I pushed my way through the crowd to get to the stage stairs and, as I waited on the line of jittering fans, realized that I wasn't prepared to have anything signed by Stan (since I never thought I would get chosen). So I dropped to the ground and began digging through the bag full of comics I had already bought and tried to find something worth his signature. And what do I find, but the same copy of Uncanny X-men #199 that was already signed by Chris Claremont. I waited my turn and when I got to the front it was all I could do not to jump clear out of my own skin. I walked up to Stan, he smiled at me and said "hi", and got right to signing comic. After he was done, he shook my hand and, realizing that I might never get a chance like this again, I said "Thank you so much, its an absolute honor to meet you, sir". Still holding my hand, he answers, "Thank you, I appreciate hearing that". Definitely one of the more amazing moments in my life, and I left the stage in a state of near shock. My heart was racing, I was still jittering, and I had one of favorite issues ever with the signatures of not one, but two, comic book super hero legends.
After this unbelievable event, I had a bit of a lull in the day (which I sorely needed). The next signing I wanted to attend wasn't until 5 so I had lots of time to get lost in the madness. This is when I dove straight into the sea or anime, manga, pornographic cartoons, dragon statutes, and yet more costumed enthusiasts (snapping pictures of all as I went, to be posted later). I made it a point to hit all the good booths (and of course by good I mean cheap) and, finished out lots of holes in my collections (finishing of entire runs like New Mutants (Vol. 1) and X-men (Vol. 2)). I don’t recall if they were selling liquor last year at the Con , but they certainly were this year!! So I went and got some food (needed to recharge) and had a cocktail (or two but who’s counting) and then before I knew it, it was 4:45 and I was off to the Midtown Comics booth for the next signing.
It approached 5pm and now I had some figuring out to do. There were two signings happening at the same time and how to do both?? Well since they were for Kieron Gillen (writer, Uncanny X-men and X-men: ReGenesis) and Christos Gage and Rebekah Issacs (writer and artist, respectively, for Angel & Faith). Now no offense to Christos and Rebekah, but with Uncanny X-men (Vol. 1) ending and X-men: ReGenesis coming out I felt like Kieron was going to be in higher demand so I decided to get the Angel & Faith creative team first. GOOD CALL! There were only about 3 people on the line to get their autographs (including one wonderful seller who had a stack of duplicate issues for them to sign over and over again) so luckily I was able to get my copy of Angel & Faith pretty quickly and move on to the next signing.
Now of course as luck would have it, Midtown (where Christos and Rebekah were signing) was clear across the entire show floor from Marvel where Kieron Gillen was signing so I had to book it as quick as I could to make it to the next signing. And thank god I did…there wasn’t quite the mammoth line there had been for Claremont, but this was still a sizeable queue to wait on. The line was uneventful, the usual fan boy types to chat with as I waited for the line to move a bit, but even more fun was when it got to be my turn. If anyone has read X-men: ReGenesis yet, they saw the tribal battle backstory between Cyclops and Wolverine. Well I had been debating the relevance of the animalistic encounter with a friend of mine recently and we couldn’t come to an agreement about it, so now I had the opportunity to go to the source. Luckily I was towards the end of the line so by the time I got up to the front there wasn’t too much of a rush behind me and I had time to actual talk the British writer. We talked about how he felt about the Schism and his thoughts and reasons behind the entire tribal aspect of the encounter, and it was a lot of fun to hear his reaction to the fan community’s split reaction to Schism and ReGenesis. At the tail end of our chat (almost an afterthought really) he took my copy of Uncanny X-men #534.1 and signed it, shook my hand took a picture with me, and I moved on to the next meeting in my exciting day!
Now it was 5:20 and the end of the Convention day was looming in the immediate distance. My next signing was at 6 so I figured I had some time to relax first…WRONG! As I walked away from Mr. Gillen, I noticed that there was already a huge crowd on the other side of the Marvel area so I walked over and asked someone online. Apparently they were all there to meet Matt Fraction at 6…JUST LIKE ME! So instead of having 30 minutes to wander aimlessly in the craziness, I had to jump right online. Thankfully I had some fun chatty fans to stand with (including a father and son pair with a large stack of Fear Itself issues to be signed) or else this wait could have taken a very long time. Now I feel like I should put a disclaimer here: I am just not that bright. Here I was about to meet Matt Fraction, the writer for the epically sweeping Fear Itself storyline, and I forgot to bring ANY Fear Itself issues!! Instead I brought a copy of Uncanny X-men #514, part of the Dark Reign/Utopia storyline… Whatever though right? The point is that I was getting an issue signed by this awesome writer! Or so I thought, as I got to the front of the line and approached Matt his first words to me were, “Really? Why this issue??” I was a little shocked but I rolled with it. “Well to be honest I forgot to bring my copies of Fear Itself and Uncanny X-men is my favorite title”. This seemed acceptable to him and we moved on. I got him talking about the current state of Fear Itself and I learned a very important fact: He is as sick of that storyline as the rest of us are and can’t wait to move on! More chatting, hand shaking and pictures taken with Mr. Fraction and then I was done.
Whew! 6:25 and I had gotten all the signatures I wanted (and then some), bought more comics then I could almost reasonably carry, and snapped copious amounts of pictures of amazing costumes. All in all a good day. With the Convention closing at 7, I only had so much time left to squeeze more excitement in and I decided there was only one to spend these remaining minutes: Playing the demo for the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII-2. I made my way to the Square-Enix area of the floor to see what the line situation looked like. The exhausted looking worker at the stand told me it was a great time to get on line since this was the shortest it had been all day. Thrilled at my great timing I jumped on the line (which really didn’t look very long at all) and waited…and waited…and waited… I know it was really only about 25 minutes but it seemed like forever and the line had no moved at all. So unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to play the demo myself but I got to see several other people playing it and got a good idea of the game play. It looks really similar to the original with just updated graphics and new characters to be honest, but, to obsessives like me, that’s just fine.
And there does my day come to a close. At the end of a fantastic and exhausting day, I dragged my sorry carcass off that showroom floor at about 6:55 and sat down right outside. I already saw a night of reading new comics and basking in Stan Lee’s autograph spreading out ahead of me and I couldn’t wait! I looked around at the colorful people littered about me, all with the same drained and exhausted look that I am sure I had on my own face. All in all this was an amazing Convention experience, even better than last year’s! I met some amazing people (both famous and not), finished out several series that I had been trying to finish for some time and had the time of my life. I was so sad to not be able to come back for another day but even just having this one day felt like a whole weekend and I already can’t WAIT until next year!
