Pittsburgh Convention 2003
Thursday Precon

The players: Rafer and Nan Roberts, Jake Warrenfeltz,
Sean Q. Duffey

This convention involved the most extensive planning
on our part. A three day stint at one of the biggest
cons would deserve nothing but our best. So using the
finest in crap technology and office theivery we built
an honest-to-god display setup. Shoddily cut and
assembled PVC pipe would provide the backbone for a
six-foot tall banner, while Sean handled the Kinko’s
folk and got us a vinyl banner. Sean also designed
little freebee cards featuring only the finest of pull
quotes from various reviews, as well as the website
address. These were to be handed out alongside the
various incarnations of the Introduction to Plastic
Farm mini-comics.

So after a month of careful planning we set out on our
journey. Within the first five minutes on the road,
traffic separated our two cars and we lost Sean and
Jake. The rest of our journey was spent driving way
too fast wondering if The Gigantor Brothers made it
back to the highway. Music choices for the trip ranged
from Rage Against the Machine to ABBA.

Four hours later we arrived in Monroeville and checked
into the Holiday Inn. We called Jake’s cell and
discovered that they had made it into town already and
were now enjoying the refreshing and family-oriented
atmosphere of the local Hooter’s. This was to be the
first omen of the weekend.

Once we all hooked up, we headed over to the Expomart
to set up our booth. It was very unusual to see a
giant convention floor without the swirling masses of
comic fans, but it did give us the opportunity to gawk
at folks in comics much more popular than us. Nan was
especially happy that we got to see Terry Moore
setting up his booth, and also Jim Balent and Holly
Golightly setting up theirs. In hindsight, because our
booth didn’t take very long to set up at all, we
probably could have offered to help some other folks,
but we had drinking to do.

We ate at the hotel restaurant and drank too much in
our hotel. Details are sketchy.

Standing out on the balcony, I flicked two cigarette
buts in a row into a planter three stories down in
swirling wind. Things were looking good.

Friday: Convention Day One

Nan and I got to the show a little bit later than we
had planned. She wasn't feeling well with the onset of
a cold, so we had to stop for some cold medicine. I’m
sure that the broken sleep we all got in a hotel room
didn’t help matters for any of us. We're all snorers
of varios degrees and I think we all slept in cycles,
each of us waking up another during stages of our
nocturnal chainsaw sleep breathing.

Here come the Ghostbusters (2nd string)

Nan has no fear of the Dark Side

But anyway, we all got to the show on time at least,
with time enough to introduce ourselves to our
neighbors. On our left were the Fightin' Fun fellows,
who would turn out to be the greatest convention
sellers of comics I have ever seen. They make my crazy
lie-filled sales pitches seem like poo. An example
from Fightin' Fun. "This comic is guaranteed to make
you shit yourself laughing. If this comics doesn’t
make you shit yourself, we'll feed you stuff to make
you shit yourself." They also took pictures of
everyone who bought a book from them last year and put
them in the comic as superheroes who get killed in
multiple ways. Automatic repeat sales. I may have to
steal that idea later.

Rafer out in front as Sean hides behind the display

On our right was supposed to be Ivy Blue, but I guess
oweing to her name, she "Blue" off the convention and
didn’t show. So, in her place we got Playboy Playmate
Jennifer LaVoie. Across the aisle was 1995's Playmate
of the Year Julie Cialini, and one more booth up were
two women dressed in very scantily clad outfits
selling naked pictures of themselves and charging
people money to have their pictures taken with them.
So, we had some interesting traffic.

Ron Frenz sits across from our table, avoiding eye contact

Friday was fairly slow, though we did make some good
sales. I discovered better ways to describe the comic
after nearly making some kid cry. I described Chester
as having a drug and alcohol problem and living in a
fantasy world. Chester has no control over his life
and he is slowly getting more and more insane. The kid
replied that I had just described his father to a tee
and began to sadly walk away. I tried to explain that
Plastic Farm was funny. "Look", I yelled after him.
"Cowboys on dinosaurs! It's wacky! WACKY!"

Neil Vokes wants nothing to do with us

A new rule was thus made that no mention of chemical
dependency should be mentioned when trying to move
books.

Fighting Fun. The most awesome folks to hang out with at a con, for various reasons...

