I'm a month out of date here, but I've finally got a few minutes of free time to make note of my trip to the Wizard World Chicago Comic Con. I went about six years ago, and the convention has really developed a lot since then. The Armada came out in force for this baby - I was joined by fellow Deviants , , and , along with my wife, Wendy, and our friends Mary (wife of Gene [genekelly]), Amanda (wife of Travis [visway]), Fletcher, Professor and The Doug. Spent a lot of time hanging at the booth of Joshua Hagler - a San Francisco based artist/writer that Fletch and I grew up with. As kids, we used draw silly superhero comics and play Heroes Unlimited together. He once told me, in our youth, that if I was ever to be comic artist, it would be for Vertigo. Which is ironic, once you see his style these days. Now Josh is the real deal, with a book called "The Boy Who Made Silence". He sold a ton of the first issue at his booth in artist alley, and you should check him out here: [link]

Also ran into and briefly spoke with , and our group was joined for a fine dinner at Giordanos by the extremely talented .

I had a crazy good time at the con, scouring the place for discount trade paperbacks and picking up a lot of indie and small press stuff. Talked with Jeff Lemire and bought his fabulous "Tales from the Farm" trade (a b&w emotive masterpiece - go gets it) and the head of Top Shelf press - who was responsible for hooking me up a few months back with a 40 minute interview with Alan Moore (yes, THE Alan Moore) and a comp copy of "Lost Girls" in miraculous 3 volume hardcover.

Yapped with Zach Miller about his collected "Joe and Monkey" strips, of which I purchased the first, "Totally Boned". Zach's a really nice cat and he graced my book with a sweet inked sketch of his character, Kleptobot. The strips are pretty off kilter but quite entertaining, and now that bastard is going to get more of my money as I order the rest of the books.

Had a fine discussion with colorist Thompson Knox about the state of freelancing in the world of comics. His work has appeared in Whedonverse books like "Angel" and "Spike", along with a lot of other stuff.

I enjoyed the hell out of the whole experience except for driving in Chicago, which I do not miss at all. Everybody at the con was incredibly sweet and polite. While I'm usually a big panel guy at cons, this time I spent most of the 3 days just roaming the floor, soaking up the positive vibes of being surrounded by my people.