We're on Business 22 - my father driving the same route from Squirrel Hill to Monroeville that we've taken for 30-odd years. It's just an ugly suburban highway, but there isn't one square yard that doesn't evoke some memory: First serious kiss over there. Threw up while wearing a ski mask over there. Joked in the back seat with my sisters as we drove past that theatre there. That's the big-box warehouse store where my ex and I spent an afternoon shopping to stock our first apartment. The parking lot of that restaurant was the last place I ever saw my mother standing upright. I'm feeling somber and serious and sad, but have to shake it off. Dad looks up at the Expo Mart and remembers when he used to exhibit there as a manufacturer's representative in the garment trade. I remember tagging along when I was ten or eleven...Shake it off... This isn't about the past. It's about having fun and doing business. This is a comic book convention. I'm here to work and have no time for nostalgia. Five minutes later: "I really loved the work you did on Hawkman. Would you do a sketch?"

It's bright and goddamn early Friday morning. A ten AM start on Friday? Okay. Will anyone be there? Stupid question. The floor isn't busy, but the serious buyers and art collectors are already out in force. They want sketches from me. I've brought four Windsor-Newton series 7, #2 brushes and two bottles of ink. I have sharpies, microns, lead clinchers, 4H, 2H and 2B leads, china markers, kneaded and vinyl erasers, X-acto blades, zip-a-tone and white gouache. What's missing? Paper. Oops.

I'm sitting next to Don Simpson. "Dandy Don" was really helpful to me when I finished art school. He gave me some good advice and had a perspective on the industry I hadn't heard from anyone else. He's been out of the industry the past few years, doing his webstrip and lots of commercial work. A fan asks him if he's up for a Harvey Award, and Don pauses at his sketch, contemplates the question, then barks a short terrible laugh, somehow packing two decades at the board into one awful "HA!" The fan is clearly worried that he's made a mistake. "Is it the Eisner?"

On the other side of me, is a plastic table cloth with "Chris Sprouse" written on it in magic marker. I better sell stuff quick. Looks like Chris is going to be late, so I've got a couple of hours to make sales based on my impressive draftsmanship, before Chris shows up and makes me look like the sloppy duffer I am. When admiring the original art on Chris's table, make sure to take a look at the back of the page. There's usually something interesting.

Across the way is Scott Mills. Everyone likes Scott because he's a great guy with a simple, appealing approach to cartooning. His stuff combines whimsy and pathos in a way that could only work in comics. He's also the only other cartoonist in North America stupid enough to use zip-a-tone in a convention sketch. Scott asks if he can borrow my X-acto blade. Too far to reach. Don't want to throw it. I startle a woman passing our tables: "Give this to that guy." She looks at the knife in my hand, blanches and skedaddles.

My suitcoat doesn't quite fit. If I stand up straight, the lower part of my shirt spreads open to show my navel. I'm wearing a brown belt with black trousers and there are crusty red salsa stains near my fly. I'm the best dressed guy in the room. That's comics.

Commissioned sketch requests: Three Carrie Stetkos, a Tara Chase, a Batgirl, two Batmen, a Superman, a Hawkman & Hawkgirl and "Some kind of Vampire Lady. Not too kinky. I got a wife."

Augie De Blieck stops by the table, with his friend whom I remember from last year's marriage-threatening internet scandal. "No pictures this year, Augie. Take a minicomic instead."

ME AND EDITH HEAD is selling ridiculously well. I think that Sara's and my next collaboration is going to have to be made available in a properly published and distributed comic. It's clear that we could build an audience for this kind of material, and everyone that buys a copy is bringing someone else around to buy it the next day. A woman buys Sara's novel from me on Friday, then comes around on Sunday and seriously contemplates buying another copy because her husband took it when she was halfway through, and now she won't get it back until he's done. I'm not sure why, but I talk her out of it.

