Off bright and early to the big bad city of Toronto for the Comic Book Expo tomorrow. Not there screening any of my stuff, purely visiting for geek fan reasons alone.

Though I did work part-time on the crew for 'My Dead Girlfriend', which will be screening Sunday-September-3rd at noon as part of the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear portion of the con.

I'll return next week with sketches to share and photo's of at least one Metal Bikini Leia.

Happy Snakes On A Plane Day!!! Hope everyone has a good time skipping work, ditching out on family obligations, and dropping every single much lesser important of a thing you might have to do this day while all of us (by us I mean North America) are going to view what I'm sure will be the greatest film of the year if not all time, Snakes on a Plane. It's a great time to be alive.

Sun 23rd -

A Usagi Yojimbo sketch from Stan Sakai. The nicest guy in comics.

Last day of the con. So sad. Went back and got that Spike toy that they were giving away as a prize at the blood drive. See, I went and gave 'em my blood a couple of days ago 'cause I thought it was a humorous promotion (a vampire in trade for blood), and 'cause it would be an awesome birthday gift for a friend of mine who's b-day party happened while I was off in California. They ran out of Spike's, but I got some secret info on the QT that if I went back today there might be more. So I returned and used what little charm and charisma I could muster and tricked them into giving me one.

Didn't get an award from the film fest. Wasn't really expecting one, that 'an honour just to be accepted' cliche really is true after all. How about that? Who knew?

Bought some kewl stuff. Got a really nice 'Yeah Yeah Yeahs' concert poster and a Skull the Troll stuffed animal. Managed to ge a batch of last day sketches (Gene Ha, Zander Cannon, Josh Howard, Shannon Wheeler...). Strolled by one booth and there stood Jim Steranko. No one was bothering him, so I went up and we chatted about his current projects. Great guy, and he looks like he should be a character in a James Bond movie or be doing an interview from the Playboy mansion or something.

At the end of the day, the sarcastic voice-of god female announcer that had been updating and chastising all weekend announced that the 2006 Con is now closed. This gets a giant cheer and a big round of applause. Think everyone's just happy that they survived. I'll miss the con so. Barring imprisonment or death, I'll be back next year.

Sat 22nd -

Geek girl dressed like Phoenix. Just walking around. What's better than that?

Met a couple of very kewl NYC artists, check out their sites ( GBTRAN.com and joannarchy.com ...though the latter is 'coming soon' at the time of this writing). Went to the Robert Rodriguez / Grind House panel. Supposedly geeks were lined up since the early AM hours outside in the scorching heat all day to secure a seat. I strolled in a few minutes before show-time and got myself a 2nd row centre chair. His special surprise guest was Quentin Tarintio, along with a whole bunch of babes who are starring in the movies. They're an odd pair. Robert showed some stuff from his 1/2 of the double bill. A zombie movie in which Rose McGowan has a gun for a leg. What more could you want our of a motion picture? Later in the day was blessed to be in attendance of the Brisco County Jr panel, featuring the man himself, Bruce Campbell. This guy knows how to work an audience. I'm pretty sure that if Jesus had had a panel going at the same time, that Jesus would've gotten a pretty good turn out, but Bruce's would have a slightly longer line. He announced that they were going to be doing an autograph signing downstairs. I bolted from the room. Sprinting Ferris Bueller style the mile or so between the panel hall to the Warner Bros booth at the main convention centre. Managed to secure myself a place 2nd last in line before it was cut-off. More impressive was that I didn't cause a scene upon meeting Bruce. Shook hands, brief conversation, gave him a DVD, got a couple autographs, didn't pass out form geek-citement.

Got a lot of kewl sketches. A Tick from Ben Edlund, Flaming Carrot from Bob Burden, and one from Ahmet Zappa (yup...Frank's kid). Scored a Green Lantern ring from the DC area. Went to see the Firefly / Serenity doc 'Done the Impossible'. Hung out with Vancouver folks afterwards at the unofficial con after party thing. Including former 'Prisoners of Gravity' master-mind Mark Askwith. He works at Space (the TV channel...not in space) and was integral in getting my stuff onto Drive-In Classics.

