{"id":119,"date":"2007-10-23T08:26:41","date_gmt":"2007-10-23T14:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/?p=119"},"modified":"2010-04-26T11:50:27","modified_gmt":"2010-04-26T17:50:27","slug":"111-gearing-up-for-san-diego-2006-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/archives\/119","title":{"rendered":"111. Gearing Up For San Diego 2006, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note of WOOPS! <\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Fans!<\/em><\/p>\n

Regarding diary entry 111…or any other entry that wasn’t on its timely weekly schedule…Silly us! Our own sleep-deprived, always-chasing-the-baby-around-the-house artistic hack, Chris Wisnia, accidentally clicked “save” instead of “publish” for last week’s informative diary entry! Or who knows? maybe his fourteeen-month-old son did, since Oscar likes to climb onto his daddy’s lap and punch at the keys, swing the mouse around, and yank the keyboard to the floor! At any rate, it should have been posted in a timely fashion a week ago, and we didn’t realize the error until today, a week late! The utmost apologies, fans! To make it up to you, we posted a BONUS ENTRY this week! That’s right, TWO ENTRIES IN ONE WEEK! This week’s, and the one you should have gotten last week! What a bonus!<\/em><\/p>\n

Enjoy,<\/em><\/p>\n

Rob Oder, Editor-in-Chief!<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

FLYING DOWN, BUT FINDING A \u201cCOURIER\u201d<\/p>\n

As soon as we found out we were expecting, we warned the doctor of our plan to go to San Diego while Elizabeth is eight months pregnant. <\/span>We were informed by our doctor and the airline that we are safely within the window of \u201csafe to fly,\u201d and decided we would prefer that to the eight-plus-hour drive. <\/span>That surprises many people, but on a plane, we know we will land in an hour, and be surrounded by people trained to handle emergencies. <\/span>Driving, we would be in the middle of who-in-the-hell-knows-where, with no idea where or how far the nearest hospital is, and probably no idea how to get there, or have anyone to call or find to help us.<\/p>\n

Then we learned, coincidentally, that Elizabeth had a business meeting, scheduled in San Diego the very same week! <\/span>That means we could write off her flight, hotel, and a rental car! <\/span>Then one of her employees mentioned he would be driving down, and offered to take a bunch of our stuff down for us, so we don\u2019t have to lug it around the hospital, with a pregnant woman!<\/p>\n

As I publish more and more books, I\u2019ve increasingly dreaded traveling to conventions, because it\u2019s getting to be too much to take. <\/span>I guess it\u2019s lucky for me I usually only sell about thirty books, because then I don\u2019t have to take a lot with me. <\/span>But now I\u2019ve got five self-published comics, a trade paperback, and an enormous treasury edition, as well as Ojo trades, Ojo comics, a British horror anthology, t-shirts, posters. <\/span>If I bring one of each size of t-shirt, thirty of each book, and ten of each trade, it\u2019s still hundreds of pounds of stuff, and you\u2019re only allowed fifty pounds per suitcase. <\/span>How do people do it, if they don\u2019t have a courier service from their wife\u2019s work?<\/p>\n

PREDICTING WHAT A SUCCESSFUL YEAR THIS WILL BE<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been crossing my fingers that this year we\u2019ll sell better than ever. <\/span>Thanks to our \u201ccourier service\u201d through Elizabeth\u2019s work, I\u2019ve decided to bring about twenty-five copies of each issue of Tabloia, fifty Lump trades, and a hundred fifty Doris Danger books.<\/p>\n

All the stars are in order. <\/span>We\u2019ve got a location that I\u2019m hoping will have lots of foot traffic from people who want to buy indie comics. <\/span>I bought a $250 sign of a giant monster, to attract attention, and I brazenly listed all my pin-up artists at the very top of the sign. <\/span>We\u2019ve got Matt Silady the master salesman helping at our table, and ready to take charge if I have to rush Elizabeth to the hospital to have a baby. <\/span>All the signs are in order. <\/span>All the stars are lined up. <\/span>Maybe I\u2019m setting myself up for some disappointment, but you\u2019ve got to aim high. <\/span>I\u2019m felling hopeful we\u2019ll do all right this year at San Diego, the most difficult convention to do all right at. <\/span>I\u2019m hoping we can make back our hefty San Diego table costs. <\/span>We\u2019ll do it if we can sell a hundred twenty monster books, and don\u2019t sell anything else. <\/span>That doesn\u2019t sound so impossible, does it, at a five day convention?<\/p>\n