The CBLDF taps me twice to be part of their "quick sketch," and the two days blur into one. Evan Dorkin's playing rough with the crowd, making with the funny, and dropping some of the most obscure references ever heard at a comic book convention. Don Simpson is showing Michael Turner what Spider-man's suit looks like. Amanda Conner carefully renders a magnificent marker drawing of Robin and Batgirl caught schtupping in the back seat of a car. "Just autograph that one 'To Ebay.'" Charles Brownstein makes a running joke of auctioning off Joe Linsner's Dawn sketch, (instead of raffling it off like the other pieces,) and some ticket holders, who don't realize he's kidding, get angry. (Later, one of them chews out a hapless, confused volunteer at the CBLDF table.) Simpson explains how the CBLDF saved him from the Charles Atlas company, who sued him over a "hero of the beach" parody. Frank Cho lingers over an ape and girl drawing, while I play to the crowd and whip the pics out, one after the other. Crossgen marketer Chris Oarr enters the room, and suddenly everyone wants a drink and a cigarette. Alex Robinson, on my right, is drawing "Jughead with a big rack."

Tom Scioli has an ashcan edition preview of his next MYTH OF 8-OPUS story. I can't wait to read the whole thing. I think I've seen just about every page Tom has in print, and I'm still not sure if he's kidding or not.

Gene Gonzales, has an immpressive set up this year, and he seems to be getting a really good response to the latest release in his Tales of the Cherokee series.

The Harveys are looking slicker than ever this year. The brochures and powerpoint slideshows are beautifully designed. The montage of Tony Millionaire's work and that of his grandfather is surprisingly moving, even as Millionaire's speech is getting big laughs from a largely bewildered audience. At the last minute I'm drafted to present the award for Best Cover Artist. I quickly scribble out a couple of sentences on my program. Unfortunately, I leave the program on the podium, and can't get it back until after the close of the evening. This means that I forfeit my place in the betting pool, a real shame because, checking my tally afterwards, I find that I've repeated last year's performance and won by a sizable margin. Call it a moral victory. As for my time at the podium, it goes fine. It isn't hard to speak to a room when you've met most of the people in it and know that they're drunk. Evan Dorkin introduces me, reminding everyone that I'll be at six more conventions before the end of the month. I climb to the podium, adjust the mic, clear my throat and ask "Bob, is this is a good time to pitch something?"

The most effective part of the Harveys is the obituary section. Kim Thompson and Denis Kitchen tag team on it, doing an excellent job of presenting entire heartbreaking careers in three or four sentences. It's a somber and dignified presentation, but at a table up front, one of the industry's elder statesmen is talking loudly and sometimes laughing while the speakers pay tribute to those we have lost. Eavesdropping on chit-chat afterwards, It's clear that a consensus has been reached: "Fuck him." "Oldest dog in the junkyard." "40 years of mediocre comics."

The award recipients generally don't have much to say. Kim Thompson keeps most of his speeches to three words or less, though he responds to nagging when he accepts the award given to Jessica Abel and La Perdida, and says some worthy things. Brian Azzarello's surly facade is tested when 100 Bullets wins three in a row, and he actually lets a smile slip out when he accepts for his collaborator, Eduardo Risso.

One of the presenters, given the fairly straightforward task of presenting the award for Best Inking, makes an impossible ass of himself with an awful, embarrassing speech. Dorkin's jaw drops in mock-horror and a pale green lump of chewing gum falls from his mouth. The presenter keeps going, leaving the entire room squirming in discomfort, except for Don Simpson who lets out another one of those unfathomable laughs I mentioned earlier. Kim Thompson, accepting for Charles Burns, pulls in the trophy from the furthest possible distance and escapes with his dignity intact.

By the way, why do voters only ever support Burns for Best Inker? He's a terrific writer, with great storytelling and a singular knack for unforgettable imagery. Black Hole is one of the best comics out there. Why this moronic focus on how slick a brushline he uses?

My favorite moment in the evening is the nifty presentation for Best Colorist. We see black and white line art, then see it quickly colored in stages. It's silly and cheesey, but cool. The crowd goes "oooooh" and "aahhhhhh" at the first four, then chuckles when the Chris Ware example barely fills in at all. It's a winter snow scene, colored flat. Ware wins. Big laughs.

So then people go to the bar. They drink and smoke and arrange themselves according to various strategic goals-- to reinforce industry status, to keep their friends close, to allow easy access to the bar, and to make sure that that one guy-- a different one for each of them, though there is some overlap-- is outside the circle and well out of earshot.