Fri 21st -

Monique (wife of Tom) accompanied me to a Hellboy cartoon panel. We got free T-shirts. I love the free swag. Got to meet Guillermo Del Toro and Doug Jones thanks to the Pan's Labyrynth autograph session. Guillermo asked for a copy of my short films (which he got). Gave one to Doug too. Good folks, can't wait for P.L. and Hellboy II. The cool thing about San Diego, is that there's celebrity folks walking around for no other reason than geek-ness. I bumped into and had a nice lil' conversation with David Arquette. Ran into Craig, an Ottawa comic book artist friend. Strange running into someone from home amongst a crowd of some 100,000 people. He had just seen Joss Whedon walking about. I was not so lucky as to see Joss. Had great luck in the in the meeting artists and getting sketches game. The highlights were ones from Phil Hester, Erik Larsen, and David Llyod. My personal favorite is a very quick Leia sketch that I managed to get from Adam Hughes. He did it in about 5 seconds with a Sharpie. Awesome. I'm the envey of all my geeky friends.

My screening for '07-07-13' was that night. Their projector was having issues, luckily I had a back-up disc on hand (the poor bastards in front of me didn't think to bring one). It went really well. Folks in the audience seemed to genuinely applaud at the end, I answered a bunch of questions afterwards. Even better was the actress who was there to speak about the film that was on after mine...well, how can I put this diplomatically? She was a bit of a train wreck. People started sneaking out. We did the same after a while. She was just very passionate about the film and no-one else really was. Uncomfortable and hilarious all rolled into one.

At the hotel bar that night had a long conversation with Erik Larsen. Which was pretty cool, I've been reading Savage Dragon since day one. Later found myself talking with Jim Lee. Said I was looking forward to WildCats (just 'cause it's written by Grant Morrison...but I left out that). He said that he should really start working on that...I think it's gonna' be late. Met Dean Halund. He was in X-Files (one of those Lone Gunmen guys) while I was living in Vanouver years back. He also did Improv stuff with my non-blood relation big sister. Spinning from that ended up meeting and re-meeting a bunch of other Vancouver folks who knew her. Like Simpsons comic writer Ian Boothby & his lovely wife Pia. Good folks. Funny how Canadians manage to find each other during their world travels.

Thurs 20th -

Here's a sketch from Tom's artist alley neighbour and all around nice guy Drew Johnson.

Went to an incredible panel featuring my favorite writer on the planet, Grant Morrison. He was with Deepak Chopra (yes...that Deepak Chopra) discussing comic books and mythology and stuff. Whenever Grant wants to start up a crazy alien based Scientology type religion you can count me in. I'll be first in line. Then I rushed off to the Guillermo Del Toro / Doug Jones panel for 'Pan's Labyrynth'. They were a hilarious Odd Couple. A big fat friendly foul mouthed Spanish comic geek and his lil' thin polite blonde character actor mime side-kick. Somehow at one point found myself chatting with, and then over the weekend befriending, one of Rob Liefeld's entourage. I've never been a fan of Rob's art, but the nice guy reputation of he and his his posse is spot on. Got sketches from Cully Hamner and Kyle Baker amongst others.

Chatted with Amanda Conner at the after party type mingling that goes on every night once the con shuts down for the day. Had met her a couple months previous at another comic con in Pittsburgh. There's a reason that she and her partner Jimmy Palmiotti have become the possible king and queen fan favorites amongst the comic geek community. Besides for talent, they're both just plain nice. And I think that every guy who meets Amanda develops a geek crush pretty much instantaneously.

Look! A token babe dressed as slave girl Leia shot. Good times. Good times. It's much over-due (considering that I've been back on Canadian soilsince very late at night on July 24th), but here's my San Diego Comic Con update. I'll just break things up day by day so things aren't too mashed up in a mess of random yelling 'This is the coolest thing ever!' over and over again.

Wed 19th -

This is supposedly the preview night that only 4 day pass holders and pro's (that's me!) get into. Evidently there's a lot of 4 day pass holders and pro's. Upon walking into the main area of the Comic Con, one's mind is blown. I think I may have actually had a small stroke and / or heart attack. That might have just been the sun-stroke though. It's hard to explain how big of a gathering it is, except to say that it's geek for as far as the eye could see. Met Mike Mignola (but no sketch dammit). Did get sketches from genius animator BillPlympton, Scott Kurtz (PVP), the Penny Arcade guys, and the highlight of the night for me, Scott Shaw. Gushed to him that Captain Carrot was my favorite comic when I was a wee lad and he was nice enough to gimmie a sketch.

That evening I accompanied my comic artist friend (and roommate for the week) Tom Fowler to the nearby hotel where all the pro's hang out. We were staying in a condo a mere few blocks from the con, very convenient. Met Judd Wynick and managed to remain pleasant and refrain from saying 'Man...that bringing back Jason Todd story-line sure was stupid'. Then, strangely enough, met my high school gym teacher's son. What's the chances of that? And, met a fine Austrailian fellow named Shane who's writing some Zombie stuff for IDW.