THE EIGHT-MONTH PRE-FLIGHT CHECK-UP<\/p>\n

The week before our flight, we went to the doctor to make sure everything is still going all right. <\/span>The OB\/GYN examined E and said, \u201cOh my God! <\/span>You\u2019re two centimeters dialated, and your cervix is thinned 80%!\u201d <\/span>We reminded the Doctor of our trip. <\/span>Her nervousness was fearsome. <\/span>She finally said, No, you should go on your trip. <\/span>It\u2019s a big trip, and it could be you won\u2019t have that baby until you get back. <\/span>But you should be prepared, in case you have the baby in San Diego. <\/span>She told us how nervous she was though. <\/span>It made us nervous.<\/p>\n

PEOPLE I\u2019M LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING<\/p>\n

Many years, I look over the \u201cfeatured guests\u201d lists, and am not necessarily interested in meeting very many of them. <\/span>However, I know that every year, tons and tons of great, fantastic idols of mine are somewhere at the con, if I can only figure out where to hunt them down. <\/span>This year, however, I was surprised how many cool artists I got excited about seeing listed.<\/p>\n

I sent out a spam mailer to my mailing list, and also a couple quick emails to some friends.<\/p>\n

The bulk email stated, in dazzling, sensational Circus-ringleader fashion, that we were planning to perform a live birth at San Diego, and it got a number of replies from our friends, such as Mick Gray, all of whom said, \u201cYou\u2019re crazy. <\/span>You\u2019re insane. <\/span>See you there.\u201d <\/span>I got an email from Scott Shaw with congratulations, and confirmation he\u2019d still like to do a pin-up. <\/span>I got an email from Steven Grant, who I\u2019m quite eager to meet, after all his kind mentions at his website. <\/span>He is the only reviewer I\u2019ve had so far who has actually generated sales.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking forward to hunting down Simon Bisley, and approaching him with a piece of paper in my hand, and flopping it down in front of him and having him just draw me a pin-up right there on the spot, now that it\u2019s been a year since I paid him for a pin-up, and he hasn\u2019t even bothered to reply to my emails.<\/p>\n

I was ecstatic to see Brian Bolland listed as a guest to this year\u2019s convention. <\/span>When we met at the Bristol Con, he\u2019d said the last convention he\u2019d done was seven years earlier, and it had been in England, so seeing him coming to America seems like a really big deal to me. <\/span>I\u2019m looking forward to hunting him down, reminding him who I am, and seeing if he might still have interest in doing a pin-up. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve emailed Brian a number of times, ever since we met in Bristol. <\/span>I heard back from him once early on (this was over a year ago), and never again. <\/span>At that time, he said, Sorry I\u2019m so busy, I\u2019ll send a proper email soon. <\/span>And then nothing. <\/span>So I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s got a new email, or if he\u2019s not really interested in doing a pin-up, or if I\u2019ve gotten on his nerves, and he\u2019s put me in his spam filter, or if he\u2019s just busy and doesn\u2019t return a lot of emails. <\/span><\/p>\n

John Romita Sr. and Daniel Clowes I\u2019d also like to check in with, both of whom have hinted they may do pin-ups, but I get the vibe they probably won\u2019t. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to try to meet Shag, but who knows what kind of mob he\u2019ll attract, and how hard it would be to get to him. <\/span>Most likely, he\u2019ll have a couple hour-long signings in the autograph area, and not be around the rest of the time. <\/span>I of course fantasize about getting a pin-up from him, but I\u2019m just going to assume there\u2019s no way that could happen, since there probably isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to say hi to Seth. <\/span>And I heard Frank Miller will be signing, but I just assume there\u2019s no way I could possibly get over to meet him.<\/p>\n

I guess we\u2019ll see if my mom\u2019s prediction, that my horoscope says it will be the best year ever, pans out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note of WOOPS! Fans! Regarding diary entry 111…or any other entry that wasn’t on its timely weekly schedule…Silly us! Our own sleep-deprived, always-chasing-the-baby-around-the-house artistic hack, Chris Wisnia, accidentally clicked “save” instead of “publish” for last week’s informative diary entry! Or who knows? maybe his fourteeen-month-old son did, since Oscar likes to climb onto his daddy’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary-of-a-struggling-comics-artist"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"cwisnia","author_link":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/archives\/author\/cwisnia"},"uagb_comment_info":135,"uagb_excerpt":"Note of WOOPS! Fans! Regarding diary entry 111…or any other entry that wasn’t on its timely weekly schedule…Silly us! Our own sleep-deprived, always-chasing-the-baby-around-the-house artistic hack, Chris Wisnia, accidentally clicked “save” instead of “publish” for last week’s informative diary entry! Or who knows? maybe his fourteeen-month-old son did, since Oscar likes to climb onto his daddy’s…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}