I had a strange and wonderful time at the San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday. Strange because last year I came as a very shy kid with portfolio in hand, afraid to show the work it contained to anybody there. This year, I actually had some people to meet and things to do besides walking around looking at all the neat artwork being displayed. It reminded me that the Internet can be such a powerful networking tool. Many artists are now online and through the web, they have become familiar with the works of other artists. It's really a phenomenal thing, especially if you're a quiet guy like me, and you HATE self-promoting (but accept it as a part of the way things work).

Unfortunately, I didn't count on the 4 hours of traffic I would hit on my way down to San Diego, so I arrived fairly late and I wasn't able to meet all the people that I wanted to meet while I was down there. However, the people I did meet in that short period of time were absolutely wonderful and helped make this a great trip for my friends and me.

I hope that by next year I will have enough good material to warrant renting out a table, so I can join the good folks down in San Diego for the entirety of the convention and perhaps meet some of the readers.

Here are links to some of the artists I met while I was down there. You might really enjoy their work if you like some of the material here.

Derek Kirk - Small Stories (extra special thanks to Derek for being a super cool host)

Eric Wu - emotioneric.com

Martin Cendreda - Zurik Robot

Scott McCloud - scottmccloud.com

Vera Brosgol - Return to Sender

Jen Wang - Strings of Fate

Clio Chiang - Cascadia

Bill Mudron - Anne Frank Conquers the Moon Nazis

Cayetano Garza - Whimville

Enrico Casarosa - The Adventures of Mia

Ronnie Del Carmen - Paper Biscuit

Celia Calle - celiacalle.com

Gary Ham - superham.com

Jon Foster - jonfoster.com

Steward Lee - Wataah!!!

Michel Gagne - gagneint.com

(We met with a few others, but they don't seem to have websites yet.)

And I really wish I had more time to meet more people and purchase more goods, but I guess I'll just have to wait till next year.

Now, if you're still with me...

You'll notice that this section is still experimental and erratic, but not knowing what to expect is part of the fun here, no?

Of course, Copper will be posted once every month as usual, but between those posts, I figure we can have a little fun on the front page with all sorts of web experiments. Stick with me here and you'll see what I mean...