I get to quiz Chris Staros on his day of redemption and about business in general. (For those who don't know, thanks to an enormous surge of online support after a major distributor declared bankruptcy, nearly killing his business, Staros managed to sell something like a year's volume in a single day. Now, coping with an Everest of mail-orders to fill, he's best pictured in a Belgian trench in the first world war, pouring helmetfuls of urine on his postage meter to keep it from overheating.) Staros goes into detail and halfway through his response, I flatline. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Empty head. Nothing there at all. Then I'm in that right-side-of-the-brain space-cadet artist's mental state where all I can see is light, line, and form. This is wonderful for drawing, but not so good for conversation. Staros is talking about taking packages to the post office, and I'm noticing that his profile is a lot like that of a classical portrait bust I've seen, the forms resolved into simple planes, right out of antiquity. A moment later, he segues into a story about being Greek, and dealing with a Greek publisher. I am unfazed.

Tony Consiglio is one of the funniest men alive. I can't begin to communicate it. The guy just kills me.

On Saturday, Simpson disappears, replaced by two Kubie school classmates of mine, John Kaliscz and Rob Bihun. They're doing well, coloring and storyboarding respectively. Talking shop, I begin to think we're all embryonic codgers.

Peeking in at the Make-A-Wish fund auction, I see that Michael George has really got the crowd going. He's brilliant at this, and the bids are coming in fast. The buyers are paying for the right to mutilate a Star Wars toy, and applauding every time the bid advances. Original art dealers sit back, confident. Their time will come.

Jason Wright, color artist on Detective Comics, stops by the table. Jason's got another cool issue of his western comic Holliday, and it looks really cool. We go over my half-baked idea for a sequence in an upcoming issue, and by pointing at the artwork, I can clarify what it is I'm shooting for. Later I do the same with Mark McKenna, who has the thankless task of inking my blurry, ill-crafted pencils on the book. He gets what i'm talking about. This should work. That's a great thing about seeing one's collaborators at a convention- you can actually collaborate. Over the phone, these things would've been difficult, if not impossible. In person, they take a minute or so.

Eddy Newell hands me an incredibly cool picture- his original wash drawing model sheet of Robert Oppenheimer from FALLOUT. I had a xerox of this piece on my desk for months, and it's a huge kick to own the real thing.

A Mutt and Jeff pair of retailers are at my table, making jokes and cracking everyone up. Jeff reads Me and Edith Head cover to cover, nods and says, "Girlfriend book. Good stuff. Got ten?" We do the exchange. Mutt looks over,"I'll take one." Jeff snorts. "Okay, five." (If you are Mutt or Jeff, email me and I'll add you to the list.)

Sunday goes quickly. A bunch of free sketches that have already shown up on ebay as I type this. I sell a couple dozen copies of Edith, and some Whiteouts. Someone interviews me, and I have no idea where it will appear. I'm sure I'll sound like a slobbering, pompous cock. I'm wrapping up my skecthes. Then, the oddest ending to a convention I've ever seen. At around 3:00 pm on Sunday, a nearby tornado knocks out the power at the Expo Mart. A few well-prepared artists try to keep their biz going, shining mag-lights at their portfolios. There's nervous laughter and some weird sounds from the other room. One of the playmates, Petra something, has a candlestick with her and continues to sign her photos by candlelight, her smile slightly sinister, lit from the bottom. Video dealers in the darker reaches did okay, their displays somehow still lit by bootleg anime. The rest of us all stood around in the gloom, idly wondering if the lights would ever come back on, or if things will be like this forever.

Steve Lieber

Other convention diaries: Mid-Ohio 2000 | Small Press Expo 00 | San Diego 99 | Wondercon 99 | Wondercon 97 | Motor City 97 | San Diego 97

Me and Edith Head nominated for an Eisner Award: Best Short Story. Me and Edith Head, written by Sara Ryan, is a comic book featuring one of the characters from her acclaimed novel, EMPRESS OF THE WORLD. The magazine that Edith initially ran in is now out-of-print, so we're making the story available in a chapbook edition. mail order and retail outlets | wholesale terms for retailers | reviews