CGCworlds WW Chicago report (extended version)

[Guardian Comics]

Now that I've had 30 hours since leaving Chicago I figured it was aboot time I got around to describing the show from a communist point of view (Arex suggested that because we have universal health care, all us Canucks must be communists)

 

Leaving at around 4:00 PM on Wednesday via car, my wife (Barb) and I still had 3 more forum members to pick up before our journey to the midwest could officially begin. Of course we ran into our first major obstacle about a half hour in when I knocked on the door of our first passenger, the beyonder. The door answered and a gentleman whom I had never seen before said " No speaka da English". I grabbed my cellphone and called Chris. Seems he had fogotten to tell me that he had moved 6 months previously and I had to drive to the other side of town to grab our first passenger. We then picked up Drew (wasonff) and Stephen (eccomic) and were on our way about two hours behind schedule

 

 

The eight hour drive was filled with great conversation, with zero lull in some quite stimulating conversation. At around 4:00 AM we rolled into Chicago to our surprise, very little traffic Although my wife, Chris, Drew and I were staying at the Courtyard by Marriot, being a light sleeper, Stephen had elected to stay by himself at the Motel Six down the road. We couldn't get into our hotel as they were full but if we came back between 8-9 o'clock they could get us in. Without a place to stay and 5 hours to kill we drove Stephen to his hotel. Chris suggested that we pull an all nighter and hang at the Dennys restaurant drinking til we could get into our room. Luckily, saner heads prevailed and Stephen was kind enough offer us his room for the night. He let Barb and I have the bed, while Chris slept on the floor and himself in a wooden chair. Drew decided that the car was the perfect spot for the night and slept in the parking lot in our car. We arose around eight AM and said our goodbyes to Stephen and headed for the Courtyard. From there we were checked in by the greatest hotel clerk, not to mention the cutest hotel clerk ever. Before we could even make it into our rooms, an unmistakenable southern drawl filled the lobby, and we turned around to friendly and familiar faces, Danny and Arex. The six of us had some breakfast together and we all retired to our rooms to get a few more hours shut eye before the show.

 

Sometime later that Thursday afternoon we got our 4 dealers passes (thanks to Stephen Ritter and Bob Storms) and headed into the show. My main goals that day were to pick up three books I had won over the past 6 weeks, as well as trade some artwork I had become sick of looking at. My first stop was Heritages booth to pick up my grail but they were never there that first day. We went to Bob Storms booth to pick up my 1st REAL Golden Age book.

 

 

It's a Marvel Mystery #59 8.5 old label book with white pages.

 

I then picked up my next book from Josh at Comiclink

 

 

ASM #6 WHITE MOUNTAIN that I had won during his last auction.

 

With a mittful of artwork still in my hand, I passed by Becharas booth and he wanted to take a look. I wanted to do a trade and he was more interested in a cash deal, so after a hard negotiation I picked up more cash for the art than what I was willing to trade the art for and immediately ran to Ted Van Liews booth to pick up this piece.

 

 

A Gene Colan Subby piece with Spidey to booth, I think the inking work is just gorgeous.

 

The show was closing and we headed back to the hotel. After devouring 6 beers on the convention floor, the beyonder decided that he should save himself some money and pick up a case of beer to bring back to the hotel. He picked up a 24 and we all headed back to room #336 which was the equivalent to Richie Evans booth at the hotel. Although it was Greggy, Arex, Dannys and Niks room, it was also command central for JoeyPost, Timmay, DocWatson, wasonff, beyonder, my wife and I. After downing a few we headed for the Ram. Our ideal plan was to get Danny to the strippers that evening, as it was his birthday but when we found out the strippers was miles away coupled with the fact that they wore pasties, the decision was nixed pretty quickly.

 

The RAM dinner was great and there was about 25 of us there. If was rather uneventful unless you count the fact that we learned why wearing your hat in a restaurant was disgraceful to service men, what Beyonder thinks about the Canada Comic Book Expo and why eating french fries is worse for you than smoking. If Doc wasn't around to be an intermediary who know's what might have happened

 

After the RAM we said our goodbyes and headed back to Comic Central at the Courtyard, room #336. Realizing our stupidity of not getting the waiters to bring a cake and all of us singing to Danny, Barb and I cleverly snuck out of the room. I ran down to the front desk and asked if the girl could find us a muffin and candle. After about 5 minutes, she got us a donut and a candle that fit perfectly in the donut hole. We entered room #336 and started singing Happy Birthday to him, he looked genuinely surprised as I'm sure wished for his submissions to come back 9.8's and 9.9's After a bit the party winded down and we all headed to our seperate rooms.

 

Fridays convention activities are a relative blur as my wife decided to sleep in and left Chris and I to attack the convention floor on our own. The 1st place we headed was the Heritage booth, and picking up my win from their latest signature auction.

