APE 2008 report...PT 2!!

Day 2 of APE turned out a little better in terms of actual sales. The heavy rains from Saturday seemed to have let up a bit, so there were more people attending the show (that's my estimate, anyways). To be honest though, I don't know if they were spending that much more money than Saturday's crowd. Kinda light on sales for many of us this year.....

Course, it could have been raining bloody eyeballs, and I still would have had a great day! After another breakfast feast at Ahn's, I swung by the local 7-11 and bought several copies of the local paper. It was Sunday, and that meant the color funnies were out, and that meant that El Muerto's appearance in the BALDO newspaper strip climaxed that day.


To see El Muerto in the color Sunday newspaper strip was such a great feeling. To see him sharing the page with GARFIELD was downright surreal! I actually got to write the Sunday appearance,as well as drawing the Muerto figures. And artist Carlos Castellanos did a great job coloring the entry, as he always does. Read about the El Muerto/Baldo crossover here.

I had a copy of the Sunday strip with me at the show, and during the day a lady walked by, saw my El Muerto banner, and told me "Hey, I saw that character in the Baldo strip this morning!". I was proud as a papa to explain to her the whole crossover. I was really stoked to hear someone actually saw the strip that day.

Among the visitors that day was my lovely cousin, Monica. Hadn't seen here in, like, sheesh...15 years or so! And I didn't even know she was living in San Francisco for the last 9!



My traveling partners, and good friends, Michael Aushenker and Ted Seko catch a break in the action. I've probably partnered with Mike more times at conventions than with any other friends of mine. Not hard to figure out why: Mike's hysterical at times and always fun to travel with. A real mensch, as the ancient Aztecs used to say! And Ted is someone I met at a zine fest back in 2001 or so. He hasn't done too many shows, but the guy's made lots of of mini-comics and zines and even graphic novels over the years. He and are I launching a new joint imprint XOMIX COMIX, in 2009!


The witty and talented Chris Wisnia was down the hallway from me. Chris does some hilarious comics, my favorite being his DORIS DANGER monster books. I interviewed Chris some weeks back on my radio show, PLANET COMIC BOOK RADIO. He's a hard-working talent and real personable guy!

This guy, I'm going to have on my radio show! Rob Osborne, the electric artist and writer of "1000 Steps To World Domination!" and 'The Nearly Infamous Zango". I met Rob very briefly last year at WizardWorld Texas, but this time we had a chance to talk comic book boot camp. Once he referred to indie publishing as 'the Wild West', I knew this man was dead serious about making it in comics! Look for Rob to show up in December on the show.

A friend I run into periodically at these shows is Jaime Crespo. I must must have first met Jaime years ago, and I don't think I've seen him for a couple of years. But we ran into each other and caught up on old times.
Jaime's what I can consider an old school/alt/indie cartoonist. His comics work dates back to the late 80s/early 90s. When he's not chatting it up with his 'old school' pals Jaime and Mario Hernandez, Dan Clowes or Keith Knight, he's talking to neo-old school/johhny-come-lately guys like me!! (?). Jaime also hosts a radio show in the Bay Area, so we're gonna plan some kinda crossover between his show and mine. I like the tiny sombrero!

APE, as you can see, is a mix of many things: You're their to sell your work and meet old and new fans, and you also get to catch up with old friends and make new ones. In my case, I also get to find new guests for my radio show! But APE has always been for me, a very fun show to do. I'll wrap this report up with PT 3 over the weekend, so come back to hear about the Indian Pizza we had for dinner, the Day of the Dead celebrations in San Francisco, and the First Meeting of the Sons of the Cat!!!