Morning ➛

Woke up to 4 dudes in my hotel room. Lots of tooth-brushing in underwear. Instagramming. Head to a tiny, hot little cafe for breakfast with the Ghost Cave boys (a semi-affiliated division of Mishka NYC). They’ll be doing a signing later in the day that will probably see about 300 folks in line waiting to buy something from them…it’ll be bedlam. Come back to the hotel room and take a shower. Feels good. I use soap. Start walking down to Comic Con. Stop into the Super Junior and buy an 18 pack of High Life (my beer of choice). Get a call from my wife…she wants me to call my sister who is in the hospital and has been for about 20 hours. She’s on a petocin drip and waiting for my baby niece to be born. I call her as I’m walking down to Con. Cry a little bit. Pull it together.

Noon ➛

My shift starts at Brian Ewing’s booth. In between selling posters and t-shirts, I accost anybody wearing a costume for photos with me. I play a side-game where I see a) how close I can get my open mouth to their face and b) how many shots I can get with either a beer or a burrito in-frame. Interest in our resin-master prototype for the vinyl toy that Brian and I will be producing in the fall is on the rise. Several toy-nerd people just ‘happen’ to float by the booth and check it out. My wife calls me and puts my 18-month-old son on the phone…it’s the highlight of my day so far. More beer. Did I mention that I started drinking at 12?

Night ➛

Con is closing. We’re pretty drunk. We have to jog into the Gaslamp to make an event for Lulubell Toys. Our prototype is here as well and certain folks in the toy press go bananas. I hook up with my friend Buff Monster and while talking to him (about Israeli Garbage Pail Kids), I get a text that my niece—Wendy Rose—has been born…healthy and beautiful. Against my better judgment, I follow some friends to another party that’s several blocks away. After walking for 20 minutes, I bail and head back to the hotel where my toy buds are waiting in the lobby surfing wifi. They didn’t grab data plans when coming out from Tokyo. We stay up talking toys. It’s gossip-town. More super-creative ways to describe using one’s mouth on another one’s genitals are spun in one hour than ever else in the world. It was a good day. My wife lets me be at Comic Con and act the fool. My son is beautiful and smart. I have a brand-new niece. I’m making a toy with an amazing and talented friend I met 10 years ago by leaving a comment on a Paypal payment. I haven’t had a piece of candy since the first of the year, and I’m coming around to being fine with that.