 

 

I think Chris was just excited for me as I was as somebody handed me my book and I held it for the 1st time. He snapped a picture and we headed into different directions.

 

After walking around the convention floor hoping to find the motherload of White Mountains, I was able to run into a lot of my good friends many times throughout the course of the day.

 

 

Roy, Mike, Brad and Socratic Wonder at the Bedrock/Forum booth

 

 

The X-Men

 

 

Jessica Alba :)

 

 

Carrie Fisher on a pretzel break

 

 

and Joey (Ben Stiller) and Timmay buying massive amounts of books.

 

I headed back to the hotel and freshened up, picked up the wife and went back to the show looking forward to the GreekTown dinner. When we got back to the show and I was watching over Stephen Ritters booth, Nik, Arex, Doc and Greggy came over to get a forum members discount.

 

 

The show began to close and we ran to find Angelo, who had offered a couple of weeks ago to give Barb and I a tour/drive into the heart of Greektown.

 

The Greektown dinner was not only amazing but an incredible success. I tried food that I would have never considered eating before but you have to ask Nik or Brad what my wife promised me in order to get me to try a piece of squid

 

 

Koko and some of the gang

 

 

Arex after a shot of Zambuca

 

 

Nik hooked us up with an amazing desert and followed it up with buying a few of us shots of the Greek equivalent to moonshine! Although I had met Brad briefly last year it was at this dinner where a genuine friendship was formed with his wife Erika, himself and my wife and I. Of course I could be wrong because apparently Andy (ThirdGreenHam) thought my wife was married to Drew (wasonff) We rode back on the subway with a portion of the group to get that whole experience but to forgot to tell Angelo

whom we found out the next morning was concerned that we got left behind to fend for ourselves. Sorry Angelo, my stupidity. On the brightside, early on like Arex mentioned in his thread the most stunning woman got on the subway and rode the subway for the entire duration of the trip. If I were a talent scout, I would have immediately whipped out my business card and have become her agent, riding her coattails while she headed for superstardom and me taking my 10% cut. :) Unfortunately I didn't get pictures

Before going to bed, Joey and Drew decided to see how some Ebay auctions were going

 

 

Saturday we slept in and arrived at the show in the early afternoon. We found out that Drew (wasonff) had been removed from the premises and had to surrender the dealers badge I had gotten for him due to a misunderstanding during the McFarlane signing. I think what Bob was most pizzed off about was the fact that Drew didn't leave kicking and screaming, Bob relayed to us that if he was going to wear a badge with his name that he go out kicking and screaming, with strength and conviction, a true representative of his company :)

 

We hooked up with everybody at the restoration seminar, that Beyonder mostly slept through, until Matt suggested buying G/VG books to practice trimming and see the results, so as to be familiar for what you are looking for in resto detection. Chris coyly yelled out that to do so would be "criminal" and Richard Evans began grinning from ear to ear After the seminar was over, Doc, Arex, Greggy, Barb and I decided to walk the convention floor together. Greggy really wanted to meet the Iron Shiek and we headed off to his booth.

 

 

You can read what went down there in Arex's report but it was classic. I don't know if you have seen the YouTube videos about Shieky Baby's recent interview but the man has no filter nor an ounce of political correctness.

 

We continued around the show and ran into Green Arrow

 

 

and the CGC Mafia

 

 

We then headed back to the hotel to get dressed for the Forum dinner. Jumping back on the shuttle we headed to Gibsons for an amazing night. The actual dinner was so much better and tastier than last year. The table we were sitting at was amazing. Doug Schmell, Timmay, Mike Miles, Nik, King of Rulers, Joey Post, Barb and I. What I must saying is that everybody was so nice to her the entire weekend, including her in on every conversation and actually making her feel like a forum member.

 

I also did drink a lot more at this years dinner than past, trying to keep up with Brad as I was drinking whatever he was drinking and Brad you drink some weird As great as the dinner was I think the after party dinner on the patio was where the real fun was.

 

The fireplace had an impressive display of books

 

 

 

Our table at dinner

 

 

Angelo smoking and my wife holding somebodys beer

 

 

Even the Blazing One stopped by, and I don't know what you are all talking about but he's always smiling

 

After some stimulating conversations, eventually we got booted out of Gibsons around 12:00 and a bunch of us who weren't done, headed over to the Hyatt to keep the soiree going.

