Black Friday 2010

A great Black Friday and I never left the house.

The Post Man came and left 2 (count them 2!) packages.

The first was a small mailer and I didn’t recognize the return address. This made the suspense all the better.

I opened it and it contained a signed trade version of The Last Unicorn.  Then I knew the details.

At the 2010 ComicCon, my wife and I found Berkeley Breathed signing copies of his new Bloom County books. Since we read Bloom County daily while in college we excitedly got in line.

The line wrapped around the booth and as we got near the last turn, a man was standing with a few books in front of him. He looked familiar and I felt I should have known him. I tried to cheat and get a glimpse of his name tag but of course he wasn’t wearing it.  The guy next to him saw me try to sneak a peek and asked if I knew who the guy was. I admitted I thought I knew the face but not the who. He said Peter Beagle.  Now I felt stupid as the book was right there staring at me and could have put two and two together.

I turned and shook hands with Peter Beagle. I said I didn’t know he was going to be at ComicCon this year; otherwise I would have brought a copy for him to sign. They admitted it wasn’t real publicized. They said if I wanted a signed copy I could give my address details and they would send me a signed copy. Okay, I’m good with that.

Meanwhile my wife is inching closer and closer to Berkeley and I’m being left behind.

I wrote down my info and handed over some money.  I thanked Peter Beagle. And we chit chatted.

While I’ve never read The Last Unicorn, it has an interesting back story. Peter has struggled financially and the movie studios apparently made lots of money. Only recently has Peter tried to get his share.

Meanwhile the line for Bloom County had been shut down. Berkeley is finishing up. I’m slightly disappointed as it means I need to try again and I know how busy I’ll be over the next few days.  It’s not likely I’ll get a booked signed at this convention.

As I joined my wife and was told by Berkeley’s handler that the signing is over, the guy with Peter Beagle comes over and says something to Berkeley. It must have been about me as Berkeley immediately turns back to us asks if I want a book. No fuss, no muss. He happily sat down again and signed a book for us.

This was pretty cool on everybody’s part. So I got the Bloom County and I got to meet Peter Beagle.

The other box was a care package from a fellow sci fi geek friend. My friend, DeeVee, recently attended the National Sports Card show in Baltimore. This was the first big card show he ever attended. We emailed and chatted on the phone before the show as DeeVee tried to set some expectations.

I could tell from his questions, he was as excited as the proverbial kid in the candy store.  I knew he wanted to do it all. This is a very daunting task for an experienced National attendee let alone a rookie.  There are close to a 1000 dealers selling their wares and 40 or 50 people doing signings throughout the weekend.

After hearing his reports, I think he did do it all. Quite impressive. He had an exhausting but wonderful time. He even squeezed in side trips to the Ball Park and local museums.

He even picked up a few extra signatures which I got on this Black Friday.  The package had way more than I ever could expect as a Thank You. It was filled with baseballs and cards and included a program from the show.

So my Christmas has started very early.

AH

PS - I didn't include a link to The Last Unicorn. If you are interested in getting a copy, see the link in the 'back story'.