TCAF
So, I am very tired, but before I take an extreme nap, a brief recap of my extreme weekend:

All of this may mean little to you if you don't know anything about the comics medium. But if you know a thing or two, It's totally insane.

Anyway, I went to NYC / Toronto over the weekend for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. I flew (by plane) to New York City. I met up with Becky Cloonan and Kazu Kibuishi and some other people (Becky's greek friend, some "Flight" people) and we picked up Derek Kirk Kim and his friend Jeremy and we headed up to Toronto.

We got to Toronto where I met up with Bryan O'Malley and his wife Hope Larson and then seriously immediately afterward, looking for directions to where I would be "sitting and signing", meeting Bryan's sister Stacey O'Malley instantly and us being like "oh you're rey???" "oh you're stacey???" it was sweet.

Me and Mal signed comics and sold shit for a long time.

I took off from our table at around 1pm on the first day to see my hero, Paul Pope who had a fantastic panel about comics at the time. I sat front row, right in front of the man himself. After the panel, I introduced myself. He was very nice. I didn't bring any copies of my book, luckily there was another person there who said he was "there to see you [me] as well as him [paul pope]" and immediately handed PP a copy of Sharknife. PP said something like "this is exactly what I was talking about" (in regard to "comics for comic's sake"). It was a very fulfilling moment for me.

After that I went back to the Mal/Rey table that was then being moved outside due to poor traffic where we were seated. We got outside. It winded on us and rained on us. Hard. Badly hard. It was basically the only moment when it wasn't really nice and sunny out. We were mildly aggrivated (not mal so much since he could sell his new book, Scott Pilgrim Vol 2 in ANY FUCKING WEATHER CONDITION, ANYWHERE). But yeah, it sucked for a minute. But we found our way to a good table again, and business proceeded.

Later that night there was a "party". Everyone who was anyone was there. I took a nap beforehand so I was rejuvinated from a day's selling and 2 days travelling. Anyway, there were lots of people there. The Flight people, the people I rode with... Um, other people. A few gingerbox kids. Mal won an award before he came. He is the best emerging canadian talent. We partied due to that for a little bit. Mal and basically everyone else left eventually tho. Except for his sister Stacey and a couple others. But anyway, here is the cool part... possibly the zenith of the trip... Paul Pope was at the party, and we (stacey and i) were hovering around him the whole night... He came up to us. Yes, to US! And totally hung out with us for a good like 15 minutes. Yes, I partied/got drunk with Paul Pope and Stacey O'Malley. My life is forever altered. I believe PP even remembered my name or something :p

Um, what happened after that.... Another day of selling. I sold a good amount of books and art. Nothing in comparisson to Mal, who was a total rockstar on this trip. There was another party the 2nd night. A little more low-key. But I remember smoking pot with Jim Mahfood and Mal. And then we (mal and i) made calls to people like Jacob P. Ferguson and James Lucas Jones telling them how much fun we were having.

Uh.

Eventually the party got boring and we all left.

The next day we drove our asses off.

I didn't sleep. And then I caught a plane in NYC which took 6 hours to get to Seattle.

Now I am home and I still haven't slept.

But I have basically officially had the best comic festival experience of my LIZZIFE.

*giggle* check out this pic fliedlice took of me in torontoooo