BLOG: The Last Comic Con: The Sqweekwal

Hello friends, welcome back. Time to recap the last day of my last comic con appearance I intend to have in my lifetime. I say it that way cause one never can say never. Cause what if suddenly say, a copy of STARSLAM gets bought by the right person in Hollywood and they cannot get Ai to write a rip off screenplay for it. They would have to talk to yours truly, and of course boobs sell tickets. (As Thomas Jane said once on our podcast years ago: “You need three things for a movie to be successful. Tits. Explosions. And tits.”) And so STARSLAM: THE MOTION PICTURE gets made, wins Oscars, spawns sequels, a toyline and trapper keeper covers… damn skippy I’m going to cash that check and they will need to drag my fat ass out of mothballs to hit the con circuit to promote.

Of course the chances of that happening are highly improbable, so thus remains my resolve to stay in retirement. Even as I told people I knew at the show they didn’t believe it, but gave a collective: “I get it.” Cause they feel the exact same way I do. But luckily for them most of them are far more successful at it. I wasn’t able to go all in on a creative field. I needed that stable, safe and consistent check coming in to feed my family. (When I did two years of freelance, I was always chasing down my checks. Calling, emailing, writing… threatening to warn other artists that their company doesn’t pay, whereupon suddenly I would get a nice chunk of change in my paypal. I may be a people pleasing pushover at times, but when I am owed money for a service I did, I am on you like a vampire bat. But yes, all that gets exhausting.)

There are things I certainly will miss. But in honesty, I already miss them because they have been vacant for a long time. I took my youngest son to the show this morning and as we were walking around when we arrived, he took it all in and said, “It’s weird, for a comic convention there aren’t a lot of comic books here.” Oh, out of the mouth of babes! And he is right. The game has changed. It was already changing when I started doing them in 2002.

My first comic convention as a fan was in 1995 when I was seventeen years old. I went with the students of Central Michigan University group who published my first comics in the school comics anthology. It was me, Roger, Brian (later Allison) and Craig. We all piled into Craig’s car and headed to Novi, Michigan for the show. I remember standing in line outside for what seemed like hours. When we finally got inside I was dragging my jaw on the floor for the first hour or two. There were rows and rows of comics and toys and so many people who got stuffed into lockers too for saying they like comic books. (Que Rush: Subdivisions.) This was so early in the days where they even let bootleg VHS tape dealers buy booths (This was before the famous RIAA raid at Motor City Con. Details of the event on this screenshot from the report PDF)

Although don’t tell them that I bought VHS copies of The Star Wars Holiday Special and the Roger Corman Fantastic Four movie at the show. (This was before the days of youtube, natch.) I never even knew a Star Wars Holiday Special existed until that day! I had to have it! But I think I only watched it once. Once is quite satisfactory, believe me.

At the show I met William Messner-Loebs, writer on The Maxx which I was a big fan of. He even showed a couple episodes of the upcoming MTV cartoon there. I also met a man names Aaron Warner who changed my life. More on that another time. But everywhere you looked, comics. All of artist alley were comics creators, writers and artists. It was such an eye opening experience to see so many others with my same desire actually making it happen. That day left a huge impression on me, so much so that I continued publishing with the comic group, printed my own first three solo comics in my vocational education graphic design class and then went on to publish what became PLEASANT LIFE.

In 2002, I finally had the chance to start exhibiting on my own and even then it was a bit different from what I saw in 1995. There were more celebrities and way more toy booths. The focus mostly was on Star Wars cause the prequels were happening at that time and everyone collected the toys, me included. I honestly don’t remember there being a lot of cosplayers at the shows in those days. And through the years, it has evolved into what it is now. Autographs went from $20, free photo at the table to $60-200, $50 selfie at the table or $120 professional cattle call photo session. Door prices to get in went from $5 to $50. But that is the shaking his fist at the sky, old man in me talking, cause I remember when candy bars used to be $.45.

Nowadays the hustle is king. You gotta do the shows, have all the socials, constantly making something new, be on video, have a podcast, on and on. For me, the enjoyment was the creating the thing, getting better as you kept going. I plodded to write stories from a place of honesty and idiomatic heart. Meanwhile the shows became more about celebrating fandoms of all types and hey, that’s okay. Nerds rule the world now. One no longer has to feel as detached and subdivided in the mass production zone. So it’s with this I chose to pivot and try lots of other things I’m interested in. Like writing books and songs, painting and traveling. And hey, maybe have time to finally put together some of these damn Trek model kits that keep piling up. I mean, I bought an airbrush gun last year, I should eventually use it... right?

So my son got to watch me do my thing for the one and only time. It was actually pretty decent for a Sunday. Regular con goers know that Saturday is the big tuna. Fridays and Sundays have a two hour window where it has a pulse, but then you are left bored, walking around to chat with fellow artists in the alley. I stayed busy most of the day, even right up to show close. James would get bored sometimes and would head out to see if he could find video games among the dealers. He was a bit successful, finding copies of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto 4 complete in box for cheap. I gave him some scratch I had earned from the day before, so that he could have a good time on me. But most of the time we just sat and talked. It was a great day of connection and I think he enjoyed it too.

He was quite the helper, even selling some prints and cards while I hit the bathroom. We both ate con pizza, which made me ill (Just to complete the whole con experience, you know). But that helps with the long fasting I needed to start today to stay on track. But when the clock struck five we dismantled in record time and was in our car in eighteen minutes! I took in the moment finally and said, “Huh… my last show.”

“Do you feel sad or do you feel weird or anything?” Said James.

“No not really. I feel tired,” I replied.

Only thing I picked up at the show were a couple comics: Twilight X #5 and 3 Geeks #7 and two Star Trek novels I never knew existed.

I’ve had lots of time to reflect and I cannot type all that I have learned and done over the con years here in one blog. The main thing I want to say this this: The best thing to come out of all my hard work and being an old road dog trying to sell his dreams to the world is the people I met along the way. Not just fans, which I do surprisingly have all over the world, but friends. And even the fans became friends too. My buddy Chad was at the show this weekend. We shared table and hotel at Mid Ohio Con way back in the mid 2000’s. As a gift, he handed me the second book to his series, and I exchanged with him some copies of PLEASANT LIFE #2 and #3. I insisted he sign the inside as I always want all my books signed. He wrote this:

And yeah, it was fun.

I have been so blessed and honored to know so many great people these few years doing this whole thing. I intend to stay in touch and come to visit as a fan once in a while. And its not like I am going away. I will be right here and on socials. To know when I got a new book out, check here. To know if I actually do hit a small press or zine fest, check here. You no longer have to hunt me down now. After all, now in 2026, the internet is the world’s biggest con table. And I don’t intend to retire from that until the universe makes me!

Onward! -T

PLUGS: —————

Get Chad’s Karen Sunchaser and other books here: AMAZON LINK

Get my books digitally here: DT COMICS (You must make a login there to see ALL my books, like the NSFW stuff)