Wyliman by Mario A. Gonzalez

Alrighty-o! As promised, here’s my SPX review (like a week later and if it doesn’t make sense at parts it’s because it’s too late and this has been a long week).

Anyway:

THIS IS THE BEST SHOW EVER! I don’t even know how to explain all the awesomeness and how perfect everything was there. Even the imperfect things lead to cool things, so it was perfect again.

We arrived (and every time I say WE I mean Miss Kate McElroy and myself, since we basically hanged out together the whole trip) on really late on Thursday night (after miscellaneous adventures that I won’t tell because most probably they’ll end up at the comic somehow) to the Marriott at Maryland, and, what for a moment we though was going to be just getting in our room and drop dead until the next day, we got so pumped for being there that we ended  staying up even later that night (like 4AM) playing video games and being silly (we couldn’t even fall asleep for a while, we were giggling like idiots for no apparent reason).

Friday we went to Washington D.C. (by complete accident, we thought we were going the other way), rolled around, came back to the hotel, missed our train to Baltimore, rolled around a little bit more, bought a bunch of movies and msuic CDs, went back to the hotel were we met with long time internet friend Miss Bree Patton and her boyfriend Joel Manahan, went to have some dinner and had an awesome evening.

SATURDAY! First day of the show! I got to talk to a friggin’ lot of people, like Alec Longstreth or reporting as Mayor of Hobotown to Miss Liz Baillie, to Dean Haspiel, Roger Langridge, Danielle Corsetto, Kate Beaton, Julia Wertz, Liz Prince, and like half the people there. Also, like all of these people, between Saturday and Sunday, I gave my book to (the second volume). One of the things that keeps impressing me the most about my book is the response I get every time: “Holy crap, this is huge!” I think it speaks well for me. I hope, as well, after reading it, they can then say “Holy crap, this is good!” But we’ll have to wait and see about that.

Later on that night, we teamed up with Miss Madeleine Flores to go to the Ignatz Awards (NEXT YEAR, BABY! I KNOW WHAT TO DO NOW!), and after some hanging out with Mr. Phil from the Indie Spinner Rack Podcast , Dean Haspiel and Chris Miskiewicz, we went to Madeleine’s room with a bunch of guys and just goofed away. We shared our room that night with Angela Dunn and Liz (last name and link coming soon, since i suck at rememebring names and seems at researching too).

SUNDAY! Pretty much just going back, talking again with some people, blowing my budget buying everything I liked, talking to more people, and so on. We went to the Kate Beaton and Julia Wertz panel which was a lot of fun, and later that day we went to a Comics and Printmaking panel that, well, if they actually showed a process of how to do different print making techniques, it would have met it’s purpose, but, oh well. We went back to the show floor to say our goodbyes to all the awesome people we met, and after that we just went to grab something to eat, relax and just chill until we had to leave beautiful Maryland and all the greatness that SPX was.

SPX is now for me an obligated show. I can miss other cons over the years, but this show I will go every single year until the day I die. Is THAT great of a show.

I had way high hopes about this show and all were met. Other cons and shows are great, like SDCC, but they’re like a vacation, SPX is like going back home.

Some shout outs:

To Liz Baillie for her awesome Ignatz Awards host abilities. To Dean and Chris for being way too awesome guys. To Liz Prince for not punching me in the face after my “spawn evil mutant babies” joke. To Alec Longstreth for all his advice for 24 Hour Comic Book Day and over all for being a great guy to talk to. To Madeleine Flores who, besides being an awesome artist, she’s a great person and roommate. To basically EVERYONE that went to the show and made it the best experience ever. And especially, with all ’em bells and whistles, to Miss Kate McElroy, who I consider the ROCK STAR of SPX. She kicked ass all around with her awesome abilities as an artist. Her career will just take off from here to the starts, just you see it, I bet my own career on that. And most of all, she’s a great human being, an awesome roommate and, without a doubt, one of my best friends. YOU RULE, KATE!

Now I can’t wait for next year.

And now, the list of THE SWAG!:

* I Swallowed the Key to My Heart 1 & 2, I Was a Teenage Comic Nerd – by Liz Prince

* Phase 7 #005 – 007, 24 x 7: A Decade of 24-Hour Comics, Phase 7 Volume 1 (#001-004), Transition (Phase 7 #010 & 011) – by Alec Longstreth

* Time Traveler Babysitter for Hire – by Katie Sekelsky

* Schrödinger’s Cat: An Origami Comic – by Ken Wong

* Mugwhup the Great: The Show Must Go On 1 – 3, Zoot Suite, Knuckles the Malevolent Nun, No More Mrs. Nice Nun – by Roger Langridge (Zoot Suite w/ Andrew Langridge, Knuckles w/ various artists and No More Mrs. Nice Nun w/ Cornelious Stone and various artists)

* The Ride Home – by Joey Wiser

* My Brain Hurts 1 & 2 – by Liz Baillie

* Troop 142 1 – 5 – by Mike Dawson

* Mobile Fridge – by Renee Lott

* Desmond’s First Dozen, Desmond’s Devastating Dozen – by Joe Foo

* Crash Course – by Melaina

* Hourly Comics 2010 – by Amanda Kahl

* Scrambles! operation: Crisis Shark – by Kyle Magnan

* Messed Up Fairy Tales – by Various Artists

* Machine Knight: Quest Log – by Flynn Nicholls

* Gorgeous Clothed Flies – by Sabin Michael Calvert

* The Perfect Snowman and Other Caterpillar Tales, Egypt: A Collection of Sketches, Drawings and Comics – by Katherine Roy

* Get a Job – by Jamie Baldwin

* Awakening Comics – by Steve Peters

* Coping With Death, Yes, Let’s – by Maris Wicks (Yes, Let’s written by Galen Longstreth)

* Cuba My Revolution – by Inverna Lockpez & Dean Haspiel

* Gentlemen, Dudes – by Madeleine Flores

* Drinking at the Movies – by Julia Wertz

* The Claws Come Out – by Pat Lewis

* Swallow Me Whole – by Nate Powell

* Essex County – by Jeff Lemire

* Never Learn Anything From History – by Kate Beaton

* Girls With Slingshots Volumes 2 & 3 – by Danielle Corsetto

* Still Got It – by Dave Kellet

* A piece of original art from Raina Telgemeier

Aaaaand I think that’s it! Half of this stuff I got it from trading. Photos of the trip are coming as soon as I get from my ass to upload them on facebook. But you can check out this amazing sets by Chris Svetlik and Bruce Guthrie: show set and panels set.

Now back to work.

Mario A.~