On the second day of NEWW, I had a bit of time to spend looking over artist tables and deciding whether I wanted to try anything new.  I ended up buying a book from Jonathan Rosenberg, some of whose earlier books I have.

I was scheduled to volunteer at 1:00, and I ended up getting assigned to line duty.  That is, I was supposed to manage the fans lined up at tables to see Jeph Jacques and Kate Beaton.  I’ve never read Beaton’s comics, but several people have recommended them to me, so she’s on my radar.  She seems to be enormously popular, and her line required quite a bit more managing than that of Jacques.  By ‘managing’, I mean that I had to make sure people weren’t blocking the passageway, which required arranging the line in a particular shape, and periodically capping it temporarily so it wouldn’t be too long.  I was certainly kept busy for most of the two hours of my shift.  There was an unfortunate miscommunication, though – at one point Kate thought I had capped the line for good, when I had only done so temporarily.  Once it shortened enough I let more people in, and she emphatically asked what was up and made it clear that she had to stop soon (her hand was getting sore from signing and drawing).  So after that I had to turn away some disappointed fans, but the artist gets to decide when she’s done.

After my volunteer time was done I went to a panel on weirdness artists have dealt with from readers and others on the Internet.  I did not take a picture of the panel for some reason, perhaps because I arrived just as it was starting and I squeezed into a spot against the back wall (it was standing-room-only, and very warm in the room).   I can’t quite remember who all the panelists were, but for sure Erika Moen, Chris Hastings, and Randy Milholland were on it (that last strip is another one I have not read).  The stories they told were amusing, and mostly seemed to fall in 2 categories: crazy stalker fans, and overblown hate mail (plus a sprinkling of IP theft).

Next post: the Webcomics Awards.