slightly late but I don‘t suppose it mattered. 10-5. Once again the first couple of hours were slow and it didn’t get much better later on… might’ve made $12 the whole day. Still, more than local hero Gareth! The cheese in the packed lunch I’d brought with me from Vancouver was starting to get moldy, my peanut butter sandwich was stale. Sitting there I drew a mini-comic about how I’m going to “cutify” my art to appeal to a younger audience. People were packing up and leaving an hour early, I felt obligated to stay but I started packing up a half hour early. I was anxious to get on the 5:45 bus to the ferry. Another soul destroying comic book convention experience, I’m afraid I’ve been left behind… I do better at book festivals, I gotta get to Stumptown someday. I don’t think I’d ever been on such a crowded charter bus or ferry. Even on a clearish November night it was warm enough to sit outside on deck and watch the islands go by lit by a full moon. Despite everything I really can’t complain about the way I was treated, free table, free hotel, transport paid for… after my expenses and book shopping the whole trip cost me about $20. Now the cat doesn’t want to leave my side…
Nice to know she misses me.
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Saturday Up early again, brekky at the hotel. My table was in the back corner of the room. Open doors at 10AM, closing at 7PM. A long haul, but the last time I did this con we were at our tables for twelve hours! I don’t think anyone came near my table for the first three hours or so. My admittedly aged, doleful, glowering face doesn’t help but it’s hard to be bright and cheerful when one is fighting to stay awake with tea and trail mix with still swollen arms and the boring hours just drag along. I don’t think I belong at comic cons anymore. The people who were getting all the attention around me were drawing pretty/cutesy/anime/ manga/steam punk/fantasy type art without stories, cos-players and role play gamers, niches I don‘t belong in… they were not really interested in my ugly, badly drawn, colourless story-based comics. After 5 hours I think I made $12. Behind me were two brothers from the US who did a superhero online comic or all ages that got a lot of attention, Smash, nice guys. There were a lot of people in costume, particularly as there was a zombie walk going on… it‘s hard to have a casual conversation with someone with a rotting face make up and dripping “blood“. I got a few older comic collector types who remembered me from way back when. I drew character portraits of the cast of this alternative history comic I’ve been thinking about for awhile now and tried not to be too unapproachable… “Remind me to smile“*… Sales picked up a little when the zombies arrived, freaky weirdoes alternative types who are more my target audience. “Zombie Jesus” Robin Thompson was a no show although Kelly was there. My big “celebrity moment” happened when I was in the restaurant ordering some tea Margot Kidder, Superman’s girlfriend, came in to return a fish salad. She said the fish wasn’t fresh. Afterwards I had nothing to do, no one to hang out with, so I went out to a Nando’s chicken I’d spotted the day before and waded through the crowds of drunk Halloween revellers. My favourite costume was the woman dressed up as her Facebook page. I passed by a group dressed up in full Arabian nights costumes, the thing is they looked like they actually might be Arabs! I started to fade fast so I went back to my hotel room to watch TV and try to get some sleep. I only got that chance when the party next door wrapped up about 11... Quite reasonable for a con night, really. *Gary Numan 
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Friday
Going to a con in Victoria, I’m a little anxious as it’s really the first out of town event I’ve done since the diabetes diagnosis, not sure how the disruption to my diet and routine will affect me. I woke up ridiculously early, 5 AM, to begin my trek to Victoria. I wanted some time before the con to see the city again. My arms were still painful and badly swollen from Wednesdays flu shots. I was loaded down with stuff, mostly comics in a backpack, rolling suit case, shoulder bag and my homemade two mini-comic display cases bungeed in an fibreglass Ikea bag… mini-comics fit nicely into CD cases. It’s not as easy to carry so much now I have less body mass. Humped down to the bus depot, got on the 7:30 coach. I was surprised how full it was considering it’s not tourist season. Always lovely going through the Active Pass. I wonder what it must be like living on one of those isolated homes perched on a rock surrounded by trees on one of those islands? I think I’d go squirrelly…
Arrived in Victoria as the Olympic torch bullshit was wrapping up, the crowds breaking up. I was supposed to be picked up at the bus depot but what with the street closure chaos after awhile I walked it. I had a fairly good idea where the hotel was and found it without too much trouble. Wow, my own hotel room… I called my old war gaming friend Dan, dragged him from his cubicle and we went for a wander around Victoria looking at bookstores. Victoria is well supplied with fine used bookstores! I hadn’t been to Victoria in about 8 years but I found my way around quite well, not a lot changes here. In Russell’s Books Dan had to go back to work while I carried on wandering. Last time I was in Victoria I’d bought this tea blend, Pacific Sun, more or less as a joke. It was the most flowery/fruity black tea I’d ever seen, very West Coast. I’d recently run out but I found the same tea shop and got some more. I found “Legends“, the Schuster award winning comicshop (one of three on the same block) and chatted with Gareth Gaudin of Perogie Cat fame. I found one of those “books that I’ve been looking for used for decades” books, “Battle in the Civil War” on the next block. Excellent reference for the wargamer. The people in the Games Workshop shop were just too creepy.
