Joe and I left Virginia for
Heroes Con on Thursday to spend the night before in Charlotte instead of just driving into the convention (like we did for New York in April). The extra night made the trip more relaxing for us. Charlotte is in a construction phase and I saw how the city is expanding. It's very up-and-coming and
very clean. There were public art installations, an outdoor play, and a drum circle around town. One of the first sites we saw at the Westin was Darwyn Cooke at the front door.
The convention in general was the most laid back we've been to and I bet you'll notice in this post how much I'll talk about food. This is because we treated this trip like a vacation. Reasons being: this is the furthest we have traveled to an event, this is the first time we've stayed in a hotel for an event, and I've taken off time from work to be in Charlotte and have fun!
I did quite a lot of sketching and was amazed by how many sketch requests I got! Two of my favorites were Black Canary (for a DC Comics themed sketchbook) and Kid Roxy (for a man named Daniel, whom we met in New York). It's nice to see reoccurring faces come to the table. I've noticed the more conventions and events we go to, the more we'll see loyalty in the people we've met before and it's always good to see them again and build connections.
We met a girl named Roxanne. It was very cool to meet a real Roxanne... maybe she's the real Roxy and she's a future criminal... watch out for her! She was
very excited about the books and I hope she enjoys them. I liked her a lot!
On Thursday night we ate at Pike's Old Fashioned Soda Shop. We had burgers and a vanilla float. It was cool to find out that they shot a scene from the movie
Shallow Hal with Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black in that restaurant.
For dinner on Friday we ate at The Penguin Grill inside The Alley Cat... again we ate more burgers with a side of cheese fries and for the first time in our lives... we ate fried pickles. Can you tell we were eating healthy? I can.
Let's stop talking about food (we'll get back to that later). Back to the convention... Joe filmed a "Watch
Amanda Conner Draw" segment for our upcoming short film on Heroes Con. Check back for that soon. I got to talk to
Cliff Chiang for a bit at his table and that was very nice.
John Gallagher (the creator of
Buzzboy) came by our table to say hello. He was kind enough to include Kid Roxy in the
Kids Love Comics! "Comics Garage" poster at Heroes Con which features Buzzboy, Amelia Rules!, Roboy Red, Patrick the Wolf Boy, Kid Roxy, and others. It was very awesome to be included in that project.
Another project we felt great to be a part of was The Dollar Bin's "Friends Assembled" Anthology. The book looks great and I really am proud of
The Dollar Bin for putting it together. What can I say? The Dollar Bin rocks. More on them later.
On Saturday Joe and I tried to make it back to The Penguin for the Heroes Con Art Auction. Unfortunately, torrential rain was pouring down and it would have been hard to walk there. We waited for the rain to stop... it didn't. Then we decided to drive, but there was a hip hop car show going down and the parking lot was super crazy. After over an hour of either waiting for the rain to stop or trying to get out of the parking lot, we figured we should skip the auction and go to Fuel Pizza across the street. I would have liked to see the auction, but it just didn't work out under our conditions. In line at Fuel we met Gary McKee from
Tsunami Studios and actual ate with him too. It was different to met someone in line at a pizza joint and strike up a conversation that lead to comics, but then again we were in a town that was holding a comics convention. It was good times.
Now back to food. All convention long I was craving the "nachos grande" from the concession stands. I will tell you right now... my vice is carnival nachos. Yes, ballpark nachos. The cheesier the better. Yes. I'm cheesy and I like it! Well, on Sunday we got nachos! Finally.
The main highlight of the entire convention for Joe and I was attending the Dead Dog Party at
Heroes Aren't Hard To Find comic shop. There was barbecue, more Fuel pizza, snacks, and drinks. Joe and I walked around the store for an hour as the party was just getting started. It is a very nice and friendly store set up. We also are fans of the exposed brick on the back wall.
We shared a table with Adam, Brian and Tre from The Dollar Bin at the Dead Dog Party. I have a feeling if we lived in South Carolina, like they do, we'd be super friends! Or... if they lived in Virginia, like we do, they would be super friends with us!
Curls Studio met Adam and Kris from The Dollar Bin last year at Baltimore-Comic Con. (Click
here to listen to our interview from that moment). Until this weekend I had no idea of what Brian, Devin, or Tre looked liked or how they were in person. All I knew was their voices from their podcast. I liked meeting the complete set of five guys this past weekend. Now I finally know who I keep calling "Mater" (from the Pixar movie,
Cars) in my head is. It's totally Brian.
We talked for like five hours about wrestling, comics, movies, and more. Actually about two hours of our conversation was completely focused on wrestling. I don't think Adam was as into that part, but Brian and Tre were into it. Especially Brian... he even knew the Motor City Machine Guns! We also got to talk with the very funny Rachelle, writer of the comics blog,
Living Between Wednesdays. Cliff Chiang sat at our table for a conversation and we met
Chris Schweizer at the very end of the party. I've checked out his work and I think it's pretty sweet. Also halfway through the party, another huge rain storm happened! Luckily we were under a tent, but the rain was so heavy it was coming at an angle inside the tent! There was some crazy wetness going on, but it was all so fun.
Thanks goes out to organizers Shelton Drum and Dusty Harbin for putting on Heroes Con.
Hopefully we'll come in contact with the folks we met at Heroes in upcoming events. We'll be at
Baltimore Comic-Con in September and
SPX in October... hope to meet you there.
Let me end this by saying that I have a thing for Martian Manhunter's big skull. Ask me about it... if you
really want to know.
Check out all the Curls Studio Heroes Con 2008 photos on the
Curls Studio Flickr page.
