SPX 2005 The Conclusion

As Saturday wound down most everyone in our group were ready to call it a day and get something to eat. (especially Chris and Melissa. Saturday was Melissa's birthday and Chris was taking her to a special, secret, hideaway for dinner. Nudge-nudge.) Because the Ignatz Awards (which none of us were planning on attending) were being held in our room, at 6:50, the powers that be did their best to shoo us the hell out of there!

Since the elevators at this place are incredibly slow and the mass of humanity would be stampeding towards them, we decided to grab as much of our stuff and climb the stairway. As we trudged up the 8 flights I could hear the huffing and gasping behind me. Yes, artists, cartoonists especially, are in general not a hale & healthy lot.

Another delicious dinner awaited us this night. We walked down the street to the Mongolian Grill. An Asian restaurant that allows you to choose anything to mix in with your rice (veggies, meats, seafood, sauces, etc...) and they cook it right there.
Yes, the food tasted good, but what made it great were these simple words:
All You Can Eat!

Me, since I had no lunch that day, I took three trips.

As we ate I noticed a somewhat disturbing (to me anyway) aspect about the glowing neon sign on the front window. The Mongolian Grill's logo looks somewhat like...well, an inverted penis. As we all discussed this, the birth of the character Balls McGillis occurred.
I won't go into details, it was one of those "had to be there" instances.



Much like the night before, the rest of the evening consisted of more drinking, bull shitting and half-hearted mingling. Around 1:00 AM I figured it would be time to head up to the room as the talk became crankier and angrier (about the state of the comic industry) and I'd heard one too many cries of "Werewolf vs. Unicorn-Get it On!"

Sunday morning (wow, I got up at 8:00 and got in a 3 mile run in today. Gotta work off all that beer) we headed down to The Pancake House for a huge breakfast! Omelets the size of hub caps and my pancakes dripping in chocolate and whipped cream. (and Jamar actually got what he ordered this morning. No discrimination here!)

I guess we could have hung around and checked out a few of the panels and go to the softball game/cook out, but we'd had enough. It was back in the rental and a drive back to Philadelphia.

I'm not sure what the future holds for SPX. Overall the show seemed somewhat laid back to me, not the usual high energy that I'd seen in the past. Also, the Holiday Inn has just changed owners so whether they continue their association with the show is up in the air. There's always been rumors that SPX would combine with the Baltimore Con (held a week earlier). I'd never liked that idea, but after this years' show, perhaps a change is needed.