I went back to the hotel for the opening reception. This was the Victoria “Comicon” but it was also a sci-fi con, there were a lot of TV/movie industry people, minor celebrities. I only recognised one, the hologram doctor guy from one of the Star Treks. Said hello to the Champions of Hell gang. Somehow I seem to spend much of the evening chatting with make up people, explaining how my skin allergies to cosmetics prevented me from being a big star…. Sob… I was chatting with this guy who’d done the make up for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I had to admit I hadn’t watched. I did talk to one cartoonist, this one guy who was coming out with his own comic after working on Spawn… he said Spawn wasn’t a superhero comic because everyone in it , including Spawn, was evil… okay, sure, whatever you say. Steve Rolston and co’ arrived late. I went to bed.
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I've been watching the news, things are starting to get serious with the swine flu. I'm going to a convention in Victoria on the weekend, lots of exposure to peoples bugs so I wanted to make sure I got my shot. I have priority, having diabetes within my age bracket, the people who are most likely to die from swine flu are ones with "preconditions". So I made an appointment with my doctors office for Wednsday, like the experts told us to do. Simple, right? It was only when I arrived at the doctors office that they informed me they'd run out of the vaccine. I thought because I had an actual appointment they might've put one aside for me, but no. You think they might've called me and told they were out but nope. The clerk did call ahead to find a clinic that was distributing the vaccine still. So, I was fairly furious when I was given the address of a clinic on Commercial and hopped on a packed transit bus (the kind you're supposed to avoid during an epidemic) with some old Asian guy coughing out his lungs without covering his mouth trying his best to infect everyone around him. Transfered bus, got to the right block. Walked into the wrong clinic (just a couple doors down from the other clinic) and made an ass of myself when they refused to give me the vaccine... what the fuck? We called ahead!? When I left I discovered the line up for the other clinic inside the mall. It went pretty smoothly after that, of course there was a long wait (I had #90) so I sat on the floor reading a Harpers, calming down and trying to ignore the idiot child pounding on everything in sight. I finally got to the clinic, they gave me three shots, the H1N1, the seasonal flu and one that's supposed to be a once in a lifetime protection against pnuemonia. Afterwards my lips felt fuzzy so they kept me there for an hour to see if I was going to go into shock. I was overdue for my mealtime, it's important with diabetes to eat regularly, but I hadn't packed a lunch... I didn't expect to be out all afternoon. They found me some carrots, cheese & crackers. The people at the clinic were really very nice considering how much pressure they were on, long hours swamped by anxious people and screaming kids. After some deep breathing the fuzzyness went away and they let me go. I walked home, repacked and went to my weekly Cloudscape meeting mostly just to hang out. I felt exhausted but otherwise fine until I went to bed that night. I woke up soon afterwards, my arms were weak, aching and sore, I couldn't sleep... I gave up on sleeping finally. After awhile the pain lessened, although I still feel tender in both arms. Packing for trip tomorrow, tidying for the cat sitter. I'm just glad getting the shot is over and done with.
