"Ryan and I split for the East Coast and the MoCCA show, leaving publisher Mimi Rosenheim in charge of the AiT/Planet Lar World Headquarters, which she painted in our abscence. Here we get ready for the show by waiting for the Brooklyn Brewery to let us in and let us take the tour."

"Man, look at this crowd. This is the view from Brian (Channel Zero) Wood's table. I swear it looked like this the whole time. Like that old Star Trek episode 'Mark of Gideon' where they build a replica of the Enterprise on the crowded planet, and everyone is all jammed together outside looking in? Like that, except with comics."

"Here we see a quick little still life/snapshot of what the whole show was like for us: me raking in the money while The Couriers artist Rob G. stares longingly at his Teenagers From Mars partner Rick Spears' butt. I told you it was crowded."

"Look at this crowd! I don't really know who was there or who spoke at what panel or what company had what crisis or what because it was like this ALL DAMN DAY LONG."





"Of course, I always make time for the cool cats, and Harris Comics editor Maureen McTigue is one of the coolest cats in comics. I have nothing but respect for her and the job she does. Ol' Mo is a solid citizen, and is one of those folks who bring you the good comics. So if you see her at a show, you be nice to her. Buy her a beer, offer to help her with her luggage, whatever she needs. I've known her since we were both young turks doing crap jobs in comics, and now the two of us and our kind run the industry with a firm but fair hand. The lunatics have taken over, yes, but Mo is one of the good ones."

"Speaking of young turks, here's a pic of our future bosses: writer/artist/troubleshooter/comics czar Ryan Yount and comic book kickass Becky Cloonan. You may know Yount from Scurvy Dogs and Cloonan from Channel Zero: Jennie One and about ten million minicomics. Comics is not big enough to contain their awesome funnybook-making power."

"Sure the scene was full of New York hipsters anddesign students and peeps off the street, but there were a ton of kids there, too. These two were getting sketches and autographs from everyone to fill up their shirts. I drew a quick Superman head and wrote 'Superman and the S shield are ™ & © 2003 DC Comics' all around it. That kid on the left was stoked because all that filled up a lot of space on his shirt."

"Not content with selling out of his full stack of Scurvy Dogs, Ryan Yount entered into a 'Sketch-off...TO THE DEATH!' with The Couriers artist Rob G. Here we see Hour Fifteen of the marathon, where Yount revisits one of his old characters from Grease Robots..."

"...while the real Rob G. leaves his drawing android duplicate to beat Yount into submission and splits with me for a few beers."

"It wasn't all just autographs and pats on the back, though. Patrick Jodoin and Anouk Hurbutt, my pals over at Quebecor who print our comics and ship them to Diamond so you all can buy and read them, show me some advances in the dead tree technology that allows us to put our crazy ideas down onto paper and into your hands."


"All in all, that show was CRAZY! It'd been a while since I'd been to an East Coast show, so it sure was fun to see my pals from the Other Coast and meet our people there. The only thing I wish was that there was a whole other day for me to soak up the love!"