Heroes 2012 belated wrap-up

So somehow we once again took almost no photos! But we've got a few, starting with this one from somewhere on US-85, probably in NC. Pulled off to get gas and this...business establishment...was across the street. There was no sign to indicate what this place was. All we know for sure is they have an ALL GIRL STAFF!

All Girl Staff.

We got in late Thursday and didn't do anything, but Friday we got up and had our table set up in plenty of time. We had a great day -- probably the best of the whole weekend, weirdly enough. To add to the greatness, our tables were adjacent to our Haus of Cute pals, Stephanie Buscema and Rob Harrigan so we got to chat with them on and off all weekend. And best of all, our BFFs Vivien and Dusty Hoffpauir arrived that afternoon to help us out all weekend (ha! didn't know you were doing that, did you?!) and join in on the fun. For dinner, Dusty found us the amazing King's Kitchen, where I can totally recommend any of the "Meat and Three" plates but have to warn you that you should plan on splitting dessert if you don't want to go into sugar shock.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and Evan headed off to the annual Drink & Draw fundraiser:

Evan with Roger Langridge at the Drink & Draw; Photo by Heather Mobley Peager

Yo! Photo by Heather Mobley Peager

Love them with money! Photo by Heather Mobley Peager

Saturday was the big day at the con, the whole Stan Lee shebang was going on all day. The hall was so crowded I actually think it may have hurt people's table sales, because attendees could barely get around! Still a good day though; and Emily "cosplayed" for the very first time (pretty sure it wasn't the last!) -- she was a sort of Golden Age Wonder Woman as interpreted by the two of us.

My little Wonder Girl!

I made it a wearable dress so that it would be reusable -- the eagle is from a 1978 Simplicity costume pattern I have, appliqued in felt onto a basic bodice with a circle skirt added. She had matching bike shorts on underneath and a set of accessories made from glitter craft foam. It was a big day for her, a good friend of hers was visiting and they had a good time running around the con. And thanks to her friend's mom (who is my friend!) Emily got sketches on her own for the very first time! A new Owly from Andy Runton, and a sketch of Marceline (from Adventure Time) from the very kind Jason Horn.

Dinner Saturday was at the excellent Diamond, which is apparently a sort of resurrection of the Penguin, which we'd been to in past years. Whatever the deal is, the menu was the same and the food was amazing. Got back to the Westin at the tail end of the art auction and ran into the amazing Paige Pumphrey (who I met last year) and her husband Phil -- she introduced us all to her friends Maria Danalakis  and Fenny  and fun was had by all until after midnight. Ahem. Luckily for me my kid is normally up that late.

Sunday was the "quiet day" and to be honest, at that point we'd been so busy all weekend it was beginning to all kind of blur.

Evan signing a book, Emily probably playing Scribblenauts. Photo by Heather Mobley Peager

I did get a chance at the very end of the show to run over to the booth Paige and her friends had -- Fenny had left but I did scoop up some awesome stuff from Paige and Maria:

Adorable pocket mirror from Maria Danalakis

Assorted Paigey goods

cute witch earrings from Paigey! The frames reminded me of Locket Kiddles!

Incredibly, even though I was right next to Stephanie all weekend I never picked up any of her seriously cute stuff --  but the totes, notebooks and jewelry are up in her shop now, do yourself a favor and check it out!

Finally the show was over and booths and tables started coming down. We've been going to Heroes for several years now and I think this was the best show yet -- Heroes is always a great con, totally focused on comics and art and the friendliest con you'll ever go to -- but this year took top honors. Even Emily did well -- she ended up selling 7 of her floral hairpin sets!!

And the official end-of con gathering was great fun as well, while I was outside hanging with the rest of the Retro Girl Gang Evan and our girl were inside having a great time too; luckily Heather Mobley Peager caught the moment on film:

Evan and Roger chat while Emily polishes off Mickey Mouse Vol 3; Photo by Heather Mobley Peager

Thanks again to everyone who makes HeroesCon so awesome, from the con and amongst the fans, and we'll see you next year! (And special thanks to Heather Mobley Peager for letting me use some of her excellent con photos!)

appearing soon!

We've got some upcoming appearances I'm a bit tardy in mentioning! First up is this Saturday, Free Comic Book Day 2012: we'll be at our local friendly comic shop Comic Book Jones from noon to...2 or 3 or so to sign our story in this (and anything else!)

