#5573848 - 04/04/1212:19 AMThe Toast report: ECCC 2012 PICTURE HEAVY
Designer ToastDesigner Toast Quoting your own initial thread post: take seven shots.
TOTAL NEWBIE
Registered: 10/20/07
Posts: 9827
Loc: NMish Savvy
This year I forgot to make plans to fly up in advance of the coming Spring Break. A flight up on Thursday would have been no problems, but every flight back was sold and and many were overbooked - so off I went via road to Seattle.
The weather in these parts has been awful, continuous days of rain with some areas flooding a bit. It was a long drive in the rain and not all that bad, but some sun would have been nice. I stopped off at three comic shops along the way. Sadly, one store was having such poor sales it stopped ordering new comics altogether. The other two stores were not doing well either.
It seems to be the theme in Oregon and Washington, as my pal Chris from I Like Comics in Vancouver, Washington, recently bought out a store that had been struggling for a while.
After arriving in Seattle, I went to a family member's house and met up with them for dinner. After dinner, we went to this killer indoor shooting range and blew off about four hundred or so rounds of ammo. We hit some regular targets and shot up a few comics for laughs, including an X-Force 3.
The guys in the lane next to us were blowing off rounds when one of them got hit right in the face; inner corner of his left eye near the bridge of his nose. A fragment had ricocheted back and caught him. Luckily, it was a small fragment that had skimmed off the bottom of his glasses - hence, why you should always wear rounded shooting glasses. The guy was okay with the fragment leaving just a small mark, and it could have been a lot worse.
After shooting we returned to the house, watched some TV, hung out and chatted and I crashed out for the night.
Friday afternoon I rolled into the city and met up with a good friend of mine for lunch at the Daily Grill. Adam Baldwin was chowing down while we were there and it was nice to see that nobody was bothering him. To you Daily Grill haters - I love you all and you have not a taste bud in your head.
After lunch I met up with the infamous greggy who, in spite of my not showing up with a pocket full of pins for him, was gracious enough to provide me with a pass for the show. His kindness and my seventy-five dollars went a long way. Thanks again for hooking me up, greggy.
I walked around for a few minutes and checked on the line outside. There were a ton of people there. I decided to head over to the Image booth to wait and pick up a Walking Dead compendium.
Spydrcer (Rey) showed up and we hung out and talked while waiting for the show to start. There was a ceramics show in town and I think Rey was shocked that I knew who Chihuly was (renowned glass artist) - Rey had no clue and only knew the name because his wife had opted to go to the ceramics show and pass on the con. That's okay, Rey, I only know because of my wife too.
Designer ToastDesigner Toast Quoting your own initial thread post: take seven shots.
TOTAL NEWBIE
Registered: 10/20/07
Posts: 9827
Loc: NMish Savvy
The flood for the show started and I grabbed one of the WD compendiums. The entire Image staff that weekend was awesome. They were flat out busy the entire time and had to deal with some real azzholes. The Image staff had to deal with a plethora of i-diots and m-orons from people demanding a copy of the WD compendium to flustered fanboys who called the staff liars when people were turned back from the Kirkman signing (more on that later). I went out of my way to thank the Image staff for their kindness and professionalism.
I was given a ticket for the Friday night Kirkman siging, but was told it was at seven. Wrong. It was from five to seven and I had missed it. However, it was the Image staff to the rescue, telling me my ticket would be honored the following day and it was (more on that later). The convention closed at eight on Friday night and the swarms of people coming in and out were nonstop. I heard that Friday's numbers were over thirty-three thousand strong.
A few shots of the floor pre-show...apologies in advance for the blurring, I forgot to turn the flash on...
