Fanaticon Report!

Dear Asheville Art Museum,

I realize that May normally brings cool weather to Asheville, but when it is over 80 degrees outside and you have lots of vendors, exhibitors, volunteers and guests in your building, please do us all the favor of turning the a/c on to accommodate the rising temperatures.  I'm sure the caped crusaders and Storm Troopers would appreciate this even more than us plain clothed civilians.

Love,

Everyone

Sorry to start off with a somewhat negative note, but the level of heat in the museum was the number one topic of conversation during Fanaticon.  I understand that the organizers had no control over the temperature of the facility they were using so I don't hold that against them.  In spite of the heat, there was a lot of fun to be had at Fanaticon. 

There was a nice variety of vendors with collections ranging from Silver Age Comics to discounted trades to toys.  I spent part of my day at the Heroes Aren't Hard to Find booth where not only were comics for sale, but there were plenty of the special Heroes Green Lantern Free Comic Book Day books to give away.  If you haven't heard yet, if you bring your copy of this book to HeroesCon in two weeks, there's a super awesome free gift which will be announced soon.  You don't even have to give up your free comic to get it.  Just bring it by the Info Booth during the con to get your free gift!

I was very happy to see all of my Sketch Charlotte friends grouped fairly close together in a nice side room that was substantially cooler than upstairs.  I really appreciated Tom Davidson letting me sit at his table for awhile to cool down when his lovely wife, Yvonne was visiting the Mast General Store conveniently located across the street.  I also got to visit with Henry Eudy and Eraklis "Herc" Petmezas just one table down from Tom.  Herc was busy doing adorable sketch cards and Henry had his hands full with capturing the likeness of con guests who wanted their very own selves as imagined by Henry.  One bearded fellow requested a sketch of himself riding an opossum! Crazy!

Down the hall from the Sketch Charlotte group, I found the gang from Wide Awake Press with secret guest Van Jenson, the writer of Pinocchio the Vampire Slayer.  I found Van to be super nice and he did a sketch in my Pippi Longstocking sketchbook.  I plan to pick up a copy of Pinocchio the Vampire Slayer at HeroesCon where both Van and the artist, Dusty Higgins, will be set up.  I also picked up the Itty-Bitty Neatobots Coloring Book from J. Chris Campbell and he did a Pippi sketch for me, too.  Robert Vindetti and Ashley Holt were also set up in Wappie Row.  I added another Ashley Holt mini-comic to my collection, The Infinite League, and Seth picked up a really cool print of Thelonious Monk.  Ashley was also kind enough to start Seth's Pulp Hero themed sketchbook with a Shadow sketch and add to my Pinky and the Brain sketchbook.

I also stopped by Bradd Parton's Alpha Sketch booth and won a free sketch card of R2-D2 by guessing which character he had posted in his latest contest on his website.  I stopped back by his table later with Seth to pick up one of Bradd's "A is Asheville" prints and sketch cards of Animal, Captain Marvel and an Ewok.  It's fun to look through the sketches and find all 26 letters! Seth picked up a Tom Waits sketch and print from Urban Pop, who was also featured on the cover of the Fanaticon program book.  I also bought a sweet full color sketchbook from Eric Morin, who also did one of the Fanaticon collector cards. 

There were a ton of costumes at Fanaticon from the Star Wars and Star Trek groups to Steam Punk to Super Heroes and people's own unique creations.  There were even two sets of Ghostbusters! I also enjoyed the hilarious signs placed around the museum by the Fanaticon organizers. 

We ended our Fanaticon day with dinner at Rosetta's Kitchen with Herc and Henry.  Such yummy vegetarian and vegan food that even two meat eaters loved it.  After dinner, Seth and I headed over to the French Broad Chocolate Lounge for dessert and relaxation before calling it a night.  There were lots of yummy desserts from cakes to chocolates to cookies to choose from!

On Sunday, we took the afternoon to enjoy all that downtown Asheville has to offer beginning with brunch at The Early Girl Eatery, a yummy local place that is vegetarian friendly and focuses on organic and local raised food.  After brunch we made our way to the independent bookstore, Malaprops, which is full of great books in a huge range of topics as well as an awesome selection of journals and notebooks. We also made a stop at the Chocolate Fetish for excellent truffles and chocolates.  We ended our afternoon in Asheville with a relaxing stop at Double D's Coffee and Desserts, which is a coffee shop inside a double decker bus.  There are booths upstairs and I couldn't help being reminded of Harry Potter's Knight Bus.  It's a nice setting for reading and writing.  I actually wrote my notes for this post while there.   

You can check out all the fun of Fanaticon in my Flickr set.  I'm already looking forward to next year!