Brant was a fan of comics as a kid and it stuck with him into adulthood. These days he's also an aspiring comic creator. This column discusses his personal journey from fandom to the annals of the creative society that is the world of comics. Brant's current comic series is Wannabez and this is his journey. (If it's you're first time joining him, you can visit the link at the bottom of the article to start the journey from the beginning.)
MID-OHIO-CON 2009 Part 1
As you may have heard tale of elsewhere on the site, Mid-Ohio-Con 2009 was... quite the adventure for yours truly. Seriously, it was literally an adventure! I'm talking multiple times walking the streets of Columbus for miles lost and with not a clue where I was going. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
After the success that was MOC 2008, I was excited to return, and the folks in charge of MOC were nice enough to give me a premium booth again in 2009, right next to Scott and CR. So we had a three table monster and were once again surrounded by longtime industry pros. It was a great experience just like the previous year.
But things got off to quite the rocky start. First, we got this bright idea that since it was CR's 5th anniversary, we would get a cake made up to celebrate the event and disperse it at MOC, kind of to attract people to the CR booth as well, where we had the full podcasting setup ready to interview whoever we could get. Well, getting the cake made was the first problem. Kroger gave us grief about using the logo because they didn't want to get in trouble. But we were the owners of the company. So essentially they were telling us we had to write up permission for ourselves to use the logo. It was ridiculous. It's one thing to be cautious, but when we stand there with proof we are the owners of the logo and they fight us on it that's just over the top. Shame on you, Kroger!
Once we got the cake issue out of the way and had it in hand the other insanity would occur. I was busting my butt all night long the night prior to the con to get things ready for the con. I was making up signs and preparing some sketch cards and stuff to sell, and I hadn't even packed yet. Long story short, I never got a chance to sleep, not one wink. So I set out with John for the multiple hour drive up to MOC on no sleep at all.
On the way up we get pulled over as John was kind of speeding just a wee bit. Luckily for us, the cop that pulled us over saw the stuff and was actually a comic fan and chatted us up about the con and his past experiences with comics and so forth. Sadly, that did not get poor John out of the ticket, but it was still quite the coincidence and made getting the ticket a little more enjoyable. Well, for me at least. I didn't have to pay the fine!
Once we arrived at the con, John asked me to park the car... on no sleep... in a city I had only been to once and had valet parking that one time... not a wise move, Mr. Wilson. Not wise at all. So I took the car around and discovered that the lot we wanted to park in, right
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John in upcoming IAR strip |
across from the convention center, was full up. So I drove around until I found a garage and tucked the car safely away. And then it occurred to me that I had no idea where I was. So I set off on foot and walked for 45 minutes to an hour around Columbus in October with a very thin sweat jacket on freezing my butt off, on no sleep.
Finally, after going in circles and getting absolutely no help from people I ran across who sent me off in totally wrong directions, I made it back to the convention center. I straggled in and John had already set up both the CR table and my table, and he looked at me and said "Where have you been?!" This is the point, after I caught my breath and took a minute, where I tried to lighten my next piece of news with a bit of levity. It didn't go over so well... I had lost John's car!
I mean, I knew it was in a garage somewhat nearby, but I had no idea, after getting all turned around, where the exact location might be. As you can imagine, John was a little peeved. He held it together pretty well, but I could see him steaming underneath the calm expression. He was not happy. Then I made matters worse, but that comes much later in the story.
-B
Past Columns - Start the Journey at the beginning! Click here to check out all the past Journey of a Wannabe columns.
Brant W. Fowler / Writer, Letter, Creator, Reviewer, Columnist and Comic Related PR Coordinator
Brant W. Fowler has been a professional comic book letterer and logo designer for three years, and has been a freelance editor for the past five years. He has also worked with graphic design, writing and many other area of skills for several years honing his talents. You can learn all about what he's up to by visiting Gonzogoose
Design. Brant is also a member of the core
operations team at Comic Related.
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