My Comic Geek Moment

If you read Garbanzo’s blog, you know that he recently attended the Stumptown Comic Fest or whatever it is called. (I know, I’m an attentive wife. I am attentive, just not in ways I may talk about.) Anyway, he spent about 7 hours at this event. While he was there, I was at home shoveling dirt and making sure the kids didn’t kill themselves or each other. In other words, it was a Saturday. (Wow, I’m more of a smart-ass than usual. This could be interesting.)

When he got home, I was in the shower. So instead of letting me know he was home and leaving me to finish showering, he got in with me and started telling me about the show. (He says this is “helpful”.)

During one of my pictures of the day, I showed you the stack of funny little self-published comics I got during a visit to his comic shop. He met a few of those writers/creators at the show and started telling me little stories about meeting them.

Like Josh Shalek who created that wacky little Owl comic.

He also met the woman the I love: Erika Moen. If you recall, I expressed my love for her in this post. I love her comic strips. Go read them if you haven’t.

He then gushed over the fact he got to interview Jeff Smith of Bone fame. Parents may see Bone in Scholastic book order forms. This small press series was picked up by Scholastic and is getting a much broader printing now. Kids love it – and parents should read it because it is a great story. Anything that builds to “The Great Cow Race” has got to be entertaining, in my opinion.

After the shower finished and we had fed the kids, he got his backpack and asked if I wanted to see what he had found. Sure, why not. At the very least, I will have a good idea of how much the bank account went down. (Yes, that thought did cross my mind as it always does after every show he attends.)

He started pulling out some neat little books. He started mentioning he had gotten a few of them signed. Garbanzo as a serious comic book collector will never let an artist or writer sign his comic “To Garbanzo, signed Artist”. It ruins the value if it is personalized. What I started noticing about these books – they were all signed to him. “To Garbanzo, I would be honored if you kept my book in your bathroom, signed XYZ”. (Yes, this was an actual inscription in one book.) Some were personalized in other minor ways like the creator of a little book about Boobs. She signed it “BOOBS!” and included a cartoon set of boobs above her signature.

He gave me the books he had bought for me. I thumbed through them, laughed at some of the parts, and oohed as I should. After the third one, he mentioned some may be signed. I started back through the small pile, and noticed that the creators has signed at least one of their books – to me.

The final book he showed me was the collection of comics he had purchased by Erika Moen. It was the only one he did not already own. I go to hand it back to him, and he shakes his head saying “it’s yours”. I open up the front page – and see this….

oh, wait…you can’t see it because it has my real NAME on it. Fuck! And, I can’t even edit that part out because she makes a joke which would give away my real name! (And the worst part is the fact that I did, indeed, get this far into the post before I realized I could not post the fucking picture – ugh!!)

Well, it was really cool. Sigh.

So, instead I will just leave you with a picture of her taken by Garbanzo.

What do you think?

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