Today in DC

I'm here in DC for the Small Press Expo. Yesterday I was in a chinese restaurant on capitol hill with Jen Sorensen, Keith Knight, and Warren Bernard when the bailout bill went through. On the Washington Post this morning there's a picture of Henry Paulson looking batshit crazy. Like he just won the $700 billion lottery.

Actually SPX is in suburban Maryland. The Marriott here is like a European cathedral, it's been under construction for years with no apparent end in sight. It's surrounded by an enormous parking lot and you can see a McDonalds and a few strip malls off in the distance. If you've ever had an event at a hotel convention center where you had to look at the bills you can imagine what this poor comics convention has to pay for the banquet rooms and last night's reception. The milky tub of spinach dip and pita bread probably cost them five grand. It was bad because there were a lot of starving young cartoonists there who could've used a free meal.

I got to meet one of my heroes yesterday, the dutch cartoonist, Joost Swarte. In addition to finding him to be a warm, charming guy, I was happy to see that there is one person here who is older than me, even if he's not as paunchy and moth-eaten as I am. Goddamn Europeans with their wine youth!

Uh-oh, I'd better head down to the great hall.