92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

Beland’s True Story, Swear to God twice that weekend.

Speaking of Tom Beland, he and his wife Lily Garcia have to be the nicest people in comics. I used to think it was Brett Warnock, of Top Shelf, or possibly Ed Irvin and Todd Rapisura of Absence of Ink. But it’s Tom and Lily, hands-down. Lily was just indefatiguably perky, and even though Tom’s hand started cramping up from signing so many autographs on Saturday, he had nothing but smiles and kind words for the mob around his table. I asked him how he was holding up, since I know that cons are sort of rough on comics creators. We spend all year toiling away in our offices and studios with what is a pretty limited interaction with other folks. So going to a con is an overload on most creators’ abilities to hold conversations… …so when I asked Tom how he was doing he said, "I’ve got no complaints! Think about it; my big problem today is that there are too many people telling me they appreciate my work! How cool is that?" And then he laughed his hot vanilla tapioca laugh. Since Saturday was so mobbed, I didn’t get a chance to walk the floor, at all. I was working those booths, man. Just a constant flow of hipsters and cool cats who wanted to check out our stuff. Since it’s no secret that Bri Wood and I are big fans of the home-made zines, we had a lot of folks drop copies of their work on us. This worked out great for me, since Sunday was a little less frenetic and I was able to go see the folks at their tables. I keep

189