Saturday, February 9: APE 2002, Day One
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The cash register supervises set-up.
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I arrived at Herbst Pavilion in Fort Mason center at 9:15 a.m., fifteen minutes after I was supposed to, but that wasn't a problem, since the "basement guys" (Peter, Anthony and Bryan) were just getting there, and Dan, Bob and Haskett didn't arrive for another fifteen minutes.
As Dan predicted, the security guard wouldn't let us in to pick up our badges. I was snarky to her. I blame her haircut.
So we waited, taking in the view. The weather was unnaturally good for San Francisco in February—clear blue sky, temperature rising into the mid-sixties. It worked out well, since Herbst pavilion is basically a warehouse—no
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Kieran shows off his GIR duds.
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heating, no insulation. Brr. In past years, when it rained, the roof leaked, too.
Once they finally let us in, we started setting up. Ours was the biggest booth: ten tables. In the first picture, Chris Haskett (in the teal Drunken Monkey's bowling shirt) and Bob begin to arrange comics on the tables. Our cash register sits in the foreground. We packed the wrong user's manual for it, so on the first day we didn't charge any sales tax. Scandalous!
One of the first fans to arrive at our table was Kieran. I am infinitely jealous of his cool GIR sweatshirt.
The creators starting trickling in, too. The first one at the booth was Dan Gregor, creator of Screaming Kitty. "You're just like I expected," Dan, whom I was meeting in person for the first time, said. "Only I thought you'd be blonde . . . . But not in a bad way!" On Sunday, he gave me a neat-o sketch of a devil schoolgirl that I'd been coveting all weekend.
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Dan Gregor pretends to know nothing about the evil plotting behind him.
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You can seen Lawrence Marvit (left) (Sparks) and Jhonen Vasquez doing mysterious artist stuff in the background. My hair was once the same color as Jhonen's, but don't tell Dan Gregor that.
I met Lawrence for the first time at APE, too, and he's so charming that I gotta think that he's hiding something nefarious. |
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