2/27/2002
(2:08pm) Okay, here goes my report on the weekend hijinks that took place at the Orlando Mega-Con! Brace yerself, kiddos, this could take a while!

Wednesday
I loaded up all my junk into the car and proceeded to drive from lil old Windsor, Connecticut, into Brewster, New York, to Franco's house. During the drive I listened to the music of Ben Folds, Teenage Fanclub, The Pixies, and The Apples In Stereo. I pulled up to Franco's sometime around 2:30 in the afternoon. He's a highschool art teacher and wasn't home from school yet, so I got back into the car and drove around Brewster for a bit. I found a little pizza shop and had a slice for lunch before heading back to Franco's house. We hung out for a while and went to his parent's house next door for dinner. His lil boy, Nicky, kept actin all cute and speacking jibberish to me. Back to Franco's house and we watched some "Wiggles" videos - this kooky Australian children's band. I don't think I've ever laughed so much at a TV program! Me and Franco decided that all us Blindwolf Studios cartoonists should form a children's rock group to rival The Wiggles. Franco took me downstairs to his studio and we stayed up til midnight drawing comics and watching "The Wrath of Khan" on TV. We called Jamie up on the phone and bugged him about not coming with us to Orlando, but he was real sick and coughing up lung chunks so we left him alone, ha. We missed ya, Jamie!

Thursday
Franco woke me up around 6am to get ready for school. He brought me to talk to his class about cartooning. We had a lot of fun drawing caricatures of his students for them. None of the class believed us when we told them we were driving to Florida right after school. One of his third period students, a really cute girl named Hayley asked me to draw her a fairy for her. After school we drove to the car rental place and picked up our rental van. We met up with Jimmy Smith (aka Jimmy Cruise Director) back at Franco's and loaded up the van with all of our stuff. Franco's parents rode along with us to visit family in Daytona Beach. Once we were all loaded into the van, off we went - destination: Orlando!

franco with the van

Friday
We arrived in Daytona Beach around 5am Friday morning and had breakfast at Denny's - an American institution! From there we dropped off Franco's parents and headed for Mega-Con in Orlando. Traffic was really bad and made the 45 minute trip take over two hours! Then it started pouring rain and we got soaked trying to get inside the convention center. We found our table and got set up, then realized me and Franco had left some stuff in the van. I had to go search for it outside and spent the next 40 minutes in the pouring rain! Once I finally made it back inside I changed my shirt and began selling comics. Jimmy had volunteered to help out the convention organizers so he disappeared to do that. Franco was real busy moving copies of the new "Patrick the Wolf Boy" trade.

franco sellin comics!
We had fun acting all goofy and getting people to stop and read our books. Tom Devlin, the publisher at Highwater Books came over and visited with me for a while and later on I went over to his booth and picked up Jordan Crane's "Non #5" book and some other nifty mini-comics. I chatted with Chris Staros and Jeff Mason for a bit, and said howdy to James Kochalka before darting back to my table. A friend of Franco and Art's stopped by our table and hung out with us each day for the rest of the con. His real name's Anthony, but we call him Ninja Bob.

ninja bob!
Me and Ninja Bob had a grand time. We surprise-attacked some Storm-Troopers and they didn't know what hit them!

ninja bob and me versus the stormtroopers

I also met the Failure Group - a bunch of cartoonists just 2-3 years older than me that had all attended the Savannah College of Art and Design (a school I came real close to attending).

SCAD artist group, "failure"
They're all gonna be at the Small Press Expo in September so we'll get to hang out again there. One Failure member in particular whose work I was really impressed with was Drew Weing. He gave me two of his comics and they are both spectacular. We're hoping to collaborate on something soon. One of his minis was called "Mr. Robot and Cindy" and was really nifty.

drew's comic
Tom Devlin gave me a pass to get into a racing-themed restaraunt called Race Rock and get free food that night, so I went there for dinner. Franco and Jimmy went out to eat at a place called the Crab House. I did some doodling while eating my dinner and then went back to the hotel room.

doodles while eating at Race Rock

Franco got back a little later and we both wanted to draw but we were so tired we fell right asleep.

Saturday
On Saturday morning I had a short meeting with Chris Staros, publisher of Top Shelf, about some future comics projects I'm working on, and then I headed back to my table and sold comics and drew pictures for a few more hours. On my next forray away from my table I went and met George Lowe - the voice of TV's Space Ghost!

space ghost!
He signed a big poster for me and yelled at me in the Space Ghost voice while reading back what he wrote on the poster. Later on I gave him some free comics and he hung out with me for a while and said he liked the books a lot. When I got back to my table, I was greeted by none other than Josh Sullivan himself! We have known each other online for something like three or four years and this was the first time we met in person. He yelled "Todd Webb! I love this stuff!" and I looked up and shouted "Josh Sullivan!" and the rest of the weekend we ran amuck and had a hoo-ha! He introduced me to his pal Bred, who was also an awesome pal by the end of the weekend.

