Saturday, February 1st
I always have trouble deciding where to begin. For us at SLG, APE 2003 didn’t begin on the clear, cold morning of February first, when we arrived at the Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco, ready to set up our booth. There were weeks of planning beforehand, especially for our Supreme Commander, Dan.
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Fig. 1: The calm before the storm
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However, I think APE really began for me on the afternoon of January 31st, at about three o’ clock. That was when I had the first sneezing fit. Many more followed, and I finally realized, “I am sick.”
So I arrived on that clear, cold morning with a box of Puffs Plus tissues and a supply of Sudafed in my magical convention box, which also held the creators’ name tags for the table, copies of submission guidelines, and previews of upcoming projects. I toted a little box of orange juice, too.
The Concourse Exhibition Center is a new venue for APE. The hall was bright, carpeted, and bi-leveled, with more space for
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Fig. 2: The SLG crew. L to R: Dan, Haskett, Bryan (with head turned), Jennifer, Deb, Joe. In the background are Ian and Tyson "OddJob" Smith.
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booths than the previous location. It’s also the place where I got a cool grate-shaped bruise during a They Might Be Giants concert a few years ago.
Our tables stretched into the horizon. (Take note of the stunning one-point perspective at work in fig. 1.) When everything was unloaded from the truck and we were faced with scores of boxes that had to be turned into a presentable booth, it seemed like a feat that would take hours. But in little time at all, we had organized a mighty booth (without much help from me—I was busy blowing my nose most of the time) and were triumphant (fig. 2).
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Fig. 3: Landry and Eric
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Little Gloomy creators Landry Walker and Eric Jones (fig. 3) trucked in most of our stuff in their pickup and helped set up. At the last convention we attended, Landry exchanged the head of a Spooky with the head of a Carl Cthulhu, creating a chimera known as Cthooky. He then jammed a pencil in his creation’s back and made it dance. Eric did nothing to stop this carnage. I didn’t catch them mauling or impaling anything at APE, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
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Fig. 4: Ian and Tyson
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Ian and Tyson Smith (fig. 4), creators of Oddjob came in early, and copies of Oddjob: The Collected Stories sold steadily throughout the convention. Tyson and Ian also were giving out a mini-comic called The Sexy Chef. Rrrowrr.
Tavisha Wolfgarth Simons and Rikki Simons (fig. 5), creators of Ranklechick and His Three Legged Cat, also arrived early, as did Crab Scrambly, who did the paintings in Everything Can Be Beaten. In Rikki’s hand is a preliminary mock-up of his Ranklechick novel, which I’m in the process of editing. It’s
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Fig. 5: Tavi, Rikki, and Crab
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shaping up to be an exciting project, with small illustrations by Tavi heading every page and stunning images as frontispieces to chapters.
I brought the Ranklechick manuscript along with me and edited when I wasn’t feeling quite well enough to stand. Rikki later caught Crab drawing in his notebookwhile I made little editing marks on the Ranklechick manuscript, and took a picture of us “being productive.”
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Fig. 6: Ken Knudtsen. Arrr.
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Ken Knudtsen, the man behind My Monkey’s Name Is Jennifer (fig. 6), came in from New York, and even visited us at the office on Friday. (So did Landry and Eric, but we see those guys all the time.) This brave and bold individual did a shot of vodka with everyone of drinking age who bought a copy of his comic book. By the end of the convention, the bottle he had brought with him was empty. We tip our hats to Ken. We’d gladly take a shot for him, anytime.
Another New Yorker to come all the way to SF was Chris Jordan, creator of Babyhead. We’d heard legends of his booth, and finally got to see it for ourselves (fig. 7). He sold magnets, stickers, buttons, and, of course, copies of Babyhead. If there are any conventions out there just for convention booth design, Chris needs to attend. In the lingo of the SLG crew, his booth is Booth Expo.
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Fig. 7: Chris Jordan and the Babyhead Booth
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