Scroll Down to the Bottom if you don't care what I have to say, and you want the immediate gratification of pictures and movies. Then feel bad about it, and write me apologetic emails.

I'll forgive you, as long as you forgive me for filming things sideways like a jackass.

What an amazing time I had in Portland. Allison was a terrific host, and we had a blast for the few days I invaded her life. The first night, I got in late, and we just had some drinks at McMenamins, and I had a delicious tofu burrito. That first picture was a cool sign for a coffee shop on the same street.

The next day was wonderfully jam-packed with comics. Any doubts I had about a career in comics are all cleared up. Any fears I had about a cliquey group of art nerds have dispersed.. It was a collection of genuinely nice, and fun people. Not a clique in sight. In fact, there was much encouragement to be had. Most of the creators wouldn't just pitch their goods to me, but would hold interesting conversations, and often ask me if I made comix as well. I directed a handful of people to SparklingSeahorse, but warned them that there wasn't much to see at this point. Hello, hello if you're one of those fine people.

The Brian Ralph shirt I chose to wear that day opened many interesting doors for me. One of the local comic shop owners chatted me up about Brian, and other independent guys, and when he learned I was on the verge of publishing comics he said he'd be happy to carry my work in his store. Yay for that! Then I met a fine young lady named Melody who was a student and friend of Brian's. I told her that Brian's art inspires me, and Cave-In is one of my favorite graphic novels, and she jubilantly declared that she would be emailing him to tell him so. Neat! And she was sending along my website....so, Hello Brian Ralph, if you're reading this. Melody is a really fantastic artist, and I'll be reviewing a comic she illustrated....sometime soon. Visit her website.

Due to banking issues and a lack of preparedness (No ATM card + no PIN assigned to credit card = Joe walking five blocks to a closed Wells Fargo Tower that turns him away--pictured in images 2 & 3), I missed Derek Kirk Kim's Q&A at the start of the day. It was sad. But then Allison lent me some cash, and saved the day, allowing me to purchase many beauteous comix. First stop was Kaz Strzepek's table, where I bought some of my favorite books of the convention. We talked about a short comic of his in the newest SPX that I had just read the night before called "Ass-teroids"(he's got a thing for scatological humor, but who doesn't?). On top of having a rad art style, Kaz is a super cool guy. I'll definitely be following his work in the future. Alas, he is living in the stone age, and has no website for me to plug.

Let's see, the next image is of Anina Bennett, and Paul Guinan. They are married, and cute. Again, really nice folks. I got a book of theirs called Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate. Expect a review of it as soon as I finish it, but so far it's great. And there is a cylindrical robot man in it, not really anything like Happy Transistor Man, but still very cool. More on that later.

R.Stevens, creator of Diesel Sweeties is posing with his Spider-Man finger puppet. I think he found the puppet on the street while at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, but I could be making that up. I am however not making up the fact that we talked of his desire to try a bacon & maple syrup donut from VooDoo Donuts. Apparently they're some cool donut shop that opens from midnight to 6am or something ridiculous like that, and they have a variety of strange flavors. I wish I could say I tried some, but I'm lame, and didn't make it out to VooDoo. Stevens is a gentleman and a scholar. I wonder if he got to try his donut?

Les McClaine is such an impressive artist. I'd read his journal comic fairly regularly in the past, but didn't know of his newest project Jonny Crossbones, which he was promoting, but isn't yet published. He had his original pages with him, and not only were they huge, but they were beautiful. I noticed one of the characters looked like a guy from Tintin, and he said that right before starting the book he had read all of the Tintin books, so Herge was a strong influence on Crossbones. Read Jonny Crossbones archived here, and look for in published by Dark Horse in the near future. Les is a maniac, and says he's not satisfied unless he finishes 5 pages a day. That's layouts to finished inks. That's.....lunacy. I've heard that Charles Shulz, and Osama Tezuka, two of the most prolific comic guys ever, finished an average of one page a day over their lifetime. The guy sitting next to Les said he's happy if he finishes half a page a day. I tend to agree with him, but Les is an inspiration to me now. He's the man.