Colin
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Busy day Friday.
First I went to a reception for “Drippytown, Vancouver Life Through the Eyes of Independent Cartoonists” at the Main Library at University of British Columbia. It’s an exhibit of cartoonists work put together by the library students of the UBC SLAIS “Visual Arts and Performing Arts Special Collections” course using comics from the UBC Rare Books & Special Collections archives. Featuring the work of myself, Julian Lawrence, James Lloyd, Ken Boesom, Josue Menjivar and Jason Turner. It’s on until January 31st in the reading room of the Rare Books & Special Collections reading room in the Irving K. Barber Centre, 1961 East Mall.
It’s open to the public but as it’s a secure reading room (rare books you see) you have to put packs, bags and coats in the lockers provided to get in.
Anyway, I went up to the opening reception to chat with the students, teachers, archivists from UBC and other institutions (it’s a small world, archiving). It felt gratifying to be treated as something of a minor celebrity, having my picture taken with the students who were in charge of my section, signed a copy of the poster and drinking as much tea as I could handle… the table was full of delicious home baked cookies and such the students made and which I couldn’t eat… Julian Lawrence arrived, then James Lloyd with Susan Ferguson (who is not yet in the archives but we’re working on it). Ken Boesom was supposed to be there but we fear he may have gotten lost and missed the reception.
After the reception we went down to the reading room to view the five glass cases housing the display, an introductory case, Josue/Turner, Upton/Boesom, Lloyd/Julian and an “extro” case. The write ups were good, they made a connection I found interesting, that of the cartoonist’s fascination with travel, through SPACE and TIME. In the intro and extro cases they had other books, Angela’s Cloudscape cover for “Robots, Pine trees and Broken Hearts“, Cloudscapes “Historyonics” (opened at my Pig War spread) and an honest to God real live Canadian White from 1944! Canadian Whites were comics published during WW2 when importation of American comics was banned. Colour covers with B&W interior art thus “Canadian Whites“. I’ve read about them for years but I’d never seen one in the flesh. Worth going to see for that alone!
Afterwards I had time to kill so I went to the library stacks and I stumbled across the comics studies section! I read about Brit-comics, Japanese otaku (obsessive fans) and comics from India. Later I went to my favourite Granville Island hang out, Gi’s Gelato & Coffee Café to work on a mini-comic and meet Robin “Inkstuds “ Mc Connell. I’d gotten us tickets to see Douglas Coupland in conversation with Seth at the Readers and Writers Festival. Doug and I used to hang… in high school… and art school… I also did some historical research for his War of 1812 memorial in Toronto… anyway, enough of that. We sat in the front row with Ken Steacy (who’d come over from Victoria for this and who also worked on the War of 1812 memorial) and his wife, whose name I ashamed to say I forgot already… I’m bad with names…
Ken and I got “shout outs” from Doug, mostly referring as to how “wildly eccentric” cartoonists are, obsessive about collecting and history… I was tickled.
It was a great evening listening to two intensely witty and intelligent men talking about comics. Seth spoke with the poignant sadness and acceptance I‘ve read in his comics. Afterwards I finally broke down, borrowing enough money from Robin to buy a copy of George Sprott and got it signed. Seth did a lovely sketch with each book, treating everyone who came to have a book signed as a real person. I ran into Kit Krieger, my history teacher from High School and (along with my art teacher Ms Andrews) were my special favourites. He remembered me well too. His brother draws political cartoons for the Province newspaper and he was there too. I went to talk to him 30 years ago about a career in political cartooning!
When the signing was done we went to a literary party at a hotel, chatted with Sean Cranbury and Haida manga artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, who was launching a book with Douglas and McIntyre, Red Stump. On my way out I ran into Seth again having a smoke, he told us how he’d been in a B&W minstrel show in school… in 1971!
I walked home, glad I managed to completely miss the torrential downpour that happened that day…
Good day…
Colin
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