So random thoughts from this year's Heroes Con. Yes it was strange driving into Charlotte. We had our trusty buddy Christian with us so he kept us laughing as much as possible on the trip down. Somehow I forgot that driving from VA to Charlotte took us right through Durham where Mike lived........right past the exits we never used enough before 8/11/07 and used way too much after 8/11/07. I lost it passing the Guess Road exit- tried to keep composed but just couldn't keep from crying. I missed Mike so much during that drive. I missed him for Matt most of all. Heroes Con was THE event of our lives every year. Yes, I'd gander to say that Heroes was the most looked forward to even of the year- even surpassing Christmas and my Beloved Thanksgiving. Once there, we had to rush to get all the stuff set up at the table beside Todd and Craig. I'd envisioned walking into the Charlotte Convention hall for the past 10 months. I held it together until we walked up to the booth to pick up our passes. We'd been told that we would have passes to get into the show. We were not on the list. The nice folks at the ticket booth scrambled to get us passes anyway but I had to walk away and leave Matt to get the passes for us. I fought back tears and anger at myself for not being strong enough to stand with Matt who no doubt was devastated each second being there without his brother.
We went to the hall and found our place. We were toting a a ton of stuff but set up pretty easily with the aid of Trusted Buddy Christian. He lugged so much that he pulled an arm muscle I believe.
We set up our booth for Mike and immediately felt like imposters. Todd, Craig and the loveable Nick Cardy all made us feel welcome. It was so good to see those guys. But we still felt like ugly ducklings in a room full of swans.
To be honest, the rest of the weekend was a blur. I remember bits and pieces but mainly feeling exhausted all weekend.
Here's highlights of the weekend that I do remember:
- Meeting the guys who frequent Matt's blog- Nice guys!
-Thank GOD or Crom or your favorite diety for Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau. Love those guys so much. They are our brothers now!
- Sitting beside Nick Cardy and continuing to be absolutely amazed at how he draws
- Seeing Andrew, owner of the spectacular Chapel Hill Comics, our friend. Thanks to Andrew for getting the word about the Mike Wieringo Scholarship Fund. Andrew and his wife Vanessa have been so good to us. They are good people!
- Meeting 'the significant others' Had a blast with Trish and Sharon
- Realizing that Jeff Parker reminds me of a guy Matt works with- our good friend Judd
- Dinner with Jeff, Rich & Colleen and Family, Scott and several other guys who I forget their names
- Breakfast with Cully! What a table! Breakfast was $23 a pop and I'd have to say well worth it
- Did I mention Cully? Cully is the nicest man on earth and was really worried about how Matt was doing. Cully took the time to sign at our table and was sweet enough to spend a lot of time talking to Matt and I.
-Heroes Initiative folks were so nice. Susan was really great. The auction outside on the patio at Fuel was interesting to say the least. Darwin Cooke sent Matt into shock as he came up and expressed how much he was sorry that Mike had died and that he liked Mike's work. I believe he bid and won a piece of artwork from the What If? book too. Darwin Cooke is my new comic book crush.
-Did I mention that the auction almost got shut down? There was about a half hour of inactivity where the 'park' cops tried to shut down the auction. Luckily, the first cop on the scene was a comic book fan and once we explained the situation, they cut us a break and let the auction continue. The auction raised $4500 for the Heroes Initiative! Hooray.
- Many thanks to Dustin, Sheldon and especially Trey from Heroes who were so kind to us throughout the show
- I did get some time to stalk my former comic book crush, Tony Harris. Thanks to Craig for helping me figure out what the attraction was- Tony has the whole pirate vibe going on.
- We raised $2200 for the Mike Wieringo Scholarship Fund over the weekend from sales of the various pieces we had to sell. We were VERY PROUD of that. Thanks to ALL who donated and got their 'Ringo button.
- Paul and his lovely wife who came to check on us constantly despite their own booth to man.
-My dearest friend Sandra who helped me man the booth for a couple of hours. So NICE of her to come help.
-Dinner with Mark Waid. Uncle Boom could not have been nicer and talked to me about Richmond and VCU the whole way back from dinner as I drove through a nasty rainstorm back to the hotel. Uncle Boom ain't afraid of no hillbilly I'll tell you!
-At dinner, the waiter informed us that they had run out of bread right as Robert Kirkman and the group he was eating dinner with was leaving. Coincidence? I think not.
-Thanks to Robert and the many other pros who stuffed $20's into our donation jar for the MWSF.
-My first trip to the actual Heroes store. WHAT A GREAT STORE!! It's really awesome. We were told that Mike had done the drawings that the Spiderman and Doc Oc sculptures in the store were based on.
- There were many fans who came up to our booth and were crying over Mike's death. Thanks to the folks that bought sketch books and artwork- all proceeds went to the MWSF of course.
- Several pros donated artwork and I unfortunately don't remember their names. I don't think I had the smarts to write them down either but hopefully we can remember from their artwork. Thank you if you did and my sincere apologies for not remembering your names. Plus their generosity brought me to tears so I know that I just walked away from one guy because I was getting ready to bawl.
- Stalking Tony Harris at the Heroes store. He picked up a ton of books there, I believe a few Hell Boy GC's.
- Meeting Tony Harris! Nice guy from Macon, Georgia of all places. Nice enough to let me take a picture with him. I must catch up on Ex Machina. Sadly, he can't be my crush now that I've met him. Meeting them blows it all. So Darwin Cooke will be my new crush because I'm sure I'll never meet him. Neil Gaiman was my old crush before Tony. Matt is my constant crush!
-Speaking of my brave, wonderful husband- he amazes me every day. I'm so lucky to have him as my husband. My heart broke for him all weekend.
- Realized that Frank Cho is a very very short man.
- The last night at the Westin bar drinking Cosmos with Sharon until I realized they were $11. JEEZ- this ain't NY? It was fun though. Parker joined us. JPG Matt's flashing some 'gang' sign.........yea, you know what gang..........
-Christian, Matt and I eating at least 1-2 meals a day at Fuel pizza. Mention Fuel Pizza if you want to bring a smile to Christian's face........or flash that 'gang' sign............
- Several folks asked about Casey Jones and I sure missed meeting him in person.
So that's the end of my ramblings on Heroes Con. Thanks to all of you who came by the booth. We sure missed Mike more than words can express. There is a hole in our hearts that can't be filled.
2 comments:
Glad to see that you are back posting again. I was wondering how you were doing. Thanks for posting the pic of Charlie too.
No multitude of new found friends could make up for Mike not being t/here. But you got some great people that were there at Heroes with you.
I've been thinking about and missing Mike a lot lately. Which I always miss Mike but I think with August right around the corner my mind tends to drift to him even more. Its been hard for me to say what I feel about losing Mike. I say stuff - small pieces here and there of a big picture I have trouble drawing.
When I was in 7th grade this boy I went to school with accidentally busted my lip because he was messing around with another kid. He kept saying to hit him back and I wouldn't because I knew it was an accident. I still whined about it hurting though for the longest time. I said "I never had a busted lip before how long is it supposed to hurt." The other boy said that it should've stopped an hour ago. That's kind of how I feel now. Like everybody thinks that I should be over Mike's death by now but it just hasn't stopped hurting yet.
Ha! So funny to hear about you "stalking" Tony -- that's great. Darwyn does seem like a smooth fella, though. Too bad, Tony!
Surprised you never got to go to the Heroes store before. I hope you and Matt can hang out after the show next year, too!
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