After being surrounded and inundated by the indie comic paradigm for several hours straight, I had intended to do this as a comic.  But I'm lazy, and the longer I put it off, the less I feel like doing it.  So.  Write-up.

This past Saturday was my second time attending SPX, and my first time going alone.  It's only a Metro ride away, so no biggie, right?  Also I figured I could do the trip from memory.

Well, first off I got off at the wrong station.  (Although the expo is in Bethesda, the Bethesda Metro stop is not the right one.)  Luckily I wasn't alone in this, and after a dude named Ben and I realized that nothing around us looked familiar, we quickly determined that the place was in fact four miles away and we needed to go two stations down.  (Unfortunately this delay caused me to miss the only panel I wanted to see.)  Arriving at the correct destination, things were pretty much as we remembered and we made our way inside.

Here is the thing about SPX: it is packed.  Like, total sensory overload packed.  I happen to be fairly claustrophobic, and so first of all I had steel myself to even enter the room.  Once inside, I had to keep my head down and look only at the tables immediately next to me in order to keep calm.  And even then I had to leave every half hour or so to steady my nerves.

After my first "window shopping" walk-through, where I pretty much determined what I was going to buy, I broke for lunch (which helped considerably, as the place I found happened to be completely empty and I could eat in solitude) and then headed back in.

I go to SPX for the webcomics, and this year it was my pleasure to meet for the first time: John Allison (Scary-Go-Round), Joe Dunn (Joe Loves Crappy Movies), Erika Moen (DAR), John Campbell (Pictures for Sad Children), and the star attraction at the show, Kate Beaton (Hark! A Vagrant).  And I bought books from all of them, as well as from Meredith Gran (Octopus Pie), Chris Yates (Reprographics), and David Malki ! (Wondermark) whom I'd met before.  It was a blast and made the whole trip totally worth it (even standing in line for 15+ minutes to see Kate Beaton--seriously, it was insane).

Also insane and not as worth it was the Metro ride home.  I dunno what exactly was going on--it's not like it was weekday or anything--but the west-bound orange line trains were packed to the brim.  It took me more than two hours to get home, and at least forty minutes of that was spent waiting at the Metro Center transfer.  Only two orange line trains came through in those whole 40 mins, and I couldn't get on the first one.  I mean, I tried, but I choked at the door--literally could not make myself squeeze in there--and people pushed pass me and then the train was full and I stood there alone on the platform cursing myself.  So I waited 20 mins more and told myself no matter what I was getting on the next train.

Well, let's just say it was a nightmare and leave it at that.  Not quite as bad as the one time in the Atlanta Marta six years ago where we were packed in like sardines (or worse) and someone outside got their sleeve stuck in the door, but the door wouldn't open 'cause people were leaning on it from inside, and they couldn't stop leaning on it 'cause we were so packed in, and we stayed like that for nearly 20 mins before they fixed it somehow, and meanwhile I had a full-blown claustrophobic panic attack complete with shaking and hyperventilating....  Not as bad as that, though there was a moment there where the door wouldn't close and I thought for sure it'd be like that all over again and gah! I'm starting to shake just thinking about it.  (Note to self: should probably stop taking the Metro.)

But anyways, the train-ride home notwithstanding, it was a pretty awesome day where I spent far, far too much money.  But at least I got some okay stories out of it.  And a crap-ton of good books.  :D