(Look at those Flukers go!)Last Saturday it was Fluke time in Athens, GA. The southeast's greatest brashly confident avatars of cool gathered together to get through this thing we call life. Electric word life and that means forever but I'm here to tell ya, there's something else... minicomics.
(I can't overestimate how hard it is to get that many people to pretend they don't know I'm taking their picture at the same time.)
My guestimation is that turnout was pretty good. In previous years there would be holy crap moments where the place was too crowded to walk through followed by WTF moments where the place was empty. This year, the room seemed to be comfortably full for the entire day.
(J. Chris Campbell and Duane Ballanger demonstrate how the WAP kicks out the jams.)
I set up in front of the bar beside my pals Brad McGinty and Josh Latta. There seemed to be people shopping our tables throughout the entire day and there seemed to be more non-comic-creators shopping the tables this year.
(Josh Latta: "Brad old buddy. The way I see it is like this. We set up right in front of the bar and then we are guaranteed thousands of customers."
Brad McGinty: "Or we get drunk faster."
Josh: "It's a win win old chap.")
(The people love Brad's curly locks and covet his signature.)
(The line of podcasters waiting to interview Josh Latta was back up all the way to Atlanta and he rocked them all like Bon Jovi on a steel horse.)
(I sold stuff. There's nothing like going to a bar and having people give you money without asking you to take off your clothes.)
(I can't overestimate how hard it is to get that many people to pretend they don't know I'm taking their picture at the same time.)My guestimation is that turnout was pretty good. In previous years there would be holy crap moments where the place was too crowded to walk through followed by WTF moments where the place was empty. This year, the room seemed to be comfortably full for the entire day.
(J. Chris Campbell and Duane Ballanger demonstrate how the WAP kicks out the jams.)I set up in front of the bar beside my pals Brad McGinty and Josh Latta. There seemed to be people shopping our tables throughout the entire day and there seemed to be more non-comic-creators shopping the tables this year.
(Josh Latta: "Brad old buddy. The way I see it is like this. We set up right in front of the bar and then we are guaranteed thousands of customers."Brad McGinty: "Or we get drunk faster."
Josh: "It's a win win old chap.")
(The people love Brad's curly locks and covet his signature.)
(The line of podcasters waiting to interview Josh Latta was back up all the way to Atlanta and he rocked them all like Bon Jovi on a steel horse.)
(I sold stuff. There's nothing like going to a bar and having people give you money without asking you to take off your clothes.)
Several people recognized me from the file under other site and brought me comics for review. I promise I will review them but it may be a little while. Here is the straight up scoop on where the file under other reviews stand at this exact second: Right now I'm about four submissions behind. I hope to catch those up in the next two weeks. Then I have Shiot Crock 12 v. 2 to cover. Then, the Fluke stuff. Hang in there true believers.
(My Fluke loot.)
(That's me. Just to prove I was there and didn't make the whole thing up. Man, I look terrible. That's what you get when you sleep four hours in three days. I would have brushed my hair but there wasn't a mirror in the Tasty World men's room.)
(My Fluke loot.)I got an awesome box of comics. I'm super excited to have Brad McGinty's Wysteria 5 and Tub Flub and Josh Latta's new Rashy Rabbit. I read those last night and they are awesome. J. Chris Campbell had some great looking new books (or one's I had missed before) and I picked up Zig Zag 2. I was very sad that Patrick Dean did not have a new giant comic. I was so upset that I doused myself and the bar with gasoline and was about to "Flame On" until he gave me an issue of Big Deal I had missed. I got the two Students of the Unusual mags that Brad McGinty is in and I really just can't believe how good those comics look. Go buy those things people!
There was really too many good books to list them all and I don't have the box with me at the moment. I'll cover a lot of the stuff at file under other. Eventually...
(That's me. Just to prove I was there and didn't make the whole thing up. Man, I look terrible. That's what you get when you sleep four hours in three days. I would have brushed my hair but there wasn't a mirror in the Tasty World men's room.)If you saw me at Fluke and I did not seem to be my usual awe inspiring self, then here is the dealio. I stayed up late for weeks working on my new mini and school and life etc. Thursday night, I stayed up late and inked the entire book. Slept four hours. Friday, I set up the comic for print in photoshop and put in all the tones. Friday night, I printed, folded, stapled etc. Notice there was no sleep on Friday. So at about 2 am, I started the drive to GA. I got to Snellville around 8 am to find out my old house there had no hot water. I was too out of it to attempt to light the pilot so I took the worst cold shower ever and failed to wash my hair. (This would come back to haunt me when I would later see how terrible I looked in a blog photo.) Then, I drove to Athens and the rest is history.
Still, I had a great day seeing all my pals and hanging out in Athens. I even got to go to the world's best little comic shop Bizzaro Wuxtry. Bizzaro was so crowded you could hardly walk through it. Normally I would have been all angry and all "get out of my way I needs me some comics" but on this day, I was just happy to see so many people in such a cool place having a good time.
God bless us everyone.
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
1 comment:
Great report Shannon and the "brashly confident avatars of cool" article was insane (I still prefer inkstuds).
You're right about the crowd this year it was definitely a more consistent flow than previous years. It also seemed like there were actually quite a few people just "off the street too". I'm really glad to see it continue to grow.
Man you have a ton of comics to review!
-Brad
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