New Yawk

Back from New York. Highlights:

- Eating all day long on Friday, despite the winds and pouring rain. Highlights included the raw oysters w/kimchi consomme and steamed pork buns (these were prepared Peking duck style, which was an absolute stroke of genius) at Momofuku Ssam Bar, a traditional New York lox and cream cheese bagel from Russ & Daughters, potato knishes from Yonah Schimmel, crème brulée doughnuts from the Doughnut Plant, and, of course, Crif Dogs.

- Catching my first off-Broadway show (Mike Birbiglia's Sleepwalk With Me) -- hilarious!

- Having the opening of MoCCA delayed by one hour, which gave me time to sit down and chat with Joe Bluhm while he drew my caricature.



...and a couple of photos of me and my caricature. You can't even tell the difference!

- The awesome display case in the Armory that had the surface-to-air missile launchers crossed like a pair of old-timey swords. ONLY THEY WERE ROCKET LAUNCHERS

- Hanging out with Ben Hatke for pretty much the first time, after many years of lengthy emails, phone calls and all-too brief meetups at previous cons. Also inspired me to try my hand at fire breathing (it sounds very, very simple)!

- SHAKE SHACK

- Hanging out with peeps on the roof of Scott C's apartment in the East Village. A fantastic view of Manhattan, enhanced by being able to peep into a very well-lit apartment across the street as we watched a young lady and gentleman proceed to do 6-8 lines of cocaine (each!). Much (hilarious) speculation on what would happen next, but was disappointed that none of our more extreme scenarios didn't come to pass. Still. Big city living, man!

- Tasty cannoli from Boston (Mike's Pastry), care of Maris Wicks and Liz Prince!

- Meeting lots and lots of good people -- old and new!

- Beating Joey at chess! It was over the course of two days, with many interruptions, so I expect to have my ass handed to me in any future rematches.

Lowlights:

- The ridiculous heat in the Armory building. What made it even worse was that the weather outside was probably the nicest I've ever seen for a MoCCA weekend. Not long into the first day, I ran into poor Dave in the men's washroom after he had changed into shorts and a t-shirt, and he looked like death warmed over (only more like death broiled in a rotisserie oven for 8 hours).

- Ryan breaking the only fan we had at the table in his efforts to impress Emily.

- Sales were abysmal for me, well below past MoCCA standards (and I even had a new book to sell this year). I'm not sure what caused that factor -- it could've been not enough pre-promotion on my part, but not showing up in the MoCCA programme (like a lot of other people) might've also hurt as well. A lot of people I did talk to were genuinely surprised to see me there. If it wasn't for the fact that I had arranged in advance to sell some original pages at this show, I would've seriously been in the red on this trip.

I was leaning towards not signing up for a table next year at MoCCA anyway (because I likely won't have a new book out next year, and I just want to spend more time actually hanging out in Manhattan), so hopefully by the time I get back to exhibiting there, all the kinks will have been ironed out by then.

And big ups to John and Marion for putting us up once again. Best hosts EVAR.