Okay, so the title of this post is a bit misleading. There truly were not that many errors at Comic Con. I just thought I’d be clever and witty. Ha ha ha.
Comic Con (technically Fan Expo Dallas) is one of my favorite events of the year. Three days of pure, unadulterated nerd heaven. And I get to sell a lot of books and meet a lot of readers!
This past weekend was so fun and so busy that honestly, the memories are beginning to blur and fade together. As always, my favorite part was meeting and connecting with new friends and fellow book-lovers. And stopping all the cosplayers and asking them to pose with my books.
My favorite cosplayers, however, were Cecil Grimes and his partner in crime, Richard Dixon. Early Saturday morning as my colleague and I were browsing the convention (we don’t get a lot of chances to explore once the Expo actually opens), and I noticed a photo booth that looked a lot like the prison scene from The Walking Dead. I walked up to the man running the booth to ask if I could take a picture. The guy looked up and I swear, I jumped a foot back. He looked EXACTLY like Andrew Lincoln. I’m not ashamed to admit I lost my cool a little bit.
I’m especially glad I got to meet him since my photo op with Norman Reedus was cancelled at the last minute… And I do mean the VERY last minute. Due to bad weather, he and his Walking Dead co-star had to catch an earlier flight. I was disappointed, but since I got my money back, I wasn’t going to complain too much. I was, however, VERY concerned about how long I’d stayed inside the convention center BECAUSE my parking permit was about to expire. I’m not sure if I mentioned this in a previous blog post, but last year, I got a parking boot for having an invalid permit. The only catch was that I’d asked my friend to watch after my purse (including my car keys) while I waited in line for my photo op. During that time, his phone died and we got separated so I had NO way of reaching him. Of course, me being me, I was far more conceded with having to pay for a parking ticket, so once the hoards of Walking Dead fans were escorted out of the convention center, I ran down to the parking lot to make sure my car hadn’t been booted again. I figured James would eventually figure out where I had gone and come to find me. In the mean time, I was calling my mom and James’ wife Claudette to tell them what was going on.
Thankfully I did not get a parking boot, Claudette found James, and we all lived happily ever after. There was a brief period of time, however, that I became a crazy downtown lady, sitting in the middle of a parking lot at 10:00 at night screaming “DON’T BOOT MY CAR!” while the thunderstorms rolled in. It makes a funny story I guess.
There were a few other interesting stories as well. For example, one man I talked to actually got hit by a car in the Comic Con parking lot. He was in the parking lot and a car physically backed into him and knocked him over. Fortunately, he was fine and he’s an EMT so he didn’t make a big deal out of it. It’s so typical, though. Like, if you were going to get hit by a car, OF COURSE it would happen at Comic Con.
But as always, the good things about Comic Con far outweighed the weird and the parking lot mishaps. For example, they had a booth set up right in front of the women’s bathroom and they roped the entire area off with curtains. Well, I’m guessing that no one knew that that bathroom was still open because every time I went in IT WAS TOTALLY EMPTY. It was kind of the best thing ever because this event was PACKED. Normally, there would have been a line straight out the door to use the restroom. But no. Every time, I walked right in. It’s the little things, y’all.
This weekend, I also celebrated the release of a brand new anthology in which I’m featured. The book is called Ever in the After and it is a charity anthology. Every dollar we make off of this book goes to benefit a charity called Lift 4 Autism. I was able to bring a limited number of copies to Comic Con and guess what? I sold them all! To all of you who bought a copy, thank you for your support and I hope you enjoy the stories.
I’m eternally grateful to all the amazing people I met this weekend and the amazing people I’ve known now for years (James, Claudette, Joe, Alicia) for reminding me why I do this. Why I write. Why I love to tell stories. Why I continue to strive each and every day despite the tremendous odds stacked against independent authors. This is the path I’ve chosen. It requires a lot of work, a lot of endurance, a lot more manual labor than you’d expect, but it is so, so worth it.
I love you all. Thank you for this weekend.
A Platform of Sorts 