bred and josh
Josh set up some of his amazing JoshComics on the table and Bred handed out lots of flyers.

bred, myself, josh, and ninja bob strike a pose!
A little later I met Kenny Baker (Star Wars' R2D2!) and his wife and they took a whole bunch of my comics with them to bring to the set of the next Star Wars movie for all of the actors to read! They were both very friendly and I chatted with them again on Sunday before we left.

me and the bakers! kenny baker is R2D2 in all the "star wars" films
On the way back to the table, I took down Darth Vader himself in a battle supreme!

me vs vader
Once back at my table, I was greeted by my good buddy Kyle Fanning! Kyle used to live here in Connecticut, but his family moved to Florida a few years ago. He brought his friend Josh to the show too, so me and Josh and Bred hung out with Kyle and Josh2 for the rest of the day. The Production Manager for Troma Video came over and told me he wants me to draw DVD and soundtrack covers for the next "Toxic Avenger" films, and Josh and I found a dealer who specialized in old movie poster reproductions so we flipped out and each got some awesome posters. The guy who ran the operation, Cory, told me if I drew a picture of the robot girl from "Metropolis" for his business card that he'd give me another poster for free so I did and got the poster for "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars"! Josh and I went and talked to Bob May - the original Robot B-9 from TV's "Lost in Space". He wouldn't let me take a picture with him unless I paid, so we gave Bred my camera and Josh and I stealthily manuvered behind the booth and had Bred sneak a shot from across the room! Bred handed the camera off to Josh who then secretly handed it off to me and we were gone before wiley old Bob May had any idea what had happened! It was just like a James Bond movie only cooler cuz it was us!

bob may - the original "lost in space" robot
I also chatted with the ever-so-pretty Missy, and when we were posing for a picture she gave me a big surprise!

kissy from missy!
Her cousin also hung out with us for a while and talked about "Pete and Pete" with me and Josh - that's our favorite old TV show, and it was his too. Me and Josh kept calling him Big Pete. Saturday night when the show ended, Josh and Bred, myself, and Josh2 piled into Kyle's car and headed off in search of food.

into kyle's car in search of food
We got lost in the rain (it was still raining) and Kyle's windows kept fogging up. Then, out of nowhere, this ambulance was heading down our side of the highway in the wrong direction! So we got off the highway and let it go by. Eventually we made it to my hotel room to drop off our stuff then went out again to try to find some place to eat. Traffic was really bad again, and then ANOTHER ambulance started coming from behind us so we had to make space for it to get through! The traffic got all messed up, and Kyle started following the trail the ambulance had made right through the middle of the messed up highway traffic and we were all laughing cuz nobody knew what the heck was going on! Kyle took a side road and we found a Wendy's so that's where we had our meal. Me and Josh kept bugging the clerk about this little toy for 3 year olds but the guy said all they had were these cheezy "Clifford the Big Red Dog" toys. Josh kept shouting that we couldnt get hose cuz my little sister would choke on it, which was hilarious because we were just making that up! Ha! My sister wasn't even there AND she's 17! After dinner, we ran across the street to this lame dollar-store tourist-trap palce and proceeded to entertain ourselves for another hour or so. Me and Josh bought buttons with silly phrases on them (one of Josh's said "Where's the Beef?" and one of mine said "Happy Camper") and I got this road sign that said "Kids Zone" and had a horrible drawing of a kid on a scooter. I also got some word-balloon stickers with phrases in Spanish that we couldn't understand and some other ones with dieting words and pictures in the balloons.

dollar store hijinks!
Outside the dollar store we found a footprint in the sidewalk and we thought that it was funny, so we took a picture with all our feet around it.

shoes!
We drove back to the hotel and watched some cartoons and read comics and Josh wore my adventure hat and did a hilarious Dudley Moore impression.

josh doing his dudley moore impression

kyle chillin in the hotel room

We put a sticker that said "fatso" and one with a picture of a cruise ship onto the "Kids Zone" sign and laughed about how stupid that was. Eventually Kyle and Josh2 had to leave, so Josh and Bred decided to take off as well. That was one of the most fun days I've ever had in my life. Franco got back to the room a while after that and we watched the end of "Tremors" on TV before falling asleep.

Sunday
Franco and I drove all over the place trying to find a 7-11 before going to the convention center but had no luck. Then they made us park way over in a parking garage and we had to walk all the way to the show from there! Fortunately, the sun was finally shining and it felt like we were in Orlando. We gave out 200 stickers and lots of free comics to people who stopped at our table, and also sold a bunch of stuff. Franco sold two of his big Patrick the Wolf Boy paintings too. Somebody bought one of my "Fat Cat" drawings and my "Bust a move DareDevil" (a cartoon of DareDevil dancing away to polka music CDs) picture for $10 each!

fat cat #2
Josh and Bred showed up in the afternoon and us and Ninja Bob ran around some more and acted silly. I made some more new friends and hope to stay in touch with them all! Not a lot of people were stopping by the table on Sunday, so we kept roaming around the convention and having fun. Bred was busy handing out flyers to all the punk kids and that was a really good idea cuz he got rid of most of them that way! I met up with Courtney, aka "Burger Queen" again and she visited with us all for a bit.

courtney the burger queen!

