15 hours of non-stop FCBD action!

I met up with some friends to check out the FCBD happenings at the Happy Harbor Comics locations in Edmonton, AB, Canada. All four stores were giving away sketches with a donation to Edmonton’s Food Bank. When I first arrived at the downtown location, I ran into Force in the Flesh author and Star Wars mega-fan Shane Turgeon. I headed to the back of the store where several artists were drawing sketches for people including indy creators Bob Prodor, Brian Guay and Richard Barkman.  Gail Simone was also appearing at this location, however she was not at the store until later in the day. Probably the coolest offer Happy Harbor had was three comics made by local creators that decided to get into the spirit and print their own FCBD ashcans to give away, including Weighless (by Jay Bardyla, Daniel Schneider, and David Woloschuck), Utility Belt (by Brad Glenn) and Libro Libre (by various).

We then went to the northside location where local artists Jeff Martin, Daniel Schneider, and Melanie Harvey were sketching away with A Monk’s Tale creator Laurie B . and comic great Ty Templeton. We spent a long time there before heading off to the southside locations where Trevor Sieben was sketching away.

With only an hour left before store closing, we rushed over to Happy Harbor Vol. 3. We unfortunately missed the women of the E-Ville Roller Derby League , all dressed in superheroine or supervillain costumes for live street battles. Inside, Queen & Country and Emiko Superstar artist Steve Rolston with rising artist Fiona Staples (Authority, Spider-Woman) were joined by Nick Johnson, Chris Peterson & Steve Gervais.

We headed back to the downtown location where Happy Harbor was celebrating their 10th anniversary. Ed the Sock and Liana K. recorded an episode of The Night Party interviewing all of the creators invited out for FCBD. This was followed by a fabulous party with live music, hard partying and good times until I crashed at 3am.