I have looked into the gaping maw of the start of Con Season and lived to tell the tale. We have just returned from the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, forever known as C2E2 with a trunkful of treasures.

One thing we didn’t bring back with us is Con Crud. Perhaps people are more careful with their expectorations or perhaps it was a benefit of us traveling by car and not by airplane, so there was no prolonged exposure to bacteria or viruses that meant us ill-will. When I’ve been taken with the urge to sneeze I have made it a general rule that I will turn my head, and sneeze into the gap between my shirt and my undershirt, in the corner. It’s called a Dracula Sneeze because that’s really what it sort of looks like. Just like Bela Lugosi hiding his head halfway in his cape, except I swap out the cape which I don’t wear for my shirt, which I do. The mythbusters proved that sneezing that way greatly reduced the chances for the ejecta to reach anyone else. My sneezing isn’t carrying anything infectious, as for me it’s just a general low-intensity hayfever that I carry around with me pretty much at all times everywhere I go. A very mild allergic response to pretty much breathing.

I bought two new tees, the first with this image of Superman:

and the second with Nightwing:

I also sprang for a lead-cast figurine of my favorite Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner. I’ll be setting that up tomorrow at my desk and it will join a posable figurine already in place on my desk. At that point people should know that I like two things in this world very much, Polar Bears and Kyle Rayner. I suppose if I had enough money I could get a DC artist to draw me Kyle Rayner riding on a running Polar Bear. That would be hilarious.

Last but certainly not least I finally have a comic art commission that I hired an artist to complete for me back when I attended San Diego ComicCon in 2010. The artist’s name is Patrick Gleason and he’s one of DC’s mainstay artists. He did a lot of Green Lantern and drew a lot of my favorite GL, Kyle Rayner. Currently he does Batman and Robin for DC, but back in 2010 he had done a lot of Kyle. I hired him for a commission and time and life (and DC Comics) got in the way. I understand that work comes first, right alongside family, so I wasn’t piss-and-vinegar when it came to completion. I didn’t want my money back and I am a very patient fan, especially for artists that draw my favorite GL. So I waited. Yesterday I made contact with Mr. Gleason and I had fallen completely off his radar and he was very shocked and apologetic. He offered me my money back, or the sketch, and I reiterated my wish for the sketch and my willingness to wait, hopefully not so long this time. Today I got a call that he had finished my sketch and I went to fetch it. As always, his work is amazing. It was well worth the wait and I bear him no ill-will. As it turns out, I didn’t even notice that the sketch was extra-special on first glance. It took me a few moments to take it all in that I discovered that he had also included another GL (which I like a lot) named Mogo in the background. For those that don’t know, Mogo is a Green Lantern. Mogo is a sentient planet, and in the comics acts as a counselor for upset GL as well as the moral compass for GL rings to select new bearers. So not only did the sketch have my favorite GL, but it had really nice touches like various chiaroscuro GL symbols, and also Mogo! My next step is to have it framed and placed next to my other sketch of Kyle Rayner that I commissioned from Tyler Kirkham, another artist who does Kyle very well, for DC. This will be the second piece of artwork that I have on my walls from Mr. Gleason. A while back Scott commissioned him to render Kyle Rayner and Saint Walker standing back-to-back. That is hanging on the wall by my bedside and I go to bed and wake up appreciating his artwork every single day. Now that this commission is complete I do feel a sense of closure, and I do know that it won’t be the last bit of artwork I purchase from Mr. Gleason. The same sentiment goes for Mr. Kirkham, assuming he will be game for drawing Kyle in the future. Time will tell.

One thing that I do notice and I say this a lot, especially after conventions is a reminder to people on how to best handle their superhero tees after they get them home. These shirts seem like silly little things to most people, but for comic book geeks like us, they mean a lot more to us than a sport jacket or a fine suit. Remember everyone, that if you want your shirts to last you have to launder them carefully. Always turn them inside out, wash in cold water, and then right when they are done from the washer, turn them right side out and hang them up to dry. Never ever ever ever put them in the drying machine!

That all being said, most of the laundry is nearly done and I’m still up writing this blog entry. One of the curses of living in the eastern time zone and enjoying a con in the central time zone is that biologically speaking I’m off by an hour. This will continue until tomorrow morning when my internal clock is realigned with this time zone. Partially I’m waiting for laundry to finish, but really I’m relaxing here writing up the C2E2 blog post and being here for my boys, who both missed us terribly while we were gone. Now that we’re home, it’s time to plotz on daddy, whichever daddy ends up being plotzable. The condition to be plotzable has everything to do with sitting on a couch and not moving at all. 🙂

I will be taking more pictures and sharing them from the hall of honor for our comic book art. Scott has a commission in-progress from Jim Cheung, for Billy Kaplan, who is a Young Avenger in the Marvel comic book universe who’s codename is Wiccan. We already have a sketch of Billy in the hallway, but I’m looking forward to this new one from Mr. Cheung. I wonder if these artists ever expect their work to be framed professionally and hung so lovingly by their fans. It’s half the reason we go to conventions as it is, to meet the people who illustrate our favorite characters and put cold hard cash right in their hands. No middlemen, no DC, no Marvel, just artist and fan, and cash. A lot of cash. And each cent spent for this work is worth it. We have a lot of wall space and a lot of fandom.