About two weeks ago I found out about this kind of random comic signing event that got rescheduled from late last year to early 2020. I don't get up to the 'Couv that often, but I made the trek up to I Like Comics last week to get free tickets for this event, not really thinking too much of it and assuming that maybe a couple hundred people might get tickets and that many of them would just not show.

Well, I picked Elijah up rather early this morning. We did a scouting mission a little after 9am to see if there was a line yet and how long it might be. The event wasn't planned to start until 11am, and the store employees suggested arriving at least an hour before that to ensure a spot in line (even tho we had free tickets?). The setup was a little strange, but we saw maybe 5 or 10 people waiting outside shortly after 9am. The line was short, so we decided to grab a quick breakfast before heading back to begin the suffering. We returned maybe around 9:30 and secured a place in line (ordered by our ticket numbers, but mostly really just the honor system). What we hadn't realized on our earlier scouting mission, though, was that there were hundreds of other people already snaking around the inside of the shop!

So then we waited in line.

For a very long time.

The Image crew showed up around 10am, and we made it inside right after that and began feeling some sympathy for those nerds who were stuck waiting outside for hours. The mood was light, though, and people were friendly and happy to show off the books and items they brought for signing.

It was definitely after 1pm when we finally got to the front of the line and got to meet some comic legends and get our books signed!

In addition to the pretty sweet free poster they were signing for everybody, I brought Outcast #1 for Kirkman to sign, a gorgeous X-Men #251 cover for Silvestri to sign, and the Amazing Spider Man #316 for McFarlane to sign. Outcast is only a year or two old, but the other two are 30+ years old from my high-school collection. McFarlane remarked that the Amazing Spider Man I brought was in really good condition, and Silvestri explained that he had never seen his original art for that X-Men cover again after submitting it.

According to some news sources, the event was much bigger than anticipated and drew upwards of 900 people!