What a day! So many NYCC’s & this is the first time it occurred to me to c’mon down & pick-up my badges early! 🙄 So here I am at the Javits right before closing, the day before the day before the Con even opens ... & look who’s the first person I see. One of my best buds, Brittany! Who helped get me instantly squared away, bless her! So after getting properly badged up, I decided to go strolling. Main-floor, main hall, down the non-functional escalators to Artists Alley where I found my table at the *front* of the room this year (J-01, to be precise, right across from Jimmy & Amanda! 🤫 That’s Palmiotti & Conner to the rest of y’all.) pretty impressive view, albeit a tad empty at the moment. Made my way out the way I came in, to discover folks collecting their badges — ‘folks’ being defined as a line starting to go ‘round the block, which on 11th Ave is saying quite a lot! 🤞 that’s a + omen for the weekend. Punchline, of course, is I’m walking down 35th street, heading for the ‘A’ train when a voice asks, yup, ‘are you Chris Claremont?’ Turns out Makeda & I have met before, many years ago and had a great chat about ‘Ro + Remy, with a tad of Forge tossed in on the side. Talk about positive vibes. Kind’a like what we all — + ComiCon itself — need right about now. Good moment & good talk from a surprise moment of positive interaction! Let’s hope this truly is a portent of days to come. Right now, it’s working for me. Which means, looking forward to Thursday morning, just to see if all the boxes got tidied up? 🤔 Hope to see you all there. To sign, to chat, to have a great time! As the Man himself was wont to say: ‘Excelsior!’