The next weekend we'll be setting up at the Asbury Park Comic Con, which looks like it will be amazing fun -- it's in a bowling alley! With snack bar! Across from the boardwalk! Not sure what the schedule is but we'll be there all day. And now I have to show off the lovely featured guest graphic they made for me because I love it:

Both events should be a lot of fun, and it'll be nice to get out of the house! Maybe we'll see a few of you there!

that's what I call a comic book

Emily reading the Walt & Skeezix Sunday collection. It's awesome.

mocca and the moomin dress

This past weekend we had a heatwave -- and the 2008 Mocca art fest to attend (see pics!). Spending two days of the heatwave inside a nice air-conditioned hall was pretty alright. Until the building was evacuated on Sunday, that is. In what was supposedly over 100 degrees. But still, a good show for us, and lots of fun for Emily -- this was her fourth and she's not jaded yet!

Friday I finished her Moomin dress (using the farbenmix pattern Vida, with panels made of vintage finnish Moomin fabric, and heck was that hard to get hold of). We all love Moomins here (more on that some other day), but she is crazy for them in the way only a 3-year-old can be (note the "mymble knot" hairstyle -- this alternates with "pippi tails", i.e. pigtails as her regular style). She was so excited that her dress (starring! Little! My!) was done she insisted on wearing it to Mocca on Saturday (and then again today, to tell the truth!). I was really happy with the dress, the pattern is excellent. But here, I'll just show you! I got some cute pics of it while she was running around in our little corner.

front:



back:



I did not get a photo of the faced hem, which was a fun detail to add. if you see the underside of the skirt there is a very wide band of bright yellow dotted fabric. I needed to do a faced hem because of the Moomin fabric (I was barely ekeing those panels out as it was and couldn't afford a hem allowance!) so I decided to have some fun with it. It came out pretty cute -- even though it was extra work I will definitely do it again! The pattern was a little intimidating (so many pieces!) but actually incredibly easy and quick to put together. And lots of room to grow -- I think this dress will wear out before she grows out of it!

As an added bonus, she ate lunch out of her Moomin bento box both days (thanks uncle tim!!!) -- no photos, but it was nothing exciting (grapes, macaroni, and cutout pancakes). She was a happy Moomin-loving girl all weekend. And now...off to the shore to get out of this heat!!

Milk & Cheese toys are (almost) here!

One of our very longest-running projects has been this set of vinyl figures of Evan's Milk and Cheese...seriously, it's been years, but I won't bore you with the saga. Suffice it to say that after much work and agony on everyone's part, the figures are really truly done at last! We have a set from the first casefull and they came out even better than I had hoped. And I'm very happy with the printing on the box, which was worrying me a bit. The rest of the figures are just about to start wending their way over and will be shipping from SLG at the end of September. Preorders are being accepted now right here, and US orders get free shipping from SLG. On your whole order, so you can throw in a book or two while you're at it.

Now where we're going to put a load of these giant boxes when we get the rest of ours, I do not know!

ghosts of mocca

It's a few weeks past now, so no reason to go in to detail, but Mocca was a lot of fun this year. We only planned for me and Emily to go on Saturday, but Sunday she got upset that we weren't going so we threw clothes on and went along, and it was lots of fun. Both days we saw lots of people, got new sketches in her sketchbooks, and ate yummy dinners. She was super and had a great time. I meant to take some photos of her to match up with the ones from the past two years, but forgot..and all I got were these shots of her playing behind the gauze curtains. (On a side note, she got nice bentos both days! But I didn't take photos....)

Emily got a paper doll set from M.K. Reed, a comic from Abby Denson, and an Owly giveaway comic which she is IN LOVE WITH. (So much for the "wordless adventure" aspect - we have to actually tell her the entire story, in fact she wants to hear it every single night!) We also got some adorable comics from adorable Todd Webb which I haven't read to her yet, but I think she will be loving Tuesday Moon. We've already bought our table for next year, so maybe we'll see you there!

