YET ANOTHER Baltimore report but with some things not in the others

[The Troll King]

I took a LOT of pictures of "happenings" around the Toon Tumblers booth because as those of you who were there know, Stronguy, Lonchair, and myself ran that booth on Saturday so most of my pictures are of that "area" as we were WAY busy that day.

 

You've been warned, there are going to be a LOT of pictures plus my purchases and art! (thumbs u

[The Troll King]

Driving around Baltimore, Stronguy and I had flown in on Thursday because originally someone else was suppose to go with us and we were going to hang out in DC on Friday.

 

I took a picture of this street sign and let me just say... in Dallas we aren't so blatant, we call this the Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs "area"

 

 

 

[Lebowski]

I see that the other sign says "S. Gay St." Baltimore must be like Atlanta, (where every street's named Peachtree)...only gayer.

[The Troll King]

I saw that there was a Hard Rock Cafe at the Power Plant area near the harbor so I convinced Stronguy that we needed to go there because my wife and I have been collecting HRC pins and since the Indians bought most of the Hard Rocks they've closed a lot of them around the country (including one of the oldest ones right here in Dallas!)

 

Here are some pictures around the inner harbor (which is definitely the nicest area around DT Baltimore)

 

 

 

This is the USS Constellation which was used as an Anti-Slave war ship before and during the Civil War. Stronguy had to put up with me and my history fetish for a little while so we walked around in the rain taking these shots.

 

[The Troll King]

We stayed at the Sheraton downtown (not the one by the convention center) and the room was great! Stronguy had Hotwired the room and it was only $76 a night which turned out to be good deal for that weekend.

 

Here he is about to flip me the bird while I'm taking a pic of the room.

 

 

The bathroom wasn't very big but it was really clean and nice... admittingly we had to call maintenance to "unplug" the toilet as there wasn't enough flush pressure to clear my first time use of it.

 

Good to know though if you ever stay there!

 

 

The last night of the trip while I was downstairs smoking Stronguy thought it would be funny to pour my coffee into the toilet and partially chew up a Payday bar and spit it in there.

 

When I got back to the room it did look like a mess and I thought we were going to have to call maintenance again.

[Pitboss]

I forgot to get my glass!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[The Troll King]

We got to the convention center at about 11:30 on Friday to meet Paul to help set up the Toon Tumblers booth.

 

Paul had a van and there was about 1 and a half tons of glass in the back of it!

 

 

 

Here's Paul, Jeff, and Lon setting up the racks for the glasses.

 

 

 

Here's the final product of our labor after unpacking all the glasses. We finished it up pretty quickly I thought as we were done about 2:45 or so.

 

 

 

[The Troll King]

I forgot to get my glass!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

I had it wrapped for you too and completely forgot about it even after saying "bye" to you on Sunday!

[The Troll King]

Once we finished everything up after unpacking and lining up Paul gave us instructions on how to handle everything because he had a wedding to go to on Saturday.

 

This is when we did a little "shopping" but we really didn't see too much because I'd say only about 1/3'ed of the dealers set up on Friday. The others set up on Saturday morning.

 

Here's an 8 or 9 foot tall Hulk that one dealer had that they used a forklift to raise up on top of their "cage" in their booth.

 

 

 

[The Troll King]

Here's a pic of "the collector" (Kris), Steve B, and Stronguy rummaging through some boxes.

 

It was cool meeting Steve for the first time and even though we haven't had too much time to get to know each other I can tell that he and I have a lot of the same tastes.

 

 

Chuck was running around of course and yet again I had a very nice conversation with him. I know that a lot of people give him a lot of but comics aside, he's really a decent and nice guy who does remember people from past meetings unlike a LOT of other comic dealers.

 

Here he is going through a stack. You can see Lon in the center and I laughed because Chuck handed Lon a stack of books to hold and Lon said that Chuck had already pulled the good ones.

I commented saying that I'm sure he'd be more than welcome to buy them off of Chuck's site.