Craig Thompson embodies the shy artist. He's very pleasant, despite his obvious unease in the spotlight. Them's the breaks when you're a hugely successful artist, hot off a critically acclaimed graphic novel the size of a phone book. Blankets is one of those books that you hand to a non-comic reader to convert them. It's powerful, and honest, and deals with Craig's childhood, and journey into adulthood, through various traumatic, life shaping events. As one of comics brightest shining stars, I assume he is constantly hassled by fanboys, so I tried to do him the courtesy of not drooling on him. He seemed to appreciate this, and was probably the most polite man I've ever met. I asked him if I could take his picture, and he asked if he should come around to the other side of the table. I assured him that he was fine where he was, when Brett Warnock (co-founder of Top Shelf publishing) asked if I wanted him to take a picture of Craig and I together. Sure, why not! The first attempt is caught on tape, in the first video down below. That's Brett talking. Then I set the camera to take photos, not movies, at which point Craig seems to have found something interesting about my hair. :) Brett and I chatted about Brian Ralph for a bit too. He agrees that Brian's work is amazing, and told me that he urges Brian to unshelve and publish his work more regularly, but that Brian, like most artists, suffers from a lack of confidence in his work sometimes.

Next image is of Derek Kirk Kim, and Jason Shiga. They're both great, but Derek's work speaks to me more. His first graphic novel Same Difference & Other Stories I highly recommend. Shiga has some really cool comics on his site for free, check em out.

Shannon Wheeler, the man behind Too Much Coffee Man. He's nice. He's funny. He led an interesting discussion on censorship. Kazu Kibuishi actually spoke the most about his own self censorship, but for some reason I didn't get a picture of him. Speaking of Kazu, his camera was superior to mine, and he posted a few shots of the convention that are really high quality, including smiling, in focus Derek Kirk Kim, Jason Shiga, and John Pham, so check em out here. On the other pages of his Portland photos you can see an amazing waterfall, and nice city photography. I need to do more city, and outdoor stuff next time. I'm jealous.

I kept forgetting to take pictures of people. Like Steve Leiber, and Steve Rolston, both really cool guys that I chatted with for a while, and totally forget to snap pictures of. Oh well, I've got the memories. :)

John Pham was very nice, but we only chatted briefly about his future projects, and I tried to convince some girl that she wanted to buy his books. She accused me of working for John, and John assured her that we've never met before, then joked that my check was in the mail.

The last photo at the Stumptown Fest is terrible, but I included it because it's the only picture I took of Melody (fellow Brian Ralph enthusiast). She's standing among her fellow female artists after defeating the guys in a series of short drawing competitions. It was fun, but defies description, just know this: "Girls rule, and boys drool."

The metal duck was across the street from Urban Outfitters, where I stopped to buy a long sleeved shirt, as I had forgotten to prepare for cold weather.

That awesome bathroom sign was in a Moroccan restaurant Allison took me to. I always wish I had a camera to document funny vandalism, and for once I did! Yay! There was a belly dancer too, but those pictures were crap.

Beyond the comics fest, we filled our time with many shows. Saw Thumbsucker, and it was amazingly good. Right before the movie we happened upon Boka Marimba performing in front of the Portland Art Museum, and I recorded a crappy sideways video of a dancing flower puppet (as seen down below). After Thumbsucker we went to see the Fiery Furnaces in concert, and they were good, but sounded nothing like their albums. They've become a hardcore rock band. I miss the strangeness of their early work.

The next day we saw Mia Doi Todd & Dungen perform at the Doug Fir Lounge. It was beyond rad. See the videos below. Mia performed an acapella version of a Bob Dylan anti-war song, twas very coool. Be aware though, the videos don't capture just how great Dungen was. It was one of the best shows I've seen....only behind Mum, Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode, and Bjork....so that's still saying something. Their albums are good, but the vibe of the band on stage is incredible. They're just really nice & funny guys from Sweden.

Final Stretch! I had Allison take a picture with my new finger puppet, inspired by R. Stevens.

I took a picture of myself waiting for a pilot to fly me home from Salt Lake City. He finally showed up an hour late.

And last up, a comic in the Airplane magazine that I thought was cute.

Whew! Hope you found some enjoyment in here somewhere. If you read all this, you're crazy, and I love you.