….um OK. What was that? Anyway, had a blast being myself and terrorizing cosplayers, writers & artists all day. No better way to do this than to give various shoutouts to creators & friends DBurt, my sister Melissa and best bud Kevin came across. Big time ups to the Lion Forge booth for letting my sister and I hang there as I corralled this little unit together.​

Major applause and congratulations to Greg Anderson Elysee, creator of Is’Nana The Were Spider and one of the creative forces behind horror comic The Gentleman. Bonded on FB over a love for Black Panther and I have enjoyed debating comic and societal topics over the past year with him. Picked up volume 2 of The Were-Spider while I was bugging him…​

As my buds and I walked the floor, snapping pictures of just about everything, saw my friend and Bat-Fan expert, James Lawrence from The Bat Force Podcast. Then ran into the great Regine Sawyer from Women In Comics. Spied artist extraordinaire Jen Bartel over at her booth and couldn’t resist heading over and picking up her “Wakanda/Dora Milaje” poster print. Her Blackbird #1 from Image Comics is in comic shops now. ​

Now…hold up!!! You had to have heard that this time?!!?!?!?!?!​

Anyhoo! Along this way, we met up with AfroNerd Supporter BlueEyeDevil walking the floor and we hit more dignitary tables like Robert Garrett from XMoor Studios and N Steven Harris, currently the artist of Michael Cray (issue #12 out this week!!!). Picked up a Galtow poster from Mr. Garrett and stumbled into 2 AWESOME situations back to back. First off, encountered David A Walker and Sanford Greene at their table, promoting Bitter Root, their Image horror comic and spent a good 15 mins there talking with the talented duo. Got a great Wakanda art panel along with a Bitter Root t-shirt. As we were doing this, a good friend of mine Javier met up with us and unbeknownst to me, Mike and Molly actor Nyambi Nyambi also visited the booth to the delight of my sister.​

Got the chance to meet Dennis Hopeless right after this craziness and pick up the NXT editions of the WWE BOOM! Comic from him. From there it was a moment for my lifetime, I got into comics chiefly because of Marv Wolfman, writer of The New Teen Titans. I got my sister into comics through Terry Moore and his Strangers In Paradise. And here were the two of them with their booths side by side! After this it was a visit to Amy Chu to mainly apologize for last NYCC where I tried to take her only issue of DMC #3. Amy just says to me offhandedly “You know he’s at his booth right now right?”…. Yeah you know what time it was…?​

No. It wasn’t that time. What the heck? It was time for this weird traveling caravan to visit the Darryl Makes Comics booth where Afronerd and Javier bonded with DMC over hip-hop and Queens tales. I was in line getting DMC #3, La Borinquena #2 from Edgardo Miranda Rodriguez and a DMC T-Shirt (which EMR designed) for friend Tommy London. Wild. Absolutely wild time and then I doubled back to Madame Chu’s booth to buy her first Red Sonja TP and to take a picture showing my geekiness as penance. Another funny part of this was running into Lion Forge editor Desiree Rodriguez just as she was leaving. You may not recognize the name, BUT she was one of the driving forces corralling the talent for the Puerto Rico Strong benefit anthology. She is helping steer their Catalyst Prime line now. Still amazes me to meet all these people that I’ve had great brief Twitter convos with in person.​

Now about that Spider-Force thing. In the midst of all of this, we found time to sit in at the Marvel Knights 20th Anniversary panel featuring Joe Quesada, Jimmy Palmiotti, Tom Sneigoski, and Christopher Priest. Hilariously informative and mainly Quesada & Priest related tales about how the MAX line got away with their craziness being Marvel’s “Image/Vertigo” competition line. The unique Priest credited Quesada/editorial with instituting his signature style now.. .and later on threw in this tidbit (paraphrasing courtesy of Pierce Lydon of Newsarama):​

It felt great seeing them together on this panel, like being a fly on the wall of their office spying on stuff like why Sneigoski took Punisher on a supernatural bent to a new editor trying to get material from Jae Lee. I was rolling laughing… and yes, during Marvel’s Spider-Geddon, Priest will be writing the Spider-Force mini-series. He only mentioned it like 10 times..hahaha​

Got out of the panel and did a video spot along with Afronerd. Did one last floor attack/wander around where we ran into friends at various booths like West Village Comics and Muteki Sales (What up Ray!?!?!?). As we left there to head on, I spotted Joseph Illidge over at the Valiant Comics booth and had to talk a little shop. And as it is my way, on the way to the Hip-Hop and Comics panel, I finally spotted Greg Burnham and Marcus Williams of Tuskegee Heirs and got to introduce my sister to them. While my friends stared in awe of their posters, I slinked to the table next to it and got Tim Smith III to sign Black AF Widows and Orphans #1 & #3 for me (Issue #3 in stores now!).​

So about that Hip-Hop & Comics panel, I took away 3 major things:​

1. Vita Ayala is going to be a star. She has The Wilds in stores now and she’s the writer behind the upcoming LiveWire book for Valiant. Energetic and has a variety of ideas.​

2. Patrick Reed has been doing this panel for 7 years. I think i have visited 3 of them but I didn’t realize it has been that long. And on this one he included Larry Stroman and tried to get Pete Rock. So the visibility is there…​

3. Finally saw Beddo. The Toronto based artist has done comic book/hip hop images for years and I know you have had to see some of his stuff (especially if you are an Outkast or Erykah Badu fan!) Dude is talented as all hell! ​

Ok. That about does it. It wasn’t a perfect con for me. Wanted to speak to, but missed Tee Franklin (Jook Joint in stores now), Majorine Liu (actually was on line for that but lady had a cute SHIELD Service dog in front of me. Cute Dog > Me everytime LOL), Jody Houser (writer of Faith, ASM Renew Your Vows), Matthew Rosenberg(Multiple Man, X-Men, Punisher), etc. One day…I needed more than one day!!! *SIGH* Being an adult with a responsibility streak sucks!!! So to those I missed (like Brian Michael Bendis walked right past us!!!!), I hopefully will get a chance to bug you within the next year. To all the vendors, cosplayers and talent: thank you! My Familia and I had fun. Feet still freaking hurt but the memories will help soothe that. ​

Thx For Reading! Until Next Time, Keep Fantasizing!​