Pen-Elayne on the Web

National Expo - Day One

Had a great time at the National today (Saturday), but I have to say my favorite moment happened in the ladies' room. Understand, until very, very recently there were no queues for the women's bathrooms at any given comic convention, even San Diego. That's how small the percentage of women at these events was. Well, today when Naomi Basner and I visited, we not only admired Jasi Lanier's way-cool platform shoes but Mercy Van Vlack and Deborah Tucci (wife of Billy and new mom of adorable William Alexander, whom she was cradling at the time) started talking about Mercy's lovely shirt, which she had designed in the style of Raoul De Keyser. It was surreal and amazing and wonderful listening to these erudite and fascinating women expound on Belgian art in a ladies' room at a comic con, and a great reminder of how far we've come in this business in just a few short years! Oh, and Christine Norrie won the Golden Panel Award for Breakout Artist of 2002; congrats, Christine! Day Two starts in about 10 hours, with two cool panel discussions in the afternoon sponsored by the New York City Comic Book Museum (which gave out the awards). At 1 PM Christine and Mercy's SO Ken Gale take part in a panel about "Comics in the Classroom," then at 3 PM Christine's husband, Andrew Lis, joins my husband what's-his-name and a few others to talk about "The Art of 9-11."