77 hours of Supanova; Day three (sunday) - Part 1

Sleep was a lot better on night #2. Weber, my pool champion playing partner who will now be rechristened Cool hand Weber, had gotten me a pillow from his brother. I suspect said pillow was passed from fratello to fratello through the crack at the bottom of the door for it was an awfully thin pillow. The thiness did not bother me since i like folding my pillows in half, there by doubling its pillowy goodness making it a more efficient sleeping implement. Fear my pillow power puny hu-mans.

in the morning we woke, seperatly, showered, seperately, and then watched herman, labrador at law, toghether, which Cool hand weber bought on DVD, in its photocopied cover, hand written label glory. And it was great. though i must profess that it did need more bum sniffing, there was a total lack of bum sniffing and it showed. We then moved and made our way to the convention centre.

Oh Daniel Reed,
Had so Agreed,
To buy some sweets,
Before we meets,
On sunday morning

the line didn't seem so long as we strolled on in. Stewart and co were already behind their table as we walked by. Travis (one of the co) asked what happened to us the night before since we didn't turn up at the fringe bar.
Well, we got kicked out of the fringe (truth stretch for dramatic effect) and we moved on to birdie birdie num num (i had added another birdie for more dramatic effect). I also mentioned that there was going to be jelly wrestling at birdie birdie num nums tonight. travis got so excited he almost erased photos of underaged cosplayers making room on his camera. (and travis send me a copy of those photos man)

ahem

The guests the previous night had all gone to a cocktail party where fans buy tickets for $65 so they hang around their favourite stars and ask questions like "is anyone sitting here?" "can i finish your soup?" and "can you look after my bag while i do a poo?"
I kind of imagine it like year 8 social dance, where all the stars stand at one end looking bored and hoarding drinks and the fans stand at the other end gawking and hoarding mints.

After the cocktail party Rissa, some volunteers and some of the stars went up to her room to drink copious amounts of vodka and play sex games like; sexual kerplunk and sexual cluedo. Many cries of "you sank my sexual battleship!" were heard from her room. Poor nicola hid under her bedsheets, that night, while Hollwoody Scotty tried on her clothes. (not true, well maybe, i claim satire!!)

I went and visited the PC crew downstairs. i now refuse to even attempt to say Phosphorescent in their presence because it only comes out as phosphorent. every year i ask karen if she lost a bet when she wears her glow in the dark phosphorescent tshirt. and we laugh. hahahaha. sigh.
i picked up some copies of issue 6, that i had them try and sell the day before. i picked up Azerath 5 and Eldritch kid 2 too.

then i went and perused the back issue bins while the crowds waited for opening time.
looking to finish my John byrne superman run, my peter david hulk run, some adam warren gen 13s and starman 2 at a reasonable price.
ended up with nada at that point.

Doors opened - crowd streamed in.
Sales weere steady. but my interest was waning, i had stood behind the table all day yesterday and i wanted to play a bit too. So a flitted back and forth. Daniel kept and eye on my stuff and i seconded tonia when she wasn't looking. it was pretty quiet so i forced Stewart and nicola to finish my sketches. I stood over them and watched them like a dork.
david yardin turned up, which was a buzz. i met him in sydney and i think the exchange was "hey david, i've gotta get a sketch from you later". Anyway later turned out to be a year. So i grabbed a chair and he sat down behind a table and started drawing. Started out a little pencil sketch, then got more detail and grew and grew to become a whole page illustration. he drew for about an hour - "wha? aren't you going to ink it?"
We chatted through out - he's still working on a graphic novel for Stan Winston (hollywood special effects guru) Tales of the Realm or Claw of the Realm or Realm of the Claw. And apparently his website should be up soon. There will probably be some DC and marvel work afterward too.

i then chatted to jason rand, who looked nothing like Shannon Noll in person. While i chatted some guy asked me to autograph the ozcomic magazine, my normal response is 'i'm not an artists man' to which they usually agree that, yes, it would be pointless for me to sign it. This guy was persistent
"man, i've been looking for ozcomics man, i've seen 'em on ebay a couple of times'"
"yeah?" i was a bit confused "well i've got the whole run"
"I'll call my mate for what numbers he's missing"
Alarm bells rang.
He came back later, we finally sorted out he wanted the ozcomic magazine from the 70s, he kind of seemed pissed off that he spent $4 on a magazine and have me sign it as well.