Nan and i took a break about halfway through the day
and visited the Abstract Studios booth where Nan had
her picture taken with Terry Moore, and the Linsner
table where she had her picture taken with him. I
swung by a few other small press tables, visiting Jim
Coon and others, and stopped by Steve Lieber's table
and picked up the two Whiteout collections I had been
meaning to buy forever, and Jeff Parker's The
Interman. I also got a copy of Sonambulo from Rafael
Navarro, which is a really excellent book.

Oh, earlier in the day, Damon Hurd stopped by our
table and gave us copies of the new printing of My
Uncle Jeff. He thanked me for saying nice things about
the book online, which I assured him was because I
honestly enjoyed the book. We got to talking and he
gave me advice on how to better get my book picked up
by Diamond. So, once again, thank you Damon.

The convention is a blur (like most of my memories of the show)

Then the show ended and we crawled back to the Holiday
Inn, tired and achy. We had been invited to hang out
at some bar in downtown Pittsburgh, but we were all
too beat to drive twenty minutes, spend twenty minutes
finding a parking space, drink for an hour, and then
come home to even attempt such a thing. So we walked
to Max and Erma's down the street, had two drinks
each, then passed out in the hotel.

Fighting Fun, having some fun whilst fighting

Rafer got tired of writing the con report. The rest is by Sean Duffey, stolen from his site:

We all left Rafer's house at the same time but we got split up at a large traffic jam on I-70 outside of Hagerstown. Jake and I circumvented it by going through Clear Spring to get back on route further down the road, past the jam. We figured we weren't too far ahead of the others. It turns out we were about 45 minutes ahead of them and we'd even taken a wrong turn when we got off of the turnpike in Monroeville. I think they stopped for a quick bite, so I guess we couldn't gloat too much. Jake and I waited at the hotel for a bit... actually we didn't really wait... we were hungry and we went to the nearby Hooters. Ah, beer, boobs and Buffalo wings... perfect. After Rafer and Nan got there we unloaded our stuff at the hotel and then the convention center. Later on, we went out and got some really good beer at the liquor store. (I wish I could remember what the beer was called.) They had a huge St. Bernard, named Annie, and she drooled more than any dog I'd ever seen. She even slipped around on it when she tried to stand up.

Nan Roberts, Official Muse (and money handler) of Plastic Farm

On Friday, we got to meet all of our neighbors as the professionals rolled in before the show. We were two tables down from Schotten Film Works, who were there promoting their zombie movie, Dead Life. After seeing the trailer at their table, I'm looking forward to the finished product. In one shot, there was a zombie ripping the scalp off of a screaming chick's head. How often have you seen that? Right, never! Our immediate neighbors were the guys at Fighting Fun Comics. They were lots of fun and really great at peddling their comic book. At last year's show they took the names and pictures of customers who visited their table so that they could write them and their death scenes into their next issue. We actually went out to dinner with them and Rafael Navarro, creator/writer/artist of Sonambulo on Saturday night. (By the way, if you're not reading Sonambulo, you should be. It's excellent.)

Nan and Terry Moore

Rafer, Holly Golightly, Jim Balent, and Nan. Jim Balent is tall (and a real cool cat.)

Most of the dinner conversation was about Cerberus, Dave Sim and Indie bands, so I was a little lost not being an expert on any of it, but it was still fun. Our other neighbor was Jennifer Lavoie, Playboy Playmate from August 1994 and cast member of USA's Eco-Challenge. She was a total sweetie and lots of fun to talk to. I do have to say that it was a little strange talking to a Playmate from an issue that I actually own. Our table was pretty much at the epicenter of modeldom. Jennifer was next to us with fellow Playmate Lindsey Vuolo. On the other side of them were two pin-up models, who were a little sleazy, but attractive in a stripper sort of way. Across the isle from us was Julie Cialini who was Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1995. She was cute. I think she got stuck with a bad table, though, because only a few people stopped by and she frequently looked horribly bored. We felt bad for her. We never really spoke to the guys at the table behind us, but we got to hear their fucking boom box for the entire three days of the show. Linkin Park over and over and over and over again. Although, I did have to chuckle when they put on the Transformers: The Movie soundtrack.

The Imperial Guard wonders what to do with his enormous staff...

