We traveled to New York last weekend with several agendas. Our primary mission was to hawk our wares at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Arts Festival, but we were even more excited about the prospects of celebrating our friend Christian’s birthday and seeing our friend David on Broadway in Arcadia.

MoCCA was, as usual, a great time, full of the kind of energy that results when the people who make art and enjoy art all get together to celebrate and talk about it.

Each exhibitor is allotted a six-foot table. Here’s ours.

Five years ago, when we attended our first MoCCA, our catalog consisted of eight books, all of which fit neatly on the table. Now there are 35. This means our six-foot span is crowded and chaotic. And incomplete. We’re only about to fit about half of our books these days, and we make a point of putting those with catchy titles (or bells and whistles) up front. The Baby is Disappointing and Ten Thousand Stories always do a lot of heavy lifting at MoCCA.

As is usually the case, it took a while for the crowds to roll in, but once they did, the commerce was lively. Here’s a shot looking out from our booth.

And here’s a glimpse of our booth from the side. As you can see, we are just one of many small presses trying to get the word out.

One of the highlights of this year’s show was meeting Sharon, who we had never met or heard of before, but who knew all about us on account of reading this blog. She was a bit creeped out when she walked up to the booth and saw us moving and talking. In Sharon’s world, we exist only as still images, our actions described by a detached narrative voice. Nevertheless, she consented to pose for this photo, which, thankfully, will render in only two dimensions on her screen. Hi Sharon!

After the show ended on Saturday night, we met up with Christian and Emily and our friend John, to eat Korean food and to celebrate Christian’s birthday. I would like to show you photos of every delicious dish we ate, but I can’t because I was too busy eating them to take photos. For whatever reason, I did snap this shot of Robbi’s entree.

After dinner we walked to the theater by way of Times Square, a place with which I have a paradoxical relationship. In general, I do not seek out crowds, noise, or spectacle. I would almost always rather be located in open, quiet spaces. But there is something about Times Square that delights me in spite of all the ways it fails to harmonize with my sensibilities. The lights and the spectacle push the place beyond mere awful into a place approaching the sublime.

How can you not take photos of Times Square?

Here I am with the birthday boy.

The theater was just a few blocks off of Times Square. Still inspired by the hubbub, I took a picture of the marquee.

And Robbi took a picture of me taking a picture of the marquee. Such is the dizzying impact of Times Square on us small town hayseeds.

For those of you who know David, perhaps you’ll share my excitement at seeing his picture in the cast photos posted outside.

The show actually was sublime (as opposed to over-the-top Times Square sublime). Arcadia is an amazing script to begin with, but the cast was also excellent, managing to keep me interested and invested throughout the three hour journey. Like any Stoppard play, the dialogue is rich with ideas, often hilarious, and sometimes wrenching. It’s a play about yearning and being and striving to understand. If you have a chance to see it, I give my two thumbs up. It was a thrilling piece of theater.

It was also a good excuse to see my best friends.

All in all, it was a successful trip to New York. As you probably noticed, the children were not invited. Apparently they had a good weekend here with the cats and Iggy. Apparently, in a fit of boredom, Alden taught Iggy how to ride her tricycle. We ought to go out of town more often.