Current mood:

pessimistic

Dear sweet mother of god... what have I done?
Well then, looks like two week to go until I'm off to CN Geek Expo in Toronto. No I'm almost starting to regret my decision to go there because I know I'm going to come off as some sort of retarded man-child. Now I've been to conventions before. This time last year CN Geek Expo was the very first full convention I ever attended. I was a guest at a convention too which is possibly one of the coolest things in the world. Doing panels, shaking hands, signing autographs, that shit rocks. This year's CN Geek Expo is going to be my first convention with a table. A place where I sit down and everyone has access to me all the time. I'm going to look like such a fucking hack! What was I thinking? I've seen an artist alley before. I know exactly what to expect there. I've managed to get by and build my e-fame on the strength of my writing because I sure as fuck can't draw and now I've gone and stuck myself into an environment where my writing skills mean fuck-all and everyone around me will be able to kick my ass at will with pen and paper. I know what awaits me. There will be three types of people there and I won't be one of them.

Type 1 will be the largest group. These will be asian teenagers half my age who draw circles around me the likes of which you'd never believe. They'll draw with non-photo blue pencils and then ink over top and their pencil work is going to be so freaking accurate that when they're done inking there won't be a spot of blue left anywhere on the god damned fucking paper. That's why they pencil with the non-photo blue, just so they can drive home the mad drawing skills they possess. Erasers are for the weak. They're going to sit there and they're going to draw the entire time they're at the convention and they will be so focused and intense on their drawing that they wouldn't even notice if naked chicks ran past them on fire.

Type 2 will be young white kids half my age who also draw circles around me but nowhere near the extent that the young asian kids do. They won't be as focused on their work, will probably be more chatty with the passersby and each other and most of them will be teenage girls who draw pictures of elf-boys or angel-boys or cat-boys or elven-angel-cat-boys cuddling each other and looking longingly into one another's weepy, shiny eyes.

Type 3 will be the old farts my age. These will be real-live honest to god comicbook pros who can draw circles even around the asian kids. They'll have credentials and skill and talent on their side. They'll know anatomy down to the med-school level. They'll have seen it all, done it all, and they'll all be very very bitter. That's right, they'll be bitter balls of rage and god help the poor sap who brings up "manga" in front of them because they'll tear them a new asshole. They'll be pissed off and bitter that people are lining up to get a drawing of Yugi having ass sex with Inu Yasha done by some nobody teenager while not even giving a glance at their expert masterpiece of Wonder Woman battling Swamp Thing. Oh they'll go on and on and on to anyone who will stop to listen to them long enough about how the fucking Japanese with their overly stylized shit are corrupting the art standards of North America and how real artists wouldn't draw that "Jap-crap" if you held a gun to their heads. Oh they will rage, they will rage against the dieing of the light. And even though they seem like dinosaurs from a bygone age you can't help but respect them and be awed by the magnificence of their work, their beautiful, masterful work. And you may weep, so soft, so gently, in the knowledge that the current generation of future artists will come of age never having drawn a Spider-man, or a Hulk, but have a portfolio stuffed with doe-eyed cat-boys stroking each other's cocks.

And then there will be me. Less than a month away from my 39th birthday. Goofy as all hell. Drawing skills of a "fat 12 year old girl" as one critic once put it (which I thought was needlessly cruel to fat 12 year old girls myself). Not a clue in the fucking world. Dear god, what have I gotten myself into? Oh my writing skills won't be able to save me now. No sir. Nobody is going to be reading dick-all there. They're coming to be wowed by the drawing and I'm going to look like a total tool. It won't matter that more people read my comic each week than buy Spider-Man. No, I've entered their world now and they're going to make me their bitch.

I am well and truly fucked now.

Oh well... too late to back out.