 

Chuck seemed to think it was a little funny too.

 

[The Troll King]

After hanging out at the set-up on Friday we decided to go back to the room and rest a little and then head down to the ESPN Zone where the Friday night forum dinner was going on.

 

On the way down there I was very surprised to see that right there in the middle of downtown Baltimore were strip clubs!

 

I've been to a lot of cities but didn't expect to see this. A city like Vegas (where I've lived) or New Orleans, sure, but I had no idea. You definitely don't see this in Texas. Mind you, Texas has places like this, just not in the middle of downtown!

 

 

Also to note, this was also the first time that I saw TONS of prostitutes in a downtown setting and according to Tony the overnight valet at the Sheraton DT, even the "dude looks like a lady" variety.

[The Troll King]

Not too much to say about the ESPN Zone place... everyone was already there but I did get to meet some people I hadn't met before. Plus, most of the other Baltimore threads have shown plenty of pics of us sitting there so I won't bore you with those and will move straight to Saturday morning!

 

Saturday morning I got up pretty early and it was pouring rain outside.

Thunder had woke me up so I got ready and went out the door pulling and carrying my bags with a huge umbrella trying to stay dry. It's only about a 3 block walk but with the rain coming down as hard as it was it seemed like 10!

 

I got in there about 15 after 7:00 and talked to a few dealers for awhile.

 

Stronguy and Lon arrived about an hour later and the 3 of us did a little pre-show shopping. I was looking for very specific things so I didn't buy hardly anything.

 

Dan (Flying Donut) was gracious enough to put a few books up on the wall to try and sell them for me even though he was running someone elses table. Dan, if you're reading this dude, you're a stand up guy no matter what anyone else says about you! (thumbs u

I really enjoyed meeting you!

 

10 am rolls around and we busted our asses all day wrapping and selling glasses. The following will be a few pics of people that came by.

 

[The Troll King]

Not sure who these two are suppose to be... The Shadow I guess but unsure about the girl

 

 

Boy Wonder himself

 

 

HUGE crowd on Saturday. I won't be too presumptuous as to guess how many but the numbers were in the thousands for sure. At 12:30 I ran outside to smoke and there was still a line of people wrapped half-way around the convention center trying to get in!

 

 

Couple of cuties in the line trying to get in.

 

 

Star Wars nerds outside... (I set up and worked sci-fi cons for 10 years so I'll call them nerds if I want too! ) the sabers seem to photograph well though.

 

[The Troll King]

IMO the BEST costume at the entire con... we called him "Duct-tape Boba Fett" the entire weekend. His costume was made entirely out of duct-tape and trash!

 

 

 

 

[The Troll King]

Logan complete with claws.

 

 

 

Great looking Baroness (front and back of course!)

 

 

 

 

Superman who's costume seems to be glowing.

 

[thirdgreenham]

Nice job, Buffyfan! (thumbs u

 

Andy

[The Troll King]

Not sure what these costumes are either.

 

 

 

Here's another cutie that was doing something or another at a booth in the lobby. I have no idea what of course.

 

 

 

Don Rosa was in the booth next to us at the Toon Tumblers. Here he is sketching for someone.

 

 

 

[Monstro]

 

 

 

[Pitboss]

 

 

 

 

When I saw him,it was all I could do not to bust out

[The Troll King]

I ran into these two "Spider-men" in the lobby and asked if I could take their picture.

 

They asked if I wanted "Mary Jane" inbetween them. I told them that there had to be some sort of weirdly sexual joke in there somewhere but that I wouldn't go there. The "Spider-men" thought it was funny but "Mary Jane" didn't seem to get it.

 

You can see how wet Mary Jane is because it was still raining outside. ( there's probably a joke there somewhere too)

 

 

 

Here's a shot of our "newest" forum member.

 

 

 

A slightly shy Wonder Woman

 

 

 

Another Wonder Woman, and I'm not sure why she's hanging out with Zombie Spider-man... a really hairy Zombie Spider-man at that! (look at his leg)