The Daily Odyssey

What luck that my 300th Adventure coincides with what I consider the best comic convention I’ve been to yet. So, I made this sorjoun doubly huge to commemorate the day, here’s hoping to another 300 Odysseys!

MoCCA (The Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art) throws a comics festival every year, and I’d known about for quite some time, but this was the first time I’d actually gathered the balls to go! I pretty much planned my entire visit back home around the convention, and gosh it was worth it!

First off, only my buddy John could come, since my other friends Dave and Brad had other goings-on they needed to attend, which was a little dissapointing, but hey, that’s life! What was great about the trip though, was that my mother heard through the library that they were doing some special were you could get to Manhatten for 6$, which is great, because normally the fair cost upwards of 19.50$ where I live. I don’t even want to think what it’d normally cost if I lived on Montauk.

Anyhow, I love going into the city! This time in particular because the 69th Armory (where MoCCA was being held) was located in a section of the city I’d never been to before. I’m normally used to getting off the train, walking out of Penn Station, taking a left and oooh Times Square! And all that usual touristy bullshit. This was a refreshing taste, walking down a much less crowded street and enjoying a really nice park along the way.

So we arrived at MoCCA, and noticed there were alot of trucks unloading as we walked around to the front of the building to get on line, which we thought was weird because the show was going to be opening in 20 minutes. Of course, we learned soon after that alot of equipment was set up late, and was going to take a while to set up, no more than a half hour. And the line grew.

Maybe about 1/6th of the line.

The Front of the 69th Armory

About an hour later, the doors finally opened! And golly what a wonderful sight awaited all of us! First off, let me say the Armory is ginormous, making MoCCA one of the biggest “Small Press” conventions I’ve been too. And while SPX has a pretty huge section of a convention center, but the Armory is literally a city block long and wide. It is a daunting site to say the least.

Only a taste of the vastness.

I instantly ran around, trading where I could, meeting new faces, and pretty much impressing myself at how open I was being. But then, somebody I was talking to mentioned a few familiar faces I hadn’t seen since SPX 2008!

I hadn’t expected to see my good friend and old SCAD chum Jon Chad at all, to be honest, though when I think about it, he currently resides in Vermont, where he teaches at CCS (Center for Cartoon Studies), it’d be much easier for him to make it to this convention, than say, Fluke or SPX. And the fact that there were plenty of CCS students and staff there means that SCAD’s SEQAhomies have got to step up a little!

Anyhow, it was great seeing Jon again, we caught up on a few things, he gave me his new mini, and the entered into the age old ritual known as “trading”, he also let me take a peek at the book he’s been working on for the past year or so. And I can say that this will be the story to put Jon Chad on the map!

Speaking of CCS folk, I also ran into David Yoder, who’s original daiy journal comics are what drove me to create The Daily Odyssey in the first place! What a nice guy, I hope  he’s doing well.

Kaz was another pleasant surprise, he first came to SCAD for Comics Art Forum to give us a wonderful demo on making minis. While he’s a bit self concious at times (He declined an interview for SEQALAB because he didn’t feel too great about talking about himself), he’s still one of the greatest cartoonists I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with. And his book The Mourning Star is nothing short of fantastic, I urge you all to pick it up!!

Also I had my usual con-visit with Top Shelf editor Chris Staros, actually getting some face time, since he didn’t come to SCAD this year for Editor’s Day, since SCAD changed up the schedule all last-minute-like.

Me and John only stayed for about 2-3 hours, if even that, since I wanted to save some fun for tommorrow, and we made a trek out into New York City, to see one other sight, the KRAZY Exhibit at the Japanese Society Center:

It Sure Was!!

The one picture I took before they stopped me.

Pretty much a history  of Manga, Videogames and Anime, which was actually pretty cool, my favorite part was from the picture above, They giant bookshelf of manga, and old shonen jumps that you can actually walk inside, and sit down to read them. Overall it was a pretty quick exhibit, but fun none the less. Also me and John stopped at a Japanese Grocery store were I found this curry that I’d been looking for since going to Japan in 2007, and John got these delicious little mochi-balls ice creams. Yum!

Shortly after that, we stopped at Midtown Comics, checked out a few comics before heading home on the train.

Haha, you know, now that I think about it, today was a real trifecta of comics. I went to giant Indy Comic convention, saw a small exhibit on Manga, then topped the day off by going to a shop primarily know for Superhero/Mainstream comics! Damn, what a day!

After all this, I just cannot wait to table at SPX, I feel rejuvinated, I feel ready, I’m going to draw my mother-fuckin’ ass off all summer!