Armed with business cards, sketchbook, a snazzy PowerPoint, a pristine new copy of EVAA to autograph for a raffle winner, and our most charming smiles, we readied ourselves:
(By the way, EVAA [pronounced just like Wall-E pronounces his friend's name] is the snazzy new nickname for the series. I asked Jenny to deliver, and she delivered. So now you can show everyone what a hip insider you are by referring to the series thusly.)
Kids, teenagers, and their parents stopped by over the next few hours. The anniversary celebration wasn't quite as well-attended as we were hoping, but everybody who visited our table seemed very interested and enthusiastic.
One precocious young fellow flipped though the first few pages of the book, which are entirely devoid of speech bubbles, and said to Jenny, "Well, you didn't write very much, didja?" He said lots of other quotable things, too, but that was our favorite.
At the end of the day, we raffled off a copy, signed it, and I added a little doodle of Emmeline looking irritable and wearing her little feathered hat from the first half of Chapter 1. The winner wasn't around to accept the book in person, but I hope she enjoys it when she receives it!
Quite a few people took business cards, which hopefully means that my lovely new blog layout will have new eyes feasting on it soon. Oh, and maybe they'll also read the entries! This is terribly exciting.
One of the most common questions we got was "When is Chapter 2 coming out???" (Complete with all those desperate question marks, I think.) The answer is: Spring 2011.... tentatively. That will be my last semester of college, so I may be justifiably distracted. However, I am as eager to see Chapter 2 in print as all of you, so I'll do my best. It was really gratifying to know that people are excited and impatient. It's motivating in a way that grades and credits and academic deadlines just can't be. It puts the pressure on, in a good way!