San Diego travel plans, and elsewhere...

[Don Rosa]

Yes, I'll be in San Diego, as always, and as always never in any certain
spot as my mission at that one convention is as a private collector
cruising for old comic books. In fact, even if there is a "ML Breakfast", I
would not be there as I use my privileges to gain entry to the
dealers-pavilion when it opens to the dealers. The only place I *know* I
can be found is at the annual American Association of Comicbook Collectors
banquet -- this year, especially, since we celebrate the 50th anniversary
of EC Comics, the best comics of all time! There will be nearly all the
living EC writers and artists in attendance (I won't try to list them all),
as well as many special gifts for attendees... and an art auction to help
pay for the whole deal. There will be lots of great stuff in the auction
done by the EC artists, both 45-50 years ago and just recently for the
banquet. And there will be other art from EC-fan "youngster" artists like
me to add to the fund. I contributed four large fake-covers based on the
premise of "What if EC Comics had the Disney license instead of Dell?"...
my covers include WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND SUSPENSTORIES, TALES FROM THE
BIN, WEIRD INVENTIONS and WEB-FOOTED TALES. The EC fans among you will be
able to guess what each is a combination/parody of, and if you're not EC
fans it wouldn't be funny to you anyway, so no need to explain more. I
imagine images of these covers will pop up somewhere on the Internet
afterwards, so you'll see them eventually.
Aside from SD, I guess that's my queue to announce where else I will be
found
for the foreseeable future. I often forget that some people want to know
that, and when I nearly failed to mention my trip to the Donald Duck Museum
in Pennsylvania, I nearly muffed a chance to see some very special ML
members who then drove many miles to meet me. So...

On August 16-20 I will be at the VIÑETAS DESDE O ATLÁNTICO Comic Con, whose
3rd edition will be held in the city of A Coruña. This is on the NW coast
of Spain.

On September 7-10 I'll be back in Helsinki making another bookstore tour --
the subject of this visit will be their year-2001 AKU ANKKA 50th
Anniversary Calendar which will feature 12 of my pin-ups that have appeared
in PICSOU, perhaps in a slightly different version of each, along with
texts I've written for each one. (By the way, yesterday I drew a special
cover for AKU ANKKA's use of my "The Three Caballeros Ride Again" in issue
#40-42/2000, same weeks as in the Egmont editions... and today I'm writing
them a text about the "making of" the story.)

Okay, then in October I go on another German tour, appearing at the book
sections of their biggest (so I hear) department store chain known as (if I
spell it right) Karstadt. The tour will be Oct. 16-24, perhaps longer. The
preliminary list of appearances is as follows:
16th - Essen or Darmstadt
17th - Giessen
18th - Berlin (2 stores)
19th - Berlin (1 more store! Big city!)
20th - Hamburg (2 stores)
21st - Hamburg (1 more store! Lotsa Hamburgers!)
22nd - Frankfurt (at a store and at the world's biggest book fair that will
be taking place that weekend! Always wanted to see that sucker! (Even
though I won't be able to read a word in the hall!)
23rd - Darmstadt or Essen (wherever I wasn't on the 16th)
24th - Stuttgart
25th - maybe some comic stores or such in the next few days, depending on
what we work out.

In November I'll be at the Mid-Ohio Con In Columbus on the 24-26th.

Other than that, my schedule tells me I'll be at the dentist on September
15 (no autographs, please... I might be numb) and in December I hope to be
sleeping in a tent on a mountain somewhere in New Mexico or old Mexico
(free sketches if you can find me -- you bring the pencil and paper and
extra water).

And there you have it -- and more of it than you wanted.