MARCH TOUR DIARY, Part One: Columbus

I recently headed out on a 10 or so day roadtrip, with stops in Columbus (for the SPACE show), Pittsburgh (a signing at Copacetic), and back in Chicago (for Zine Fest). Here's what went down:

True to form, I got a late start, and hit the road in the middle of an anxiety attack.  I thought I'd be smart, and avoid Chicago traffic by taking the southern route, but somewhere around Champaign I realized I was driving 100's of miles out of the way.  And then I remembered I'd lose an hour crossing the time zone.  So I gave up on my dreams of making Columbus by a decent hour, and slept in the car in a rest area, about 45 miles from town.

It was really cold, around 32º.

Well, good morning!

Preparing convention face.

Spit and a Half table, Part One.

Part Two.

Bruce Chrislip's display of Outside In pages/covers.

Including one by this whippersnapper.

Obscuro Comix luminaries, L - R:  Dan W. Taylor, Steve Willis, Bruce Chrislip, Colin Upton, Mike Hill.

Steve Willis, Carol Tyler, and the inimitable Max Traffic.

The presence of greatness.

Bruce Chrislip, founder of the City Limits Gazette.

It had been 10 or so years since I'd attended the SPACE show, and it was great to see a lot of people I hadn't seen in a long time, and a lot of new people too.

After Day One of the show, we all went out for Vietnamese food and shot the breeze for a couple hours, until it was pointed out that it was the night of the "Supermoon," and we all ran out into the parking lot to be disappointed.

The alleged "Supermoon" hovers over Morse Road.

Day Two of the show was hectic as usual, and afterwards Colin and I, along with Detroit mainstays Sean Bieri and Suzanne Baumann, caught a weird bite to eat in the lonely hotel bar before saying our goodbyes.

I stayed in Columbus one more day, selling comix to shops (Used Kids Records, where I picked up copies of Soul Asylum's amazing Made to Be Broken, a De La Soul singles collection, and Joe Tex's Greatest Hits; the fab DIY boutique Wholly Craft; and Laughing Ogre), and then browsed the Wexner Center's great bookstore before retiring to a falafel dinner and preparations for the next day's drive to Pittsburgh -- a town I'd never been to before.

NEXT STOP:  Pittsburgh!