LEE GOES APE!

Before I start with the usual photo parade, I should catch you up with the story so far.

We were scheduled to host Craig Thompson at our Mountain View store on Thursday. His publicist needed to cancel at the last moment due to circumstances beyond our control. We rescheduled Craig's signing for Noon at our Ape booth. We were already planning on hosting underground Zap Comix artists Spain and S. Clay Wilson at the same time. My back went out a week before, so I was not planning on going. My back has been getting better, plus I felt that excitement was mounting. It was going to be a big deal, and I should attend, back or no back.


Here's a shot of the convention floor at around 9:00 am. Mark Crane, Clay, Mark Arnold, My Son Lee, and Nik are starting to bring the fixtures and books in from the van.


Clay leads the way.


Nik Houser, Lee Hester IV, Mark Crane, Lee Hester III.
Okay, after a around two hours of fevered work, we have our five booth spaces shaped up into a pretty good temporary storefront, complete with a podium conaining a battery operated cash register and merchandise bags, and flanked by two signing areas. We hooded up a plug-in credit card reader from 'Square" to my son's Android phone, and we are also good to take credit cards. My son is impressed by the set-up.


Craig Thompson and me.
It's noon, and Craig Thompson arrives for his signing. We have 50 copies of his new Habibi book, a wonderful hardcover. Over 600 pages for $35. We also have plentiful copies of Blankets, in hard and soft cover. We have the now out of print original soft cover edition of Blankets. We have Goodbye Chunky Rice and Carnet De Voyage. All these books came in real handy, as Thompson's appearance was an absolute smash! Later on Thompson did a signing at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund booth. They had a huge stack of Habibi there, as well, and were charging a recommended ten dollar donation for signatures. Despite the additional cost (to help fund a very worthy cause) the Legal Defense fund sold out of all copies. In fact, by the end of the first day, I understand that the entire convention floor was completely sold of of Habibi. It's an absolute smash hit. Readers adore Thompson's work, and he is on the cusp of becoming a major super-star!


Thompson sure was nice to the fans! He gave tremendously of himself the whole time. He did sketches for everyone. He posed for pictures for anyone who asked.




On the other side of the booth, we have...
Hey you! Captain Photobomb! Get out of the picture!


As I was saying, we have Publisher Dan Fogel, Spain and S. Clay Wilson with their assortment of delightful underground comix.


A look at one of the delighful sketches that Thompson was doing, gratis!


Some of the many delighted fans.

It was a real pleasure meeting and spending time with Craig Thompson. He's a really nice guy, and I believe, one of the most gifted graphic novel creators of all time. I think he may be one of the great voices of a generation.

After the signing, I had the pleasure of taking Craig and my Son out to lunch at the burrito place around the corner. We had a delightful conversation, as Craig filled us in on the creative process. My son is a terrific artist, and I am a huge fan, so we were both quite captivated by what he had to say.

Here's some nifty news. Craig agreed to appear in person at Lee's Comics for his next book. Tuck that away in your memory bank. It will be a wonderful day when it comes to pass, and this time, you MUST attend!

I won't be returning to Ape. I'm going to stay home and rest my back a bit. I'm going to rely on the other reports, both posted, and the ones told first hand to customers who I talk to, to find out what happened at the rest of the show. If you attend Ape on Sunday, make sure to stop by the Lee's Comics booth at the end of the hallway.

THE FURTHER DESCENT OF MAN

Still not another APE report.

As I write this, I'm back at my home in San Jose. For those of you who are not familiar with the Bay Area, it's 60 miles to the south via highway 101.

On the way home I pass right by my two store locations. Twenty miles to the south is San Mateo, where one store resides. Thirty-six miles to the south is my Mountain View store. If I wanted to, I could hop right off the freeway at Rengstorff, and be at my store in a minute. This time I pass it right by.

At one point I had a big map of Northern California. It had pins on it with all the other comics stores. I also placed pins where I planned on opening stores. My next locations were to be in San Francisco and San Jose. I even looked at locations in both areas, but those plans were put on hold. The timing was not right, or the money was not right, or the market was not right. Right now there are no plans on expansion, but there are plans at making the existing stores better.

I get home and say hello to my family. I have some dinner, and watch Sopranos with my wife Connie. Then I load up my photos. I have a habit of playing the song "The Party's Over", as sung by Blossom Dearie, after a big event. It helps me decompress and get back to normal. So I play the song again.

The Party's Over,

It's Time to call it a day.

They've burst your pretty balloon,

and taken the moon away.

Let's look at the photos:

Here's Al Gordon. He's a mellow fellow, and a fantastic artist. Like me, he hurt his leg running recently. We hobble around a bit and commiserate together. You can let a little of Al's cool rub off on you by checking out his winsome website.

Here are Ted and Robbie, the two gentlemen behind the IDW line, one of the fastest growing, and highest quality publishing houses we've seen in quite some time. They are really nice guys. I made sure to stock up on all their fine titles for the stores.

Here's a lovely photo of my friends James Sime and Kirsten Baldock, of San Francisco's own Isotope Comic Book Lounge. I always get a kick out of the fun events they put on. They are looking remarkably fresh after putting on their famous Isotope mini-comic award show the night before.

I really had a great time joking around with Rick and Debbie Geary. It's hard to tell you just how fun and witty they are. You'll just have to meet them yourself to find out!

Here's Jim Smith, co-creator of the great Ren and Stimpy! He not only cracked us up with his wild antics, like doing impressions of our favorite episodes, but he drew a picture of the famed duo for my son. Here he's getting down, and playing the theme song! Did we, or did we not have a blast? Did I, or did I not tell you to go to the APE?

Here's Camilla Pierrico, who will be taking over as artist on Slave Labor's Nightmares are Fairytales, beginning with issue #19. The art she showed us was fantastic, and we are looking forward to it. As it happens, Camillia hails from Vancouver, where much of the family and I will be visiting in just 2 weeks.

Here's a shot of our friend, Anna Warren Boersig, producer of Dorothy.

Here's Shannon Wheeler, creator of Too Much Coffee man, and his boy Austin. Shannon and I are planning on becoming the next Bialystock and Bloom.

Here's an old friend J.R. Williams. We go way back to my own alternative comics convention that I put on at the San Mateo Expo center in 1993. J.R. was putting out a comic book called "Crap" at the time. Fantagraphics was the publisher, and it was anything but Crap. I'm hoping that someone will be able to coax J.R. back into the comics world some time soon. His stuff is hysterically funny.

It was a real honor to meet Art Spiegleman the author of my all-time favorite graphic novel, Maus. He was helping to raise money for Gary Groth, publisher of Fantagraphics, who is pictured on the left. The good people of Fantagrahics are fighting a lawsuit brought on by SF writer Harlan Ellison.

I don't know who these guys were dressed as, but I loved the costumes. One of them handed me a button with a blank face on it. The other one handed me a tiny naked doll. Neither one spoke a word. Great marketing here, because it stimulates the curiosity, and does not reveal too much. I think the button had some small reference to a web site, but I don't have it handy to check. I'll just have to wonder, at lest for now.

Here's the view of the room from the balcony with one hour to go.

The Party's Over,

It's Time to call it a day.

They've burst your pretty balloon,

and taken the moon away.

It's time to wind up,

the masquerade.

Just make your mind up,

the piper must be paid.

-Lee
Lee’s Comics