 

Brad, his charming and lovely wife Erika, Roy, Louise, Beyonder, Angelo, Moondog, Richard Evans, Kenny et al kept the party going til around three AM or so. The bar at the Hyatt was like a nightclub with at least a thousand or more people. The elevators were all glass and about halfway through Beyonder and I decided to continuously ride the elevators up and down. Roy decided to join us and thought that "pressing ham" for all to see was a great idea, much to Louises' chagrin. We found the one elevator that took us to an abandoned floor, which was once a restaurant overlooking the entire Chicago skyline and continued to party up there until Edward Scissorhands creeped the hell out of all of us. At 2:30 AM he was still dressed in full costume and took his character seriously Wanting to get away for this psycho we headed outside for a smoke break and ran into another one. A gentleman in full military gear struck up a conversation with the Beyonder and about five minutes later, Chris begins to walk away and I hear "Jim, Jim, get over here". I walk towards Chris and get a full briefing. During their conversation the military man expressed to Chris that he had just gotten back from the "'Raq" and didn't know if he could wait for his next Tour of Duty to get his freak on if you know what I mean. Now if Chris senses danger, I am smart enough to know that trouble is brewing. I quickly walk back to our gang, explain the situation and the party is officially over

 

Angelo offers us up a ride back to the hotel. We walked in the pouring rain, from the Hyatt to the convention parking garage. Of course Angelo can't remember exactly where we parked and even though the garage was empty it was a good twenty minutes before we could find the car. With the evenings events it definitely felt like we were stuck in some horror movie. Angelo did get us back to the hotel safe and sound and the convention was unofficially over for us. Rolling in at 4:00 AM, we awoke around 8:00 AM to a knock our door as everybody was headed for breakfast. Greggy had already caught his flight, and we knew this was our last chance to "hang out" before we went our seperate ways. After breakfast we headed back to the convention to say our remaing goodbyes and departed Chicago around 3:00 PM CST. The trip home was devoted to sharing stories about the entire convention and after I rolled in about 2:00 AM EST, the first thing I did was log onto the boards I am such a loser.

 

Chicago to me is more than just books, it's about revisiting friendships like I did this year with Drew, Chris, Roy, Louise, Danny, Arex, Angelo and Nik. It's about making new ones with Greggy, Mike, Timmay, Joey, Doc, Brad and Erika. And meeting people like Koko, Andy, Stephen and everybody else with whom I get to share stories and hope meet again in the future.

 

BTW Arex, I was being serious when the 'Heels make it to the Final Four tickets are on me, so we don't have to wait this long to do this again.

 

One final note before I end this thing, I want to thank everybody who made Barb feel so welcome, and not like she was intruding on the guy time. She had such an amazing trip and even wants to join the boards so she can keep up with all of you that she know considers friends throughout the year.

 

These boards are the best, thanks to everybody for making WWChicago 08 THE convention to attend this year.

 

(worship) (worship)

 

All the best,

 

Jim

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ze-man]

 

Nice books and recap of the weekend! (translation..Kickassss report, and just so so funny books)

 

 

btw, Floor V

 

 

[Subliminal]

As usual another exquisitely detailed report.

 

 

 

[CAP Freak]

Best report yet.

[bhhooks22]

Just woke up to get mid-morn snack , and read one post , this one ....Very nice !!............Thanks , ....It don't get much better than that .................... (thumbs u.........................................Goodnight !!

[benz]

Best report yet.

 

I agree

[40sJohn]

Dang nice report! You must be an engineer in your other life with that kind of detail... makes me kinda proud, Great pictures and some incredible books!

 

(worship)

[thirdgreenham]

Good job, Jim. I really enjoyed reading that.

 

Looking forward to seeing you soon (and I won't make that same mistake about your wife again). (thumbs u

 

Andy

[Old Fashion PB and J]

Wish I could have went... Jim sounds like you had a good time,copped some sweet books. Nik looked like he had a good time even though he is not in greece. I will see you guys next year, just dont know if I am going as a seller. The idea of my first chicago show is exciting. But going and buying is more fun .

 

Pat-

[DrWatson]

I tried food that I would have never considered eating before but you have to ask Nik or Brad what my wife promised me in order to get me to try a piece of squid

They aren't the only ones who know.

 

You guys were fantastic. As far as I'm concerned, Barb is welcome anywhere at anytime. Super sweet report, Jim.

[kc120us]

Wow, great report Jim!!

[Ares]

So what was the missunderstanding over the badge?

[Wally's Comics]

MAN! that one hell-of-a bounty you got there!

 

 

CONGRATS!

 

 

[Pirate]

so how do you actually get kicked out of a con?

[Ares]

so how do you actually get kicked out of a con?

I bet he took a bath and talked to a girl without beeing nervous..

[nik]

Great report Jim, and it was great to see you and your wife once again

[MutantKeys]

Great seeing you and Barb again

[DrWatson]

so how do you actually get kicked out of a con?

Moral interpitude.

 

The records on that incident have been sealed.

 

[Wally's Comics]

so how do you actually get kicked out of a con?

 

 

[Timmay]

Great report Jim! It was a pleasure meeting you and your wife along with the rest of the canada roadtrippin' crew.