This last weekend was VANCAF in Vancouver BC!  Good ol’ Vancouver Comic Arts Festival!  Let me tell you, as opposed to fan expo, this was EVERYTHING i hoped a comic convention would be.  There was a good mix of internet famous people, to not-famous-but-should-be, to “obviously applied for a table as a joke and haven’t even read an archie ever”.
Let me document my favourite famous-people encounters! 😀

I got to meet Kris Straub of Starslip, Broodhollow, Blamimations etc fame!  Super exciting for me, I really love his art style, and I especially love his writing.  I got to buy the Broodhollow book (i’ve been waiting to get the book to read it through, and now the wait is over!) and buy one of the Starslip patches which I thought was cool.  I was hoping he might have some starslip books, but I guess i’m a few years too late for that!  I made a complete idiot of myself, of course, when I introduced myself to him.  He said I looked familiar, I told him maybe he knew me in his dreams, which is a super awkward thing to say to ANYONE.  It’s a good thing my wife was standing beside me to laugh at my pitiful attempt at a joke.  ROB!  PLAY IT COOL, DANGIT.  …but I got to ask him some questions about what he’s using to make comics these days, so that was fun.

I also got to meet Jeph Jacques from QC, and buy one of his books.  I think I talked to him too early in the morning, or I dunno, i kinda felt like I was annoying the guy… But i mean, as I’ve already established, I don’t really do well with people i see as celebrities.  I started reading QC somewhere around comic #35, so i’ve been in there for the long-haul (i think he’s over 2500 now), and I was happy to finally pay the man something for my years of free-loading and enjoying his comic musings.

I also got to meet Sam Logan of Sam and Fuzzy fame!  The scope of Sam and Fuzzy has always been daunting…  But I got a sweet skull-panda mini-comic, and the guy is super friendly.

My favourite person I got to talk to was Colin Upton!  He’s a small-press guru, and he was my first introduction into the world of mini-comics!  It was great talking to him a bit.  He had like, a million mini-comics for sale.  If I had more money, I would have bought all his stuff.

Probably my FAVOURITE part of vancaf was that Diana could come with me!  Free admission!  She kept me in check, made sure I didn’t make a HUGE fool out of myself! 😀

The ONLY bad part of the whole experience was when a pushy girl sold me a couple of her graphic novels that I didn’t want.  It was one of those pushy-sales people experiences that left me so exhausted by the end of our 3 minute interaction that I basically was just like “OK, here’s $20, please give me your books and leave me alone.”  Actually, I tried to buy ONE graphic novel for $10, and when I gave her a twenty, she put it in her cash box and said she didn’t have change, and that I should get two books.  WHICH sucked, I didn’t really want to buy her stuff and it meant I couldn’t buy more of the other stuff I actually wanted, but it isn’t all that bad because it turns out that (while I think her writing sucks) her art is pretty good.  Whatever.  Live and learn…

“shout no, like you mean it!  SHOUT NO and run away!  Don’t get in that van or car, it’s dangerous!  and it’s WRONG!”

(that was a song on a PSA when I was a kid.)

Anyway, I really would like to be at the next Vancaf at a table!  I’m going to apply to get a table for sure next year!