Here’s a slightly belated posting of photos and memories from the insanely fun times we had at the San Diego Comic-Con this year!

Thursday night, Gene Yang (American Born Chinese) and I drove out to the Barnes and Noble in Mira Mesa for a Get Pop Cultured event.

Huge thanks to everyone who came by to see Gene and I speak, draw & perform scenes from our books!

Afterwards Gene and I dashed off to Islands Burger, one of my favorite burger places on the mainland.

Gene then dropped me off at the Scholastic Party, which is always a fun and fancy affair!

I got to catch up with a lot of friends including Kiersten White, the author of the hilarious & spooky Paranormalcy series.

On the way back to my hotel I saw the cast of Game of Thrones just hanging out! The street-level patio was protected by glass shielding, so it was like the actors were actually animals in a zoo. Especially with all of us drooling spectators stopping to gawk at Jamie Lannister and the rest of the beefcakes.

Here I am with publicists extraordinaire, Gina Gagliano, signing copies of Astronaut Academy at the First Second booth.

This awesome kid cosplaying as a TNG Starfleet officer picked up a copy of Astronaut Academy last year and was super excited to pick up volume 2.

Raina and I got to explore the exhibit floor a bit more than usual this year, and delightedly encountered some of our favorite things!

Animal Crossing!

More Animal Crossing!

Pepe the King Prawn!

Luna Lovegood!

Lone Starr & Barf from Spaceballs!

Korra, the Avatar!

The 11th Doctor & Amy Pond hanging out with Thor & Loki!

Gadget from Rescue Rangers!

Bannister!

Jack Mendelsohn, the legendary creator of Jacky’s Diary.

I finally got to attend one of the Quick Draw panels featuring Sergio Aragonés (Mad Magazine), Mark Evanier (Groo The Wanderer), Scott Shaw! (Captain Carrot), Mark Evanier, and Floyd Norman (Disney legend). I’d heard tales of how amazing this panel was, and it completely lived up to the hype. I was seriously in awe of the quick-witted brilliance of these guys. Drawing as the ultimate form of entertainment. So hilarious!

My good friend Johane Matte accompanied me to the Avatar Legacy fan panel. Even though we no longer work at Nickelodeon, we’re still the biggest enthusiasts for all things Avatar: The Last Airbender. The panel featured Jessie Flower (the voice of Toph), Josh Hamilton (one of the amazing writers from both Avatar and Legend of Korra), Gene Yang (writer of the Avatar comics), and both Sifu Kisu and Sifu Manny, (the martial arts experts on both shows!).

Had dinner with the lovely illustrator, Nidhi Chanani!

We bought so much stuff from Rhode Montijo’s booth. But sadly he was all out these “Draw While You Sleep” elixirs. Would be so useful!

We got to congratulate our good friend Faith Erin Hicks on her much-deserved Eisner Award win!

Went to see the graphic novel panel with Lucy Knisley, Jenn Wang, Faith Erin Hicks, & Gene Yang (who clearly has a time-turner necklace because he was EVERYWHERE!!) It was hosted by Lev Grossman (The Magicians).

Had breakfast with Teen Boat colorist, Wes Dzioba and his wife Heather at Buster’s Beach House. I love their Down-Island French Toast with Pog (Passion Organge Guava)!

I spoke on a panel about Heros in comics hosted by Meryle Jaffe with Frank Cammuso, Mark Tyler Nobleman, Matthew Holm, Jennifer Holm and Alexis Fajardo. We made crazy drawings at the end.

Ate delicious cornbread waffles at Cafe 222 at an ungodly early hour.

Saturday night was a KidLit meet up, which was a great way to catch with up so many wonderful people.

Chillaxin’ with Chris Duffy and Jim Higgins!

Sunday was our annual Kids Draw panel! This variation on the Comics Quickfire saw Elsa from Frozen going head to head against the 10th Doctor! Also participating in the fun were Dav Pilkey, Dan Santat, Kirk Scroggs, Jennifer Holm, & Matthew Holm!