NYCC year 2

We went to the New York Comic Con yesterday for the trade show and a few hours of the public show -- and I'd say we liked it as much as last year if not better. We were able to meet up with several people and get some work-related stuff done, so that was good. And Emily had an awesome time, she was given cute stuff by people and dragged me over to see the BIG PIKACHU! (suspended over the Pokemon Center booth) about once an hour. We are skipping what I think will be the very overcrowded mash rush today although Evan is there on his own but we'll be going back tomorrow for more fun and hellos. It is a Big Show and not for everyone, but we had a good time.

Some highlights from yesterday:

- checking in with Funimation, who we may still be working for on Shin Chan officially fired our asses a few days later, and seeing the Shin suit making the rounds all day long, which entertained Emily a great deal Although when they took our photo with the suit she got really freaked out -- but then when they left she went "bye bye Shin-Chan! Bye bye!"

- making some plans for the monsters which I'm excited about.

- seeing old friends and meeting Vivien of Cute Salad in person for the first time, who is a crazy crafter and awesome designer, and having a nice long chat about sewing and fun clothes and shoes and things. Her husband snapped up the drawing of Lost Thomas and Emily got a little upset when she saw us handing "her Lost Thomas" away!

- picking up our New Year's Qees from the Toy2r booth and seeing all the other cool toys on display.

- on one trip back from seing BIG PIKACHU! I swung by Toy Tokyo's booth to get Emily a new Gloomy Bear. She picked out a red one she'd seen earlier and while I was paying for it they opened it up for her and she was hugging and kissing it - I noticed a guy watching her and smiling, and as we left the booth I saw that it was Mori Chack (the creator of Gloomy Bear) himself! Holy smokes! I'd have stopped to tell him how much we all love Gloomy here but he was accosted by some nut just that second who wanted to talk to him about selling Gloomy Bear here in the US. (Um, like, hello, you are right next to a booth selling a load of Gloomy Bears? They are sold here?)

- oh, and how can I forget? Emily was looking at the Julie Strain posters in the booth across from us and pointed out one in particular to me and said, "Oh, look. That mommy...that mommy is getting naked!" I actually burst out laughing. Thank god she didn't ask me why.

One downside is the astoundingly overpriced food (although they did have a funnel cake stand!), but since I had a 2 year old to feed I had stuff packed and didn't have to buy anything. And a friend of ours pointed out what may be a possibly major disaster on Saturday - the gaming area is at the far end of Artist's Alley, and both are in a separate space from the main hall. This space has a single escalator in. On Friday they were already stopping people from going up there, and while it sucks to wait forever to get to an artist you want to see, games are scheduled, and have big prize money. If people are trying to get to a game they're supposed to be in with a big prize and can't get up there...well, people have committed murders over a couple thousand dollars. I can't imagine the mayhem that will ensue if they aren't more organized today. And this will also keep people from getting to artist's alley. We'll see if he was right today, I guess. Well, Evan will I guess, since I'm here supervising a viewing of Totoro right now!

So my final show report: go! have fun, bring your own snacks, and avoid Saturday if you can.

(PS to Tenae - I did take some cute food, but no time to pack it cute! So no photos, sorry!)

(not much of a) MoCCA report

So the MoCCA Art Fest was last weekend, something we really look forward to every year -- so much so that we've already bought our table for 2007! (June 23rd-24th - mark your calendars!) Emily and I just went on Saturday (that exhausted her -- and me -- plenty). And we were pretty busy so as usual, didn't get to see a whole lot, but the show was really busy and everyone was pretty up. It's always nice to go to a show where everyone seems to be in a good mood.

Evan already posted a couple of the sketches we got in Emily's book -- we're pretty slack about getting sketches but we've got some cute ones. Besides the Gahan WIlson and Brian Lee O'Malley he posted, we got excellent drawings for her from Christine Norrie ad Todd Webb. Todd, btw, gave me some new comics that were all awesome. I didn't get any other comics myself, but Evan brought home some stuff. Haven't had a chance to look through it though.

The one disappointment of the show -- I saw Tara McPherson sitting at a table, and thought she was there for the show -- I desperately wanted to get a sketch from her in Emily's book -- not only am I a big fan, but so is Emily! At least, I think that's why she's always trying to steal my Tara McPherson Dunny from the desk. But, she was only sitting for a couple hours, by the time one of us was able to get up again she was gone. (And Evan was so swamped on Sunday he barely left the table and missed her Sunday session too!) Oh well, I doubt she does convention sketches anyway, but phooey!

