France Part 1

Ok, so gradually adjusting back. The jetlag always gets me on the trip home, Whenever going to any place. No idea why. Always feels like I'm hit by a mack truck and need a few days to get back to full consciousness ( or what passes it for me, as I rarely come out of my rather dazed semi-coherent Australian state of mind. )

France was a lot of fun. At first I hadn't wanted to go, since I'd only been home 5 days or so out of the last 5 weeks, and my buddies had all unfortunately pulled out of the show at the last minute...but in the end, I had a blast and the people over there were some of the nicest, warmest people I've ever met.

Here's a brief rundown of what I got up to then.

After 15 hours in the air on a flight from Singapore ( after a 5 hour flight from Perth already ) they put us on the tarmac in Paris and then bussed us in to the terminal. It was 0 degrees. Nice. Bit of a rude shock for a bloke who'd been in asia and 38 degrees in Australian summer previously.



After being picked up, it was off to Valenciennes, for the convention. Was kinda small, but very pretty place indeed. It's in the north, closer to Brussels than Paris really.



The convention was smallish, but alas with the transport strikes smaller than it really should have been. ( This was before it was open to the public though...it wasn't that small. I must've done about 50 full sketches for people while there for a steady stream of people at the table.



One thing they did that I definitely want to start a tradition with in the US is begin the con with a few bottles of Champaign. Yeah...I think all us pros could get used to that. San Diego, Preview Night. Sound good everyone? I have to try and organize something for peeps I know as I should be living downtown by next year...

Anyways, Valenciennes! L to R, some idiot ( me ), the awesome Jim Mahfood, the equally dapper Brian Haberlin, one of our French handlers and all around nice guy David, and finally, the super nice James Turner, illustrator and sometime comic artist with SLG, from Canada.


They put us up in a casino! I can't complain. I don't gamble. Just didn't expect it for a small town in France. Huge thanks to Franck and David, for the con, the drive up there and the general good time we all had. And Jim, his photographer buddy Jeff, Brian and James were also great company.



Next Templesmith was off to Caen...