This kid got the drawing I did for the panel.

We waited in line for over an hour for the Jack McBrayer & Triumph the Insult Comic Dog panel before we passed out from heat exhaustion & had to give up.

Check out the cool sights and sounds outside the convention center. Trembled before this giant Homer Simpson head.

One of our favorite sanctuaries in San Diego is the Seaport Village. It’s an oasis away from the hustle and crowds and zombie crawls surrounding the convention center.

Taco time…again!

It’s also an annual tradition to have dinner Sunday night with my California cousins, who fill me in on all the pop-culture craziness I missed!

At the end of Sunday night they threw us in Comics Jail for not wanting the fun to end!

I headed down to San Diego with John Green and Raina Telgemeier, but this was our first Comic-Con in almost 10 years without a table in the Small Press area.

Thanks to our great friends at Flight Comics, we still had a place to call home, but with so many contributors behind the table, it’s not the same level of responsibility as the usual set up. In some ways it was liberating. Rather than worrying about table costs and every book sold (or not), we just accepted that this was a business-related vacation.

(With Vera Brosgol and Mark Siegel at the :01 First Second booth)

Between my scheduled signings at :01 First Second and SLG Publishing, I had more of a chance to wander the convention floor than in years past.

(With Kevin Coppa, who gets stopped for photos every 10 seconds when he’s in his Doctor Who cosplay!)

Certain areas of the convention floor are the equivalent to being in a mosh pit. Costumes are more fun when they are parading by rather than bumping into you. I heard from a lot of friends and experienced for myself the pain of waiting in line, only to be cut off once the panel room was full. I don’t mind waiting in lines at Disneyland as long as I know I’m getting on the ride eventually. But with Comic-Con there are no real guarantees. That said, the comic book-themed panels never seemed anywhere near as crowded as the panels about even the worst shows on television.

(Banner for SpongeBob comics, which are edited by Chris Duffy and published by Bongo)

I heard a lot of complaints about how Comic-Con is increasingly less about comics. But there seemed to be about the same amount of comics-related content, booths, panels, and guests as always. It’s just that there are thousands more people who simply don’t care about that stuff. They may enjoy pop-culture, video games, and even superheroes, but buying books just isn’t in their budget. But they are passionate and dedicated to their fandoms, and are willing to wait in line to buy 4-day passes a year in advance, and will do anything for a chance to buy a limited edition Lego set.

(With Rikki Simons at the SLG booth)

Disappointing as the comics/print ambivalence may be, I don’t blame anyone for getting excited about all the other stuff. I love most of it, too. It’s hard not to get excited about a giant Jake the Dog balloon from Adventure Time!

One the highlights of the Comic-Con this year was meeting Karen Prell, the puppeteer/voice of Red Fraggle. She’s also an animator on the videogame Portal 2, and a really amazing person!

(With Karen Prell)

My favorite part of Comic-Con has always been a combination of meeting people whose work I really admire (especially when you least expect it, like on the convention floor) and running into old friends who are working hard doing what they love.

(With Gerard Way at the Embarcadero Marina Park )

(With C.H. Greenblatt at the :01 First Second booth)

(With Jhonen Vasquez and J. Goldberg at SLG booth)

I’m usually tired at the end of a convention day, and then end up giving myself an asthma attack from laughing so hard at dinner. Especially when I sit next to these guys:

(Thien Pham and Gene Yang, two of the most fun people to have dinner with)

(Gina Gagliano and Paul Pope)

The Eisner Awards were of course unbelievable, because Raina’s book SMILE won for Best Comic for Teens. I could not be more proud of her and was glad they announced her award at the beginning of the program, so she could relax and enjoy herself for the rest of the evening. Even though they can run long, I enjoy these ceremonies because I like seeing veterans and young talent getting a rare amount of recognition for their time dedicated to making great stories.

(Raina with her Eisner Award!)

