Having arrived home during the darkest hour of the night, this update is not exactly timely. I hope that one more bout of self-indulgence - heaped, as it is, upon the others, piled above shoulder-height - will not mar the union we have so long cherished.
Even faulty equipment cannot bar us from our ancient duty, and even with only a camera, a table, and a pen at our disposal we shall pierce our gathered enemies. Gabriel struggled to retain his lunch as various aggressors took chisel to his beloved space opera. We saw a Green Lantern Jedi, which - and please don't confirm this to my associate - is something that could probably work. There was also what appeared to be an entirely reverent Orthodox Jew plus lightsaber, which might be a tougher task, but I flatter myself that I am up to the challenge.
There's a lot of stress associated with the convention that simply didn't exist this time. Physically, there is exhaustion, yes. The muscles associated with smiling are bolstered, to extent that my cheek alone could probably kick your ass, if you had been drinking or perhaps if my cheek got the drop on you. But in person, beyond the strange Internet rays that attenuate the inbuilt social powers of our species, I feel a pressure to behave like a kind of Webcomics Ambassador. I don't know exactly why. The peacemaking gene, the supplicator, is always present. This goes beyond that. I decided before boarding the plane that this year I was going to be "As Nasty As I" wanted to "Be," in the manner of the 2 Live Crew, and I behaved in exactly the same way I have every other time, only now it wasn't a chore. I always imagined that if I did not actively suppress it, some dark force would leap to the fore. I'm a little disappointed that I do not play host to a malevolent Dark Force, but other than that, best con ever - and upon every measured axis. I have heard the same from every other person. I have met so many, and also secured the old alliances - let me invent a way to list them that honors each.
With readers, there is no chore associated with it. I feel only the urge to look and be better than I am, just as anyone would when presented with their employer. The fact that my employer is a distributed entity that arrives in (over the course of a convention like this) more than four thousand unique and challenging guises is my own issue to deal with.
At the end of the con, we were forced to contend with forty-foot tall Boss Reader(!) who, after cycling through three forms of successively greater moisture, stole a poster and then ran away. We thought at first that he didn't know they weren't free, but he stole the poster that had the price written on it. He is either a thief who actively enjoys the practice, or he thought it was a poster signed by the creative team behind our comic, Messieurs "Twelve" and "Dollars."
(CW)TB out.
