David Hahn goes North On Sunday, Oct 5th, I was a guest at the Calgary Comic and Toy Expo in calgary, Canada. My host was show owner Stephen Fuller, and it was a great weekend. Upon landing in Calgary, I discovered that Air Canada had ‘lost’ one of my bags, but delivered it to me at the hotel around midnight. In the mean time, they gave me a complimentary overnight kit that had a razor, shaving cream, soap, toothbrush, comb, deodorant, and an extra large white cotton t-shirt (!), all in this neat little blue nylon bag that said “Air Canada” on it. AND they also gave me a voucher for up to $50 dollars to purchase ANYTHING I might need (except food and alcohol). I send them the receipts and they reimburse me for the expenses. So, basically, I can get $50 worth of free stuff.

Speaking of stuff, I was stuffed with sushi and booze the first night. The next day Stephen, I had the option to go to Banff, an outdoor…place that had mountains and trees, OR go to the world renowned Royal Tyrell Museum to see dinosaur fossils and complete skeletons of T. Rex, Albertasaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and more. Needless to say, I chose the latter. I was shocked to learn that when my pal Jeff Parker was here last year as a guest, he chose to go to Banff. I don’t get you sometimes, Jeff. The museum was better than Disneyland and the gift shop was championship. I bought many dinosaur models and toys for my collection. Thanks, Air Canada!

Later that day we went to the airport to pickup Young Justice artist Todd Nauck. We were in the mood for beef, so Stephen took us out to dinner at a place called Jack Astors, whose logo is exactly what you would think, a donkey. Our chesty waitress, Jocelyn, was friendly, but seem harried, worried and distracted. Every time food or drinks were brought to our table, it was by a different waitress, so we had about 5 people who served us. The food was good though, and the corn on the cob was especially tasty.

The following morning was the show and it was quite steady and busy for a small show. I spent most of the day doing sketches and sold many pages of original Fantastic Four art and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane art. People are so polite in Canada, though, throughout the trip, there seemed to be an inordinate number of screaming (and I mean SCREAMING) kids almost everywhere we went. Screaming like these kids were being stabbed with knives or something. The show also featured a costume contest in which first place was a beautiful pencilled pin up of Spider-Man by Todd Nauck, and second place was $100. I did some shopping when it slowed down a bit and bolstered my infantilism by buying some sweet Alien and Predator toys.

After the show, Stephen took Cary Nord, Cary’s girlfriend Kate, Todd, and I to a place called The Big T’s Country BBQ. There, we had BBQ meat, followed by more BBQ meat, a side of meat and beans, cornbread, meat, BBQ sauce with a serving of meat under it, beer, and some meat to round it all off. It was great. All this red meat would make Jeff Parker cry and force Matthew Clark to go right to the airport leave the province.

I am now in my hotel room trying to figure out how to pack my bags with all this extra stuff.

The end.