Con Report: Pittsburgh '08

We're back from Pittsburgh, and boy what a weekend! *Whew* It was a long, exhausting weekend of drawing, talking, laughing and generally staying up too late and getting up too early. Last night we just crapped out completely, letting the weekend's weariness ease out of our bones.

So where to begin with such an all-out blast of a show? Let's start at the beginning: Thursday night. We arrived in Pittsburgh after a seven-hour drive from lovely Michigan (and it actually is quite lovely at this time of the year) and set up at our table, ecstatic to discover our freshly-printed copies of Uniques #2 sitting at our table waiting for us. They looked fantastic - the people at Ka-Blam do great work. So we set up our backdrop and everything and met up with Jamie Fay and Rich Bernatovech, our friends from MegaCon. We all headed up to the hotel penthouse for an Indy Creator Party; an Invitation Only shindig, and we were actually invited! We really felt like somebodies.

At the party, a relaxed and casual affair, they had out white ball-caps and markers. The guy putting on the gathering had us doodle on the hats, all of which would be auctioned off for the Make-A-Wish Foundation on Saturday. Well, we sat down and went to town. First we made a Uniques hat, and then Comf had the idea of a Green Lantern hat. It started with Jade by Comf and Kyle Rayner by Adam, but she suggested that he should add Kilowog. Being the sucker for GL stuff he is, Adam promptly went to work.

So we're drawing on hats and who should we see out of the corner of our eye but the MOTHERLOVIN' CHIEF!!! HOLY FRAKK!!! Anybody who's talked with us for more than two seconds knows about our undying love for Battlestar Galactica, and Chief Tyrol is one of our very favorite characters. So to look up from our hat doodlin's and see Aaron Douglas hanging out at the table with us was almost too much. We stayed cool and talked with him like normal people, but inside we were having total geek-spasms. And he went nuts for our Green Lantern hat! Apparently a good friend of his is a big GL fan, and Aaron was saying he wanted to win our hat at the auction to give to him. We also sat with Jason Yungbluth, the genius and archmage of hilarity responsible for Deep Fried and Weapon Brown. There is nothing not awesome about Jason Yungbluth.

To say it was a fun night would be an understatement, and we wound up back at our hotel a lot later than we'd wanted.

Oh, and did we mention our hotel was a half hour away from the con? Yeah, we totally misread the distance when we booked it, so suddenly we had to get up earlier every morning, and get back later every night. Ugh. It was a nice little place, though, and had both a refrigerator and microwave, which was nice.

So Friday we arrived a little tired but excited to see how this show would shape up. And while attendance wasn't bustling, we did a lot of drawing. And we mean a lot. We'll pepper this Con Recap with our sketches, but we did even more than we're showing. Our hands are still tingly from all the work.

Rogue by Adam

Asajj Ventress by Comfort

Boba Fett by Adam

People were really digging Uniques. We met a bunch of the Comic Geek Speak guys and made plans for Saturday, and talked with Aaron Douglas some more. We offered to do a drawing for him, and he was really excited about that. He even emailed us pictures of his son, his brother, and his brother's sons so we could do a pic of them all as Scottish Warriors. He and Adam connected on the Scottish thing, as they're both proud of their Scotch heritage. Aaron was married in a kilt, too, and Comfort just sat back mystified as they chatted clans and Scotch Festivals and such.

Friday night, we went out to eat with Bryan J.L. Glass of Mice Templar fame, Jamie Fay, Rich Bernatovech, Andrew Charipar, and some other guys. We had a lot of fun, but what was supposed to be a light dinner and an early night turned into a longer affair as we waited and waited to be seated, then waited and waited and waited to get our food. All was fine, though, because we had some great conversation and connected with some really good guys. We had a night-cap with Bryan, during which he gave us a dramatic reading from upcoming Mice Templar stuff that had us ready to raise swords and charge somebody - anybody - in an epic battle to the death.

Zatanna by Adam. While some go for the sexy with Z, Adam just felt like
doing something cuter. And nuzzling bunnies is the definition of cute. And
those who don't know - Zatanna casts spells by talking backwards. Thus the
odd speech patterns above...

