“Kraken,” by Mark Englert (gatefold of graphic novel “Bad Karma”)

My last few months have been a clinic on sleep deprivation.

Not in the “I sure could use a nap” kind of way… more of an “I’m starting to see things that aren’t there” kind of way, and I’m not kidding about that. I felt my limits creeping up on me all summer, but saw no choice but to keep plodding forward. All I could do was try to postpone the moment when those limits caught up with me, and hope the inevitable takedown wouldn’t be too humiliating.

Last week, that moment got uncomfortably close. Dozens of tasks came up at once, and were made more urgent by the fact that the upcoming weekend was Baltimore Comic-Con, where I see friends and colleagues (and hopefully future colleagues) I see only a few times a year at best. My ticket was long-since bought and printed, people were expecting me and I had important things I needed to do there. But I simply didn’t have the hours or the energy to devote to one more single thing.

Despite all that, skipping the convention wasn’t really an option. So I went.

w/ the animated X-Men

Baltimore’s always a good convention, but by lunchtime I was starting to think I should have stayed away. Exhaustion had washed out all the color in the room, and turned my gravity dial way, way up. Everything looked more ordinary than in past years, and navigating the crowd felt like a hassle. On the show floor, some retailer I’d never met actually said, “You okay, bro? You look kinda run-down.” That’s not something you want to hear while trying to network. Then and there, I nearly convinced myself to do Baltimore a favor, get out of there, drink some fluids, eat some greens and take a 36-hour nap.

Paul Harding, Matt Waite, Ron The-Man Marz, me, Tom Raney, Cully Hamner

But I stayed. I trolled Artist Alley (the part of the convention floor where artists draw commissions, sign and sell their books), attended a panel by a favorite author, shot the breeze with some old friends, made some new ones, bought some books. The longer I stayed, the happier I was that I had. As I always do at conventions, I met a ton of creative people who are doing amazing things, and as I always do afterwards, I feel re-energized. Best to sculptor Paul Harding, artists Tom Raney, Cully Hamner, Matt Waite and Rich Clark, and writers Mike White and Lela Gwenn. (I also met the legendary Jim Starlin, whose story about drawing comics in-between getting shot at in Vietnam was the perfect lesson in Suck-It-Up-edness.)

with writer Amy Chu

Here’s a feel-good anecdote to end on, which illustrates how awesome creative professionals can be: Amy Chu, a friend and writer I met at HeroesCon in Charlotte, came to Baltimore Comic-Con with her 5-year-old son. On Sunday, he became her 6-year-old son. For his birthday, Amy gave him a scavenger hunt. To win, he had to explore Artist Alley, visit all the artists on the list and get them all to draw their own rendition of the number “6” in his sketchbook. When he collected all the drawings on the list, he unlocked his second birthday present: the Lego Star Wars Rancor Pit (stackable with Lego Star Wars Jabba’s Palace).

That is some seriously good parenting.