Made it to my parents’ place in Pennsylvania! Long drive, all tollways, nothing exciting.
The Con rundown…
Sales varied–print sales were down, sketchbooks were up. (Verified this with the other artists in the dealers room) Didn’t get much chance to take advantage of sketchbook sales, since they had me GoHing it up on panels, but that was okay. People, if you ever get a chance to be a GoH at Midwest Furfest, take it in a heartbeat–they treat their guests VERY well. The Con was very well run, no snags anywhere that I saw, deeply helpful staff–I’d name names, but we’d be here all night. (Tom, Dan, Jenwolf, Datahawk, Linnaeus…damnit…see? See?! Lots of others as well. Although Jenwolf gave me a “Ganesha Loves You” button, so she gets another mention, since people kept complimenting me on it.)
Hung out with…well, a lot of people. Saw Pseudo-Manitou and Leona again, long time no see, hung out, had dinner, and like angels of mercy, they ran my table when I had to dash off, and kept me entertained when I tried to paint warrior guinea pigs at 1 AM and was punchy as hell. Met my evil nemesis, the charming Graveyard Greg, who writes what is either the number two or number three comic on Graphicsmash, depending on how you measure such things. (Digger is the other one that’s either number two or three, so we are required by law to be nemeses. But it’s fun, and allowed us to heap cordial invective on one another whenever we passed in the halls. *grin*) Hung out with the Sofawolf guys, who are fabulous, as always, and had the table next to us. My book debuted! (Should be available on-line very soon–as in, today or tomorrow. I signed a box worth of copies, so if you order soon, you have a chance to get a signed copy–I know some people were asking how to get one. I don’t know how long that supply will last, mind you, not that I’m encouraging people to buy ’em RIGHT THIS MINUTE. GO NOW! NOW! NOW! or anything. *grin* (Particularly since they may not be up yet. www.sofawolf.com Go now! Now! *ahem*)
The other GoHs were also great–if they don’t think better of it in the cold light of sobriety (and who could blame them?) and if I can get the sketches looking cute enough, Scribblefox and White Fox the fursuit designers may be sold on a lumpy squirrel fursuit (ideally with cute, googly eyed botfly larvae.) Would that be awesome or what?
Did not get a chance to hang with the other artists as much as I’d like, since I was running from pillar to post most of the time, but we did trade a lot of prints, t-shirts, etc, so I’m well stocked with snazzy prints (and a cool necklace from Tarliman!)
Art show did pretty well, sold about half of it, have a lot of art left over, which will go on-line once I’m back home.
Strangest incident in an elevator–a gentlemen got on, read my badge, and said “Furfest? Oh! Well, what’s the state of the industry like?”
Slightly baffled, I said, “Well…the economy tanked, so it’s down a bit, but not bad…”
“Really?” he said. “So is there even any mink industry left in America?”
I reflected briefly, as I picked up my slightly dropped jaw, that he was lucky he had gotten me, and not one of the people who would attach themselves to his head like an alien facehugger, screaming obscenities. “Oh, look…” I said, “this is my floor…”
And that’s about it…I’m forgetting a lot, I’m sure, but I’ll either have a more complete post later, or it’ll trickle out in bizarre anecdotes over the next year.