Angel by Comfort

Arisia by Adam

Saturday was a long, long day of talking and drawing and selling. One of the most fun parts of the show was seeing the strong reaction people were having to Uniques. It seemed like about everybody who bought issue 1 would come back the next day for #2, anxious for more! And people who bought both would come back asking about #3 and picking up the sketchbook. We may have been able to tap into something really great with this comic, and it really moved us and inspired us to see how much people loved it. If we could just get the book into people's hands, then they'll be with us. It's just getting to that point that's hard, and we're still trying to find the way to get there.

Saturday night we went out with the Geek Speak guys and spent most of the time hanging with Dave Dwonch (whose recent book 'Gnome' is a lot of fun!) who's one of The Geek Savants. Before the end of the night, our comic had come out and was being passed around. At first it was a little embarrassing, because you don't ever want to look like you're trying to get attention. But people were gushing and complimenting and we felt like the prettiest princesses at the ball.

We all returned to the hotel bar and discovered that Karaoke was on. Thus, Adam simply had to sing. We knew we'd only probably have time for one song, so he went with Journey's 'Faithfully.' Thank you, Monster Ballads! Lighters and cell-phones were waved in the air and when someone asked Comfort "is that song for you?" she smiled and replied simply, "they always are."

One guy had a GIJoe themed sketchbook he was bringing around. Adam had intended to do Low-Light,
the stealth sniper character, who had been his all-time favorite Joe. But when he saw Chuckles (who he'd
also liked as a kid), he figured that nobody would really want to do Chuckles but him. He owed it to the
character. Since he was pretty much the Don Johnson of GIJoe, Adam added the sport-coat and toothpick.
Now Chuckles is lookin' for a heaaaartbeeeeeat...

Comfort picked Snow-Job as her GIJoe to draw, mostly because of the hillarious mock-PSA
vids from a while back, and Snow-Job's was one of her favorites. Check it out for a laugh.

Mara Jade by Adam

Sunday was more of the same: drawing and talking and promoting Uniques as much as possible. We did a brief convention floor interview with Peter Rios for CGS, and were interviewed for a documentary on the portrayal of women in comics. We finally finished Aaron Douglas' drawing for him, and he was floored by it. He was so happy, it was infectious, and we were so glad he liked it.

Even the baby is armed. Baby shank!!! by Adam and Comfort

Us and Aaron 'The Chief' Douglas. A nicer guy you ain't likely to meet.

By the end of the day, we tallied up our sales and were astonished at how well we'd done. For as light as the attendance was, we really came out nicely. No complaints from us!

So we're looking to get together with our friends Sunday night to have a calm, laid back dinner and just get some last time together before we all go our separate ways, and Bryan Glass invites us to come sit at the 'big kids' table.' So we wound up eating a veggie platter with Michael Avon Oeming and David Mack, if you can believe that. We almost couldn't. And though we felt more than a little out of place at first, before long we were all talking, laughing and having a good time. Their lady-friends were delightful, and much boisterous fun was had.

Satana: The Devil's Daughter by Adam

Another Satana, this time by Comfort.

Ghost by Adam. The name on the tombstone is of the guy who commissioned the sketch. Adam saw
his name in the opening of the sketchbook and thought it'd be a nice touch.

And that was it. We went back to the hotel and slept, then drove home Monday. It was an amazingly fun time, and we can't wait to go back again next year. But the beauty of cons is that you get to see the people at more than one show. When we go to Heroes, we'll probably reconnect with a lot of the friends we made. Heck, we may see them again at MotorCity in a couple weeks - who knows?

So, as always, we close with some pics of the costumes that stopped by our booth and retreat until Friday when we'll be blogging once more. See you then!

-Adam & Comfort

This is the nice lady who actually wound up winning our hats in the auction. Apparently the hats
were part of a lot, and she and her friend had to go in together to make sure they won them. She
didn't know who had made them, and when she found us... well, we don't think we've ever seen
anybody so happy to see us. It was really something! She was really nice.

You can blame Comfort for the butt shot, here. But she defends it, claiming that you can't get a picture of
Psylocke without getting a butt shot. Apparently Psylocke is all about the buns. Who knew?

Those girls are dressed as a Mord Sith and Kahlan from the excellent novel series 'The Sword of Truth' by Terry Goodkind. They
were really happy when we recognized them and pulled them to our booth, because apparently nobody ever knows what they're
dressed as. Well, we knew girls. And we thank you for it! We love those books.