Comicsgirl

This will be a quick and incoherent post (if you’d like to read my slightly more coherent thoughts, they’re here) but it was a Good Time so I felt the need to post again about it here.

Yeah, there were the usual suspects, but there were also a lot of newbies. And I mean that in the best possible way. Look, I love (just about) everyone that makes comics but the more you go to cons and shows and such, the more you see the same people over and over again.

A lot of the women at this were young (like I probably have a decade on many of them) and that’s awesome (I will probably be using that word too many times here). I love that many of them came to this by themselves because they thought it sounded like a neat thing. And while there were some “names” there (and I mean that with respect — to me, some of the women there are famous), everyone felt like equals. We were there because we loved comics and we wanted to meet other people who loved comics.

I know some men have kind of grumbled (even if it’s mostly jokingly) about how it’s sexist and exclusionary. And maybe some of them sort of have a point (but I’d also like to point out that men who make comics have no shortage of opportunities to hang out with each other), but this didn’t feel like anyone was being left out. It felt very welcoming and very friendly.

I’ve been reading comics a long time (almost longer than I think some of the attendees tonight have been alive — no, I’m not kidding) and there was a time I figured that such a thing like Drink & Draw Like a Lady could never exist. It’s a powerful and wonderful thing and I’d love to see the concept take off even more (I know there will be one before Stumptown this year). It’s really that good.

(And now, I am crashing. I spent six hours on a bus — when it should’ve been about four and a half hours — in front of a group of guys going to a bachelor party in New York, and oh, from their conversation, it showed. Tomorrow will be a long day at MoCCA and running around the city so I need my sleep.)

I know plenty of people in the area make fun of tourists’ desire to go look at some flowering trees, but it’s nearly cherry blossom season, which is one of my favorite periods of the year. And that means the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

This weekend is the kickoff (yes, I realize that’s not quite April) — and the Family Day is always entertaining and cute.

The next weekend is the Freer’s annual anime marathon. They only have three movies this year, one of which I’ve seen, but I’ll still get up early, head into the city and get in line to see Chocolate Underground. Also that day is Silver Spring’s Big Cherry Block Party, which will be my substitute for the next weekend’s Sakura Matsuri, which I’m missing because …

That’s also the weekend of MoCCA Festival, with Drink & Draw Like a Lady that Friday. I’m still finalizing my travel plans, but I will try to be there Friday night for that. (And there’s also the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA and Japan Society’s j-CATION – A Taste of Japan event with a show by Asobi Sesku if I thoroughly want to exhaust myself that weekend).

The next weekend I’m going to go see my mom for some downtime and to go to Richmond Craft Mafia’s Spring Bada-Bing.

Then, wrapping up the month is the final weekend of Festival Imagé at MICA. This is tentative because it depends on how dead I feel once the month is over.

Also occurring in April are two events I won’t (or can’t) be going to: Wondercon and Stumptown. One of these years, I swear, I’m going to make it to Stumptown. MoCCA shifting to April prevented me from going this year.

Thus far, May is wide open. And I’m thinking that’s good because I’m likely going to want to sleep through the entire thing.