Burnhamania!

Here we go, to the best recollection of my allergy-addled brain…

For the sake of the page, I’m going to put a break right… about… here.

THURSDAY.

I was feeling low energy from the night before, but, really looking forward to the con, I wake up at 9:30, pack up my car, and hit the road by 10am. Lots of road work to slow my pace. I hit the Twin Cities by 12:30, and pick Gordon Purcell up to tagalong on the road to Chicago.

8:30pm. After taking a few wrong turns, I finally make it to Willowbrook, IL, and the hotel I’m staying at. I meet up with Scott McCullar, one of my best pals whom I haven’t seen in two years.

9:00 – off to dinner at the Patio with Scott, Gordon, and the lovely and talented Ethan Colchamiro. Had some good pasta. We closed the place down and wound up discussing all manner of geek thises and thats until around midnight… and then, blessed sleep.

FRIDAY.

Got to the con, still exhausted from the drive down and — and I didn’t figure this out ’til later — the “non-drowsy” Claritin I took to combat this hellish allergy season. I was running at half speed, but trying to shift upwards. Met up with Josh Elder, Katie Doland, Russell Lissau and the others of the Reading With Pictures booth. Sketched a little bit and then made my way off to see the con.

I must say, the view of the Chicago skyline from McCormick place was BEAUTIFUL. Wish my iPhone could’ve taken a better pictures, but the sunshine kinda hindered my efforts.

Anyway. Saw lots of keen costumes even on Friday. Wandered around looking for Frank Cho (whom I found, and purchased his latest Sketches & Scribbles book) and Butch Guice (who wasn’t at his table.) I had to beg my way out of the Friends of Cho dinner on Friday night (Complicated scheduling issues — partly because I was the ride for several folks who were eating elsewhere. Couldn’t reconcile!) Got Frank to scrawl his signature on S&SV and went on, happy with my purchase.

Later in the day I finally found Butch signing at the Marvel booth, sitting at the head of one hell of a line — the man is a superstar, despite his downplaying of that fact.

Drove to a Giordano’s pizza in Wrigleyville after the show — and got a table right away on a Friday! — to have a quiet meal with Scott McCullar while Gordon hit the Parthenon in Greektown (I was invited, but despite my Greek roots, the cuisine and my stomach don’t get along.)

After dinner, everyone was exhausted. Back to Willowbrook and a heavy sleep.

SATURDAY.

Woke up too early, and allergy pains were turning the screws on my temples.

Scott McCullar, fatigued from a work-related trip previous to the convention, begged off the rest of the weekend and headed home.

I did spot Butch Guice, though. He was signing like a madman, though not doing sketches. (I would have loved to have tried to talk him into drawing me something, but trying to get special treatment would have made me a dick to all those disappointed folks walking by with sketchbooks… or even worse, opened the door for them to plead their case.) That said, I did get to chat with him for a half an hour or so, which was nice — haven’t gotten to talk with him for almost a decade! Got my brother a couple of Birds of Prey signed and left Butch to the mercy of the oncoming crowds. As a side note: I saw some photocopies of upcoming CAPTAIN AMERICA pages. Wow. Just wow.

Lots of great costumes on Saturday; wish I’d had the presence of mind to take some pictures.

And the day wore down and on. Paid $12 for a slice of pizza, bag of chips, and a pop. Yowza.

I attended the IDW GI Joe panel, moderated by the good-natured Andy Schmidt… looking for a MASS device fan somewhere, anywhere. I went up to say hello to Andy after the panel. Know what a good idea is, when introducing yourself to someone? Don’t be wiped out and loopy from allergies. Hope the impression I made wasn’t incredibly horrible.

As the show came to a close on Saturday, I popped over to the Challengers Comics booth to get up and out to the store-sponsored IDW Premiere Party.

Chris Ryall, Scott Tipton and myself were ferried over to the shop in a knuckle-whitening ride through the streets of Chicago. A Count Chocula bobblehead mocked us from the dash like the angel of death as the car’s driver, the lovely Christina, talked a mile a minute (slightly slower than she was driving.) When we made it to the shop, she confessed to being a mite hopped up on Rock Star. It was epic. Friendly girl. I liked her.

So we’re at the shop, milling about, talking to folks. Other party attendees included Menton Matthews III (and his awesome beard), Andy Schmidt, the aforementioned Ryall and Tipton, and Max Brooks. There were a couple of others, whose names I caught but didn’t keep. (The noise level beats down my less than perfect hearing to a pretty low level.) Max Brooks’ geek credibility: amongst other things, the ability to name, rapid-fire, the names of the Spaceknights.

I left the party roughly at midnight, cabbing it back to the convention center, picking up my car, and eventually making it back to the hotel.

SUNDAY.

So tired. So, so tired. Purchased some gifts, made the last rounds, texted, said my goodbyes, and finally hit the road back to Minnesota at 4:50. One stop along the way for A&W — tap root beer for the win — and a straight shot home, which I reached at 3:30 am.

Still recovering.

It was an exhausting several days, but there were a good ten hours of awesome in there.

Enjoyed meeting the rest of the Reading with Pictures crew and hope to work with them on their next anthology pass. Worthwhile mission, getting comics into schools to goose reading. (It works!)

Here are some links I want to share, now, plugging old friends and new:

Challengers Comics: http://www.challengerscomics.com

Comics Experience: http://www.comicsexperience.com

Haven Distribution: http://www.havendistro.com

Reading With Pictures: http://www.readingwithpictures.org

Spinner Rack Comics: http://www.spinnerrackcomics.com

And now, now I can rest!