I participated on several panels, including Love and Comics, Diversity in YA, a fan-run panel for “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” and a Teen Comics Workshop, which has a recap and photos over at GeekMom.com.

(Korra puppet, Kevin Coppa, Zuko puppet, Kim Miranda (“Isaia”), and Erin (“Booter-Freak”)

And of course a trip to San Diego wouldn’t be complete without getting together with my cousins! We had a post-con celebration at Filippi’s Pizza Grotto!

The five days of Comic-Con seem to go by way too fast. Luckily more and more people are coming to visit us at the New York Comic Con, but it still doesn’t have the same magic as San Diego!

(view from our hotel)

Lots more over at my Flickr photo set!

Kids Read Comics is one of the best small comic shows I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending, and this year’s event was no exception.

The convention has moved around suburban Detroit a few times during its three-year history, and this year’s event was staged in small-town Chelsea, MI—about a twenty-minute drive from Ann Arbor.

Raina and I were invited to do a kickoff presentation at the Ann Arbor District Library on Friday night, and so we had dinner in town (charming!) before spending a couple of hours talking about comics, kids, our own histories, and why we love what we do. We also had fantastic kid volunteers from the audience to help perform scenes from our comics.

The night continued with a presentation by Kevin Coppa, a video artist who set up a green screen and did some live special effects demos, using kids from the audience and his handcrafted Avatar: The Last Puppetbender puppets.

We spent the next two days in and around Chelsea.

The whole downtown is basically overtaken by Kids Read Comics festivities: two artist alley areas (one for kids and one for teens), a bunch of panels and workshops, craft tables, a bounce house, a rock climbing wall, face painting, etc.

Everything you’d expect from a street fair to draw in the general public, and then lots of comic book content to win them over to team comics!

There was also a gallery showing of comic art at the River Gallery,

More live comics readings!

There was a cartoonists pizza party at Jet’s, and tons of drawing demos with artists stationed on the sidewalks all throughout town!

Raina and I signed books at the Green Brain Comics table next to registration. Dan and Katie Merritt, who run Green Brain, are longtime friends of ours and are always great to spend time with.

The other organizers and show runners are just as delightful: comics writer Dan Mishkin; local librarian Edith Burney; and comic artist-teacher-podcaster-advocate extraordinaire, Jerzy Drozd. Each year I feel we get to know each of them a little bit better, and you could not ask for a more dedicated, passionate, and talented group of people to run a comic event.

Dan Mishkin!

And the other show guests were just as awesome. Lots of friends old and new come from near and far to be a part of KRC.

Ruth signs her delightful Ellie McDoodle series!

This year, the artists included Jannie Ho (former Nick Mag designer turned Children’s Book illustrator), Dani Jones, Brandon Dayton, Kasey Van Hise, Jonathan Griffiths, Mark Rudolph, Barbara Slate, Rob Stenzinger, Matt Feazell, Bob Learned, Thom Zahler, Ruth McNally Barshaw, Zach Bosteel, Paul Storrie…the list goes on and on.

Raina had a lot of Smile fans in attendance, and their parents who were happy to have a free thing for their families to do that weekend. Raina even had one of her high school friends, Susan, bring her family to the event, including her newborn baby and older sons, all the way from Toledo!

And so, an inspiring weekend of comics for kids was had.

Michigan, Chelsea and Ann Arbor, are kind of magical: it stays light way later than it does in New York, the fireflies were out in force, we ate nothing but terrific food, including some fantastic ice cream. The weather held out all weekend, and we were lucky enough to attend some truly fun dinners and after-con hangouts with people we really like.

Brandon, Jerzy, and Anne.

If you’re anywhere at all near the Detroit metro area, and you make comics for a kid, tween, or teen audience, I highly recommend Kids Read Comics.

It’s got a great community feel and everyone is positive and upbeat. As for attending the show: there’s something for everyone age 3 and up, and it’s FREE!

Astronaut Academy fans!

Check out our COMPLETE PHOTO SET