C2E2 ended with a bang, or rather a series of bangs this year. A string of thunderstorms ran up the midwestern states all evening and into the night. Thankfully we made it back to our hotel without getting soaked.

C2E2 ran from Friday morning through Sunday evening. Friday’s programming included sessions for professionals–in particular teachers and librarians. Neal saw Josh Elder, chair of Reading With Pictures, and Stephanie Noell, aspiring librarian extraordinaire, discuss comics in classrooms and the library. Their devilish plan is to use comics as a gateway to get reluctant readers hooked on the written word, with and without pictures. The Reading With Pictures crew has also launched a Kickstarter campaign to publish a graphic textbook.

We had a chance to catch up with some old friends and also to meet many new people and to introduce them to the joys that are PostScript. Others were new faces, including Elliot who hopes to become a certified base jumper. Next door we had Matthew Hansel, creator of Marty and Spud, a great comic that channels Calvin and Hobbes and classic 1930s cartoon humour.

Caption Contest

The winner of our C2E2 Caption Contest is Laura M., who helped create the punchline for the comic below:

We had many great entrants in the contest, and while we cannot list them all here, we would be remiss to exclude an honourable mention for Charles Wilson who wrote the capton: “I think we used too much miracle grow.”

Our C2E2 Lessons:

1. You can’t start ’em too young. We saw a three-week-old Wonder Woman. Or should we say Wonder Baby?

2. Anything can be steampunked. Even wheelchairs.

3. A Chicago cab trip can be more fun than a midway ride.

4. You can make any object, including most body parts, with a piece of origami paper. Just ask Lar deSouza.

5. Never pay someone to do something that you can do yourself. Our merchandise never arrived at the convention after a certain courier company misplaced it. Luckily we brought some backup merch.

6. Chicago is a city that never sleeps. It is not uncommon for a Chicago bar to stay open until 5:00am. If, however, it is 8:30 and you are in the quiet end of town, everything is closed by 9:00pm no matter how much you want to find dinner.

7. Finally, lock up you droids!

Next stop, Calgary!