Nan and everyone's friend, Jim Coon

I still had a good time at the show on Saturday, despite the food poisoning I got from a ham and cheese omelet at Denny's. (I wasn't the only victim as I later found out!) I spent the day with a tender stomach and had to miss the guest party at the hotel upstairs. That sucked, but I did get made over when I got to the show the next morning, so that was all right. Sunday was the day I actually cut loose and spent some money. It went quickly and I spent too much, of course. I got some great drive-in movie posters. They were from exploitation films of the early-mid 1970's. Too funny, and graphically cool. They will be displayed prominently on our hallway walls.

Nan loves the Linser

The spread on day one.

During my spending frenzy, I got around to meeting some of the guests at the con. High points included meeting Erin Gray (of Buck Rogers and Silver Spoons fame), Jim Balent and his saucy models, and Tim Vigil (artist of Faust). Meeting Vigil was awesome. It was sort of like talking to Yoda or Mr. Miyagi. Jake and I are big fans of his and have been for years. He gave Jake some good feedback on his artwork. Jake was beaming on the last day after he bumped into Vigil and he remembered Jake's name. For me, it was good to meet him for a second time and know who he is. The first time I met him was at a convention in Arlington back in 1991. One of the guys I went with was buying prints from Vigil and I stopped by to see them. I loved them right off the bat, and I saw what Vigil was drawing for another customer and I said (as only a dorky 17 year old slacker can) "wow, cool" and then left to go get Stan Lee's autograph. If only I knew. Another good meeting at the con was with Danielle Corsetto writer/artist of Hazelnuts. It turns out she's from Frederick and goes to Shepherd College, and she knows a lot of my old teachers. It seems weird to go all the way to Pittsburgh to run into someone like that. She's great and you should all check out her stuff.

Come hither, and buy some damn comics.

Rafer is short

On a funny note, I got to meet B-movie king Conrad Brooks again. He was getting fresh with some of the models at the show. He didn't remember me or our off and on conversation at last year's APIC show in Hagerstown. It was probably a good thing. He gave a stunning unrehearsed and un-requested mini-audition for the Schotten Film Works guys. I wish I had a video camera there. Pure B-brilliance!

Jake is eager to sell some comics

The Dark Side loves comics.

Sean Duffey loves the ladies

Despite the fun, the con was not without its unfavorable meetings. Firstly and most annoyingly was Pat "as in, pat the kid" (insert miming patting a child's head) as he explained. For two days, he stood at our table for 30 minutes at a time, eating the free candy and devouring the eye candy of our surrounding playmates. He was also chatty... very chatty... whether you wanted to hear it or not. He managed to endear himself to our neighbor with his lengthy monologue about women who sell their bodies for money by posing nude are questionable as human beings, finishing with "no offense" while leisurely thumbing through her photo album. Yutz! Pat was thrilled when he found out that Jake lives in Harrisburg and that he lives over in York and thought they should hang out. Fortunately he pushed things to far when he found a blue "Professionals" badge lying around and used it to get himself into the guest's party on Saturday night. As I understand it, he was quietly walked out the door. Rafer said he saw him the next morning in the lobby and he seemed really pissed off and agitated. Since he wasn't around stinking up the place on Sunday, I'm assuming that he was barred from the show. My guess is that he got caught because he was bragging to everyone about how he got into the party and either he bragged to the wrong person or someone narcked on him. The other awkward meeting was with a well-meaning Hollander who stopped by our table. He went on at length about how negative Americans are and how we lead the world and we have a responsibility to be a positive role model. Given my feelings about the (un)trustworthiness of government and the greedy over-reach of corporate America, I'm really not the person to get into a discussion with about setting a positive example. Oh dear, there's me being negative and skeptical again. I was polite and let the guy finish though. I think Jake wanted to yell at him to leave our table though.

The cutest couple in comics

Ghostbusters read it. Why won't you?
In all, I had a fantastic time at the comicon and I'm stoked about working on the next installment of The Hope, especially since several people gave us some good feedback about the comic. We had a great time meeting so many comic book creators and fans, and I think that was the best part. I really hope we can do this again next year.

This is not the comic we're looking for.

By the way, signing autographs is a truly odd experience.

Rafer, Nan and Rafael Navarro (Sonambulo)

Making comics is such hard work

Plastic Farm makes superheroes hard...