Fan Expo ’09 was a blast. It was the first major show I’ve ever been an exhibitor and it blew the roof off my expectations. I have to thank Pat, Ryan and Shane for helping me at the Furious Comics table. You guys were brilliant. On Sunday, Shane provided a few free sketches to some lucky attendees, one of which was Superman. I remarked that the drawing looked similar in style to Francis Manupal’s work. Shane claimed Francis learned it from him. I also had the pleasure of being flanked by some wonderful individuals I’d never met before.

To my left was David Walters, a talented, young artist and graphic designer, whose style reminded me of the late Michael Turner. He looked to be busy for most of the weekend, though word has it he spent far more then he made.

To my right was Lezley Davidson and Paul Quinn, both talented Indy comic creators. Lezley is the creator of Peeled Onions, an autobiographical comic strip based on her own experiences. She was also doing killer facial sketches of the exhibitors along our aisle. Word is she’s sending an image of mine soon. Still waiting Lezley. Paul is the co-creator and artist of Popculture Junkies. Similar in vein to Kevin Smith’s early work, the story follows a pair of friends running the local Bag ‘n’ Board Comics shop. Very witty, Sci-fi fan satire.

I didn’t get around the floor like I wanted to. I should have gone for a walk about Friday and checked out some stuff; it was the least busy of the three days. But I figured I’d have time late Saturday or Sunday. I was dead wrong. Saturday was zoo, just herds and herds of people and aisles clogged with lines. Estimates placed the total number of attendees at 59 000! I was able to meet with a few buds and acquaintances like the multi-talented Sam Agro, Andy B. artist of Bottle of Awesome, and the excellent Mike Cho. Lezley referred to him all weekend as her Yoda, an apt description as Mike is both kind and wise.

Greg Dunford was The Man on a Mission, cruising up and down the aisles, making contacts and bringing awareness of Hard Drive, his punk Sci-fi adventure comic. Also meet the guys from the Watchtower Podcast, Jeff Moss and Donnie Coulter. Jeff and I swapped books; he grabbed issue 3 of The Book of Methuselah, while I grabbed No Reason Zero. I would have liked to have picked Donnie’s brain longer; I think we share a lot of the same opinions regarding the stories being pumped out of the Big Two.

So the weekend was a hit. I always feel like this is the unofficial end of summer after the show. Autumn beckons, my day job is about to get busy again, and the NFL and NHL is about to start up, my two favorite sports. And no, that has nothing to do with the pools.

Until next year.