92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

my eye on Marc Nordstrom, who did a book called Local Heroes 186 a while back that I really enjoyed, and he handed me a copy of his latest, Hel on Ice. It’s inspired lunacy, and almost inexplicable. Also inexplicable was Dave Robson’s Three Wacky Cops, which starts out "NOTE: What you’re about to read are a number of strange documents that recently surfaced after the blue flames hit last year" and gets weirder after that. And I mean "weirder" in a good way. I didn’t get to talk to Debbie Huey, but Mimi picked up Bumperboy Loses His Marbles and I have to admit I was completely charmed by it. So too was I impressed by Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese. His art is super-clean, and the lettering (which apparently is a part of the artform that only Augie and I seem to care about) is professionally done. You can find out more info about Gene on Modern Tales. The previously-mentioned Todd Rapisura worked up a really impressive fol low-up to my previous favorite of his, Tree vs. Bill, with Mr. Bear and the Great Happenstance. On the first fast flip-through, I thought it was a cloy ing little tale about a girl and her stuffed animal. Then I sat down to read it, and I was just blown away. It’s a powerful rumination on loss and redemption and it just kicked my ass. Anyone who tells you that comic books are only "just lines on paper" hasn’t read Mr. Bear. Walking around the new venue was kick-ass. Much more spacious than Fort Mason (and drier, too! Fort Mason leaks like a sieve when it rains), it’s the perfect place to interact with fans. Sure, it’s in South of Market with its views of the Macromedia headquarters instead of Fort Mason’s view of the ocean, but, hey! We’re there to do business during the open con hours, not sight-see. It’s not like I ever went outside for the view at Fort Mason, either. APE offers just too much to do and see, inside. And inside I ran into David Glanzer, Director of Marketing and Public Relations for the con, and told him how great we were doing, and how much I loved the new digs. I asked him how the show was going, and he said, "Everyone loves the new venue. Lots of space to hang out. One of the cool things about the con is the intimate nature of the show, where people can spend time with the creators. "But I don’t have to tell you that," Dave laughed, because we were up on the second level looking down at the AiT compound, where Bri Wood was being mobbed. "We don’t have final numbers, yet, of course, but it’s look ing like attendance was up a bit from last year, and that can’t be anything but good for comics."

Even that second level wasn’t the drama that some exhibitors feared when

190