I also got to see Rob and Walter, my two fellow ex-UPS employees, again at this show! We met at the Pittsburgh Con this past year and ran into each other again at the Baltimore show in October, so it was awesome to see them again.

rob and walt
Josh and I found this booth that had old black and white photo stills and autographged pictures from movie actors and the guy there gave me a big discount on some neato photos of Frankenstein and The Creature From the Black Lagoon! He also set me up with a signed photo of Elijah Wood from "Lord of The Rings"! His name was Mike and he gave me info to stay in touch so he'll trade me some signed photos from "Smallville" and other stuff in exchange for some of my comics and drawings, which is really nice of him! Josh and I also had our picture taken together and acted like we were super-heros and came up with our own catch-phrase "Thumbs up for Justice!" which we shouted to all the other super-heros at the show.

thumbs up for justice!
At the table we also kept singing "Rock the Casbah" and a bunch of "Aquabats" songs. Eventually, Mega-Con wrapped up and came to an end and it was time to say goodbye to everyone.

kids zone comix! josh and i pose with our poster child
Thanks to Josh and Bred and everyone else for all the fun! I can't wait til we can all hang out again!

me, bred, and josh go "carpet surfing"!
Kyle and Josh2 live right near Bred and Josh so I'm sure they'll all have fun together soon. Hopefully Josh can make it to the Pittsburgh Comicon in April so we can run around and be goofy again! I also was hanging out with an awesome girl named Constance (NOT Constantinople!) and she said she might be at Pittsburgh too so we'll hopefully meet up again.

constance!
As we were packing up, the famous George Perez stopped by the table and said hello and checked out some comics.

jimmy, franco, and the famous george perez
After saying all our goodbyes, Franco and Jimmy and I loaded all our stuff back into the van and went out for dinner at a "high class" (haha!) Italian restaraunt. Our waitressess were really nice and Franco and I drew cartoons for them. One girl wanted us to draw Scooby Doo, which turned out to be one of the few characters we cant whip up on the spot, so I drew her Spongebob Squarepants instead. I also did some sketchbook doodling at the restaraunt of some of the people eating around us.

dinner doodles
After dinner we drove around and went to FAO Schwarz - the giant toy store! Outside the store we took a picture of a giant robot chasing me (I'm running from the robot in the photo, but it came out fuzzy) and also a huge raggedey-anne doll (which is crushing me in the pic, haha!). Inside the toy store I found a tin wind-up robot toy and talked the cahsier, Georgina, into giving me a family discount because I was her "long-lost cousin from Connecticut" hehehe! So that was very nice of her.

tin robot!
Then Franco wanted a discount from this worker named Brian who was blowing up this big balloon bubble thing. We made him laugh and I accidentally popped the bubble all over the place and Brian the clerk called me an idiot. We tried to take his photo but he was shy and hid behind a stuffed toy.

bashful brian hides behind stuffed toy!
After our toy store excursion, we headed to the movie theater to watch Ah-Nold in "Collateral Damage" which ended up being an amazingly silly movie! The girl at the candy desk gave me a free Sprite! In the theater, we met Jay Young, who is a professional photographer, so I had him take our picture.

a "professional" photo of me, jimmy, and franco taken by jay young!
After the movie ended around 1am we went back to the hotel and packed up before passing out in bed.

Monday
Monday morning we checked out of our hotel room and drove over to Universal Studios!

universal!
We spent the day there visiting all the attractions and being silly. We rode the "Back to the Future" ride and I kept thinking of Josh cuz he had bought the poster for that movie this weekend. Me and Franco kept shouting "HellO McFly!" like Biff. On the drive down to Florida, Franco and I watched the amazingly awful "Rocky and Bullwinkle" movie on his laptop, so when we met the real Rocky, we weren't as impressed as we normally would have been - hahah!

me, rocky, and franco
We went to the "Men In Black" ride, which ended up being a not-so-fun ride, but after we came outside from it, there was this guy acting like an alien and bumping into people and two guys dressed like Men in Black watching, so I went over and started bumping into the alien guy and all the people started laughing! Then the men in black acted like I was part of the show and said "we found another one" and acted like they were gonna drag me away with the other alien guy. Ha! Franco and Jimmy and I went and got hot fudge sundaes and then went on some more rides. Jimmy kept chasing all the birds away from the road.

get 'em, jimmy!
I tried to get a picture of King Kong when he attacked our vehicle, but it was too dark and all that came out was big white teeth. Around dinner time we left and headed for Daytona Beach to collect Franco's parents and then we were off on our journey home.

Welp, that pretty much concludes my adventure to Orlando! Thanks for reading all of that, hope it wasn't too boring! I had a great time and I can't wait to see everybody again. I'm already anxiously looking forward to the Pittsburgh show in April! I hope you can all make it there. Catchya later aligator!
todd!