i passed on the sketch book to ben hutchings who diligently drew in it for some of the afternoon.

i sold some more sporadics. i sold some more magazines. i checked out some portfolios, some of which knocked me off my feet. So much so, i gave a copy of issue 3 away for free. for free!
When i find the links to their sites i'll post them up.

the day before people in artist alley ate free pizza. on sunday we had to pay. Cool hand weber wept. there was an uproar. there was a cry of anguish. but then the dude in the phantom suit went away. apathy returned. whew.

there's 2 things i try and buy a year; a comic published in august 1975 and a piece of original comic art. i had sorted the latter out yesterday - nic was selling Star Wars pages for$50, so i got in early and hid my 3 favourite pages on the bottom of the pile, because no one would look there. Well to much freaking out, some rogue, some rascal had all three of my pages lined up and they were going through there wallet. i tried to keep the hyperventalation to a minimum. luckily they bought only 2 pages, i quickly bagsed sloppy thirds. SAFE!

i did forget to bring my aug 1975 list with me so i had to be a bastard and ask back issue retailer 'do you have any comics published in blah blah blah"
"blah blah blah? hmmm"
he grabbed overstreet and started counting backwards. he would rifle through a short box, sigh and start again. 20minutes later he apologised and i moved on. it took awhile but i finally got daredevil 124, co staring copperhead, with colan pencils and janson inks (i love janson's work).

I also got Scott lobdell to sign uncanny Xmen 349 , his last xmen comic, its a thing i do, try and get visiting creators to sign the last issue of a good run. he checked out the stuff i was buying and got really intrigued by killeroo. i din't have any but pointed out i had seen a copy in stall x. i pinpointed the exact box. he stumbled back empty handed. so i took him by his lod obnoxious Hawaiian shirt and lead him to the box. he was mighty pleased when i fished out a copy, the stall owner apologised profusely, i think he told scott he had none. mark Selan - selling australian comics ONE. ISSUE. AT. A. TIME.
I almost sold a copy of crab allan to him as well, but 30% discount and hand ful of lollies and a can of coke was still not good enough for him. oh well, sorry cool hand weber. (it also meant i could laugh an evil laugh when i saw those notes)

on the goodside, i was back at the table when a cute girl started to chat.
"hey, were you standing infront of me at the lucksmiths concert last night?"
"yeah, i don't know, were you the guy that kept elbowing me in the back?"
"um, ah, no! that must have been that other guy. i stood next to him!"
we chatted lucksmiths and comics. thank god she wasn't a redhead or i would have exploded. I said that i would try to make the concert that night but explained about jelly wrestling, i even invited her along. I now see in hindsight that inviting some girls to jellywrestling is not the smartest thing, thank god i'm pseudo-married.

on the badside, while i prowled artist alley, i received a strong shoulder bump, i turned and apologised when i realised it was baby boba strutting around unrepentant. in nightclub i would have either punched him in the back of the head and ran, or dropped a rolled up booger in his drink when he wasn't looking. my revenge was unapeased.

Sunday was also my best mate's birthday. i originally planned to ask temamur morrison to make a happy birthday phone call as jake the muss (from once were warriors) but in the end that seemed too dorky. So i've been practising at home and can now do a decent impersonation
"aye brit man, eard its ya burfday aye, you gettn' old you kent, fuckin' bulle!!"
i'm also doing jake vs obi one
"ya lightsaba is ok, but you need help on ya speedwork, fucking bulle!!"

they say thatsunday is buyers day, that its quiet but people spend. i think when they say people, they mean me. i bought a bunch of back issues, icluding Warren Ellis' wolverine run, which wasa good find. the herman dvd, and the essentaily everything available in artist alley, except for Sev trek and stuff that had already sold out like Adolf hitler vampire hunter and yum yum.

Ben had finished his sketch and tonia had done a great little Angel figure. one of the comics i picked up was millenium comics that featured art by brisbane's own Andy Finlayson, idol of goth's on e, himself. Andy was tablesiting for Eddie Deevee so i threw the sketchbook at him, after making fun of the millenium comic 'i was young man, but micheal evans has no excuse!"

i had pretty much told everyone about jelly wrestling at birdie birdie birdie num nums.