This year, I managed to catch a ride with some friends from Oklahoma City to Dallas to make it to the convention on Thursday, so I had nothing to worry about as far as getting to the dealers' room before it opened. Luckily, the con was held in the same hotel as it was in the previous year, which meant a huge, comfortable space in the dealers' room. Like last year, I bummed a table with the Happy Jackal Graphics crew. And, as usual, they arrived just as the dealers' room was opening for business. We moved all the stock in within maybe half an hour and got things set up. I dropped by the Radio Comix table to find that Anaconda Davida was ready, complete with my cover colors. Business was slow, but I managed to sell a few portfolios. Otherwise, I took the time to get a commission from The Z, among others, when I made my treks out of the safety of the dealers' room and into the artists' ghetto. I ran into a few cool people, like a friend from my undergrad, and much to my surprise, a professor from my undergrad. It was never quite clear to me just what he was doing there, but it was good to see him there. My nights this year were much more comfortable thanks to the fact that the seven of us had reserved a suite rather than a tiny room.

Saturday was marked by just an incredible amount of people in the dealers' room. Even with the wide aisles, it was a pain getting around, let alone getting to the tables to look at the fine products being marketed. This would have otherwise been a fairly uneventful day had it not been for our new fire marshal. I came back to the dealers' room at one point to find they weren't letting anyone inside. My dealers' badge saved the day, and they let me through, but the room wasn't running at nearly capacity. There was much speculation about what the problem might be, as all we were told was that there were "safety concerns." Finally, they completely emptied the remaining con-goers from the dealers' room and explained what was up. Apparently the room layout had been okayed by one fire marshal, but our new one decided every single exit had to be clear. This was a problem, seeing how there was an exit about every four meters or so along the walls, and dealers were packed all around the room. So we had to wait on the dealers who were in the way to move before we could open for business again. Remember how we got our table set up in about half an hour while the room was open? It seems this was far too difficult a task for some. An hour passed, then two, as we all waited on one table for one of those sword dealers to finish setting up. Around this point there was an altercation in which another dealer wasn't being so helpful, and one of the sword-table guys went and pulled out a word that a gentleman wouldn't call a woman. This didn't help either as there was much toothless arm flapping about calling lawyers and such. Anyway, three hours later, the room reopened after its scheduled closing time. Finally, around 20:30, the room was shut down, and we were free to enjoy dinner with the likes of Joe and Megan.

Business was surprisingly brisk on the last day of the con. I managed to sell through on my copies of one of my portfolios, when I'm usually lucky to sell any at all. The biggest disappointment of this con has to be that the girl who so stunningly cosplayed as Ulala two years ago and promised to do it again for me last year was nowhere to be found. I didn't see her in costume or not, maybe she just couldn't make it out. I guess I'll just have to be on the lookout next year. We stayed much later than we planned before packing up and heading to Austin, where I was dropped off.

Hey, it's Nestor!


Nightmarish, but hot.


This isn't exactly the photo I planned on, but it works.


One of the best costumes at the con.


No con is complete without a Lum cosplayer.


Quite beautiful.


She was correct in saying this photo would end up online.


Yet another victim of Shon's free sketches.