Conquering Gen Con

I'm behind schedule and will have to make this a quick one. We've been going to GenCon for 3 years now. The first 2 years we were in the dealer's area but this time we gave the Artist's Alley a whirl. That made me a little nervous because history has shown that we usually do better with a dealer's booth. And I hadn't realized that the artist's tables are very, very small. Most of you may know that I have a pretty good sized display and with all the shirts we have tons of storage bins. Oh, and the banner. We barely had room for the bins. Very frustrating. And once we were settled I sat down to enjoy a bottle of Coke, which happened to be room temperature...and shaken up a bit. It exploded. On my shirts. And me. Not a good start.

We share a room with Abyss Walker author and good friend Shane Moore (whose new website is now up BTW www.abysswalker.com). Those of you that read his blog know about some of the misadventures he encounters during most of his travels. Apparently his luck rubs off because Thursday night as I get ready for bed I discover, to the dismay of myself and others, that I have forgotten to pack my underwear! Really not a good start!

Fortunately the rest of the show went very well. One of the highlights was Saturday night dinner with Shane & Shane from Icon in IL. We had planned on a large gathering but everyone flaked on us after the tables were set up so our server had to tear them down. Then we got word some were coming so she had to set them back up! Our poor, wonderful Dawn. I hope she forgives us! But dinner turned out to be great. We were joined by the Great Luke Ski and his fiancee', John Klement, the Harlan brothers and Gil from I-con in NY. Food, drinks & plenty of beaver for all!

Over the weekend I got to meet several people that I have known online.

One is the incredible fantasy artist Stan Morrison. Others included fellow classic monster aficionado Chris Kuchta and local (to me) fantasy artist Joe Slucher.

I had a couple of interesting on-the-spot commission requests. First there was the couple that brought me a shirt with a speech balloon on the back. It was for some sort of contest. They had a saying and wanted me to write it for them. I obliged. They won first place. All in a days work. Another was the request to draw a pic on someones head. I obliged. He creeped people out. All in a day's work.

Back by popular demand: Top 10 events I refuse to explain any further -

10. Not everyone that should know stuff about art does.

9. The streets of Indianapolis are crawling with unshaven beaver.

8. Football is a lot gayer than I first thought.

7. Yoplait should get into the porn business.

6. For the second year in a row my art is worth committing a misdemeanor for.

5. Men are not pieces of meat and should not be treated as such, unless it's by drunken MILFs.

4. 70 year old, crossed-eyed men cannot make eating ice cream look sexy.

3. Indy does not have enough department stores.

2. The "Who-Shit?" round table guessing game is fun to play with people you have just met.

1. Baking is full of comical analogies for having a bowel movement...*DING* Poop ovens ready!

Thank to everyone @ GenCon for a wonderful show!

Now on to the photos!!