Faced by the trauma of an overloaded Exhibit Floor yesterday, I hypothesized that the first real day of the con would calm things down a bit by dint of having actual panels and events for people to attend outside the Floor.
I was wrong. The Floor was just as excessively busy today as it was yesterday. Even so, we managed to do a lot of solid talking to folks and shopping. I trailed littlestar all day today, because she wasn't going to be able to actually carry anything she bought by dint of her current "recovering" condition (injured back + weight is a bad choice).
Things we did today, very roughly in order, included:
Hanging out for a while at the Wizards of the Coast booth and demoing some games. We watched a session of D&D Minis (free Gnolls!), watched another session of the Transformers constructible strategy game (free Jetfires!), and tried to watch the Uncivilized demo, although that was more of a series of pictures than anything else. littlestar did admirably in the "roll for stuff" portion of the Wizards experience, picking up a copy of Axis & Allies: D-Day, an interesting game that was too expensive to pick up just for a the heck of it.
We also checked out Bud Plant, and then wandered around a lot.
The really big fun on the Floor today was checking in with the nice folks of Flight. We picked up a copy of Flight 4, as well as Clio Chang's new sketchbook (with the awesome title "no baby, not my pradas!!"). We hung out at the Flight booth for quite a while as littlestar's new copy of Flight 4 was passed around to garner sketches (as was littlestar's sketchbook). The Flight folks are a pleasure to talk to each time, comfortable, conversational, and friendly.
We only did two panels today. One was the Groo 25th anniversary panel, featuring everyone currently or previously involved in the creation of Groo. Some great bits:
- Sergio's reaction to the suggestion that Will Farrell could play Groo. "No. Will Farrell is the unfunniest man on the planet."
- Stan's favorite issue of Groo: the pantomime issue with no lettering (actually, it was his favorite because it was the only issue he ever read as a pure fan, having not seen the story before the final version)
- Sergio tells us that when he thinks of Groo, Groo speaks in Spanish
- Tom Luth on the buckle on Groo's chest: "If I'd known it was a buckle, I wouldn't have colored it blue!"
I enjoyed the discussion of the difficulties in negotiating a Groo movie, and found the audience's questions entirely good ones, which is a nice thing when it happens.
Our other panel on the day was Bill Plympton. He showed off some shorts, then spoke, then showed some more, then spoke, then showed some bits from his film that's currently in production. Again, the audience questions were good ones, and Bill Plympton was quite approachable and gave straightforward, helpful answers. I appreciate that he isn't coy about the costs involved in making a movie, and was interested to hear that he's a strong seller all over the world, including in places I wouldn't necessarily have guessed (e.g. Korea). Once again, it seems as if an American artist finds it easier to sell his work outside the country (although Plympton is, of course, still really well known within the U.S.).
My companions went product- and swag-hunting today, but I continued to eschew both. That's good, since I ended up trucking around that copy of Axis & Allies as well as a whole passel of books for littlestar.
Some cute Studio Ghibli things littlestar picked up:
Overall, this was a fun day. I haven't had a chance to really hit the indie and small press areas as much as I'd like to, nor have I made the artist alley rounds, but I may be able to do so tomorrow or Sunday. More and more, I'm glad that my game plan for Saturday involves not being on the Exhibit Floor.
Still having fun, though. :)