Anyway, MoCCA rules as usual, at least what little we saw of it. Here's to going both day next year!

Action Girl!

Live and in person! Well, sort of. See our pal and cat-sitter's Halloween costume of Action Girl! (Circa...1999? Or thereabouts.)

the comic shop magnet

So recently we've discovered that one of Evan's superpowers is the ability to find a comic shop anytime, anyplace. It all started about a month and a half ago, when we went on a short day trip to have lunch and do some book shopping. On the way home, we decided to get back on the highway in a different direction, and what did we see? A comic shop!! A few weeks later, another day trip, and on the way we take the wrong exit off the highway (different highway). We're trying to turn around to get back on track and pull into a shopping center to do so and, you guessed it, we found another comic shop. We get to our destination, pull into a parking place randomly, literally look up through the front windshield and what do we see? Uh huh, comic shop. And finally, just a week or so ago, we take Emily to her cousin's birthday party and take an alternate route home....and pass a comic shop! It's uncanny!

And the two questions are: When and how did he develop this eerie power? and: If there are so few comic shops left, how are we finding them everywhere we go?

(In case you're wondering: Shop 1 -- we went in. Your standard large, mostly empty, all mainstream stripmall shop. Shop 2 -- didn't go in, looked like it might be decent. Shop 3 -- went in. They were just moving in, so it was very messy, but they had a huge selection that included manga, indie books, toys, magazine, etc. It was the first comic shop I've actually seen Shojo Beat for sale in! Shop 3 -- didn't go in but looked good from the road.)

more mocca

Ah, and I finally got to the very funny Animal Party, by Julie Klausner. Also recommended, and it looks like you can read it online at her site!

more on mocca

Evan already posted about our MoCCA mini-comics haul, which he looked through far more thouroughly than I did. I agree with him 100% on that Eleanor Davis story, it's amazing. I think this may be her site, but I'm not 100% sure. There could be two Eleanor Davises at SCAD. But I doubt it. Also really enjoyable (and I snagged it away so Evan didn't actually read it yet) was the completed Catfight by M.K. Reed. We got the first part of it last year (I think -- I don't remember MoCCA 2004 too well as I was holding back Emily-related nausea most of the time) so I was excited to see it finished. A really good read -- and I also highly recommend the story "Cold As Ice" on her site, I literally could not stop reading once I started!

I'm A Scottaholic

because Scott Pilgrim is Da Bob-Omb! There's only one thing about it that sucks: just two volumes are out, and #2 just shipped sooooo who knows when there will be more?

5 comics I read this year

This is not a "top" 5 in even the most tenuous and subjective manner. I have no idea what 5 comics even I liked best this year, I've probably forgot most of them and I haven't even read half the comics I bought. But since I started this end of the year silliness I might as well finish it. So here are 5 comics I read this year and liked:

1. Paradise Kiss. I've written about this before, and I still love it. Of course, it's taken—what, a whole year?—to get the last volume out (it should be out in April, I think). But worth the wait. I hope it's followed up by more of Ai Yazawa's work.

2. One Piece. Completely silly but lots of fun. Evan wanted to read this ever since we first started seeing the merchandise for it a couple years ago, and he got his wish! I hope retailers that carry it have enough of a clue to push the fact that it's a pirate comic.

3. Courtney Crumrim. I'm not totally caught up on these, but I've really enjoyed the collections so far. And look, it keeps this from being a "5 manga I liked" list, ha ha.

4. Blade of the Immortal. Okay, it kind of goes on and on, but I still haven't gotten sick of it.

5. Kodocha. Okay, I haven't read it the way a normal reader does. But I enjoyed working on this book more than I enjoy reading most comics. I can't wait until the distant day in the future when I have forgotten what happened and what I did on the book and can just read it like a new reader. And, now that I'm finished I hope to track down fansubs of the anime (I didn't want to watch them until I was done—I didn't want to be accidentally influenced by anyone else's rewriting of the series).

There's a lot of other books I read, or have in my giant stack, and I'd have to give special mentio to: I.N.V.U., Pet Shop of Horrors, X-Day, Kindaichi Files and Shadow Star. And I'm sure there's more I've liked and just can't think of. Oh well. Tune in tomorrow to see if I can actually come up with one last list!