Shenanigans & Tomfoolery

Drink and Draw is a monthly get-together among artists in the NYC area where people basically gather in a bar, pull out their sketchbooks and drink and (what else?) draw. Last Wednesday was the second time I attended such a meeting (out of the three they’ve had so far) and it was a lot of fun. It’s great for mingling and networking among people with similar interests. But that is, as you may or may not have figured out, not the real reason why I’m writing this.

Read on for the full story.

So I arrive with a few friends to where Drink and Draw was to take place after some delicious halal food. After setting up and with my choice of beer in hand (Heineken) I get to drawing. I find my groove soon enough and draw for what was probably an hour or an hour and a half until some guy walks near my vicinity and starts introducing himself and saying that he’s gonna make an effort to memorize everybody’s name. Now, I didn’t really hear the guy’s name when he introduced himself to me and, after saying my name and a brief exchange about Disney (because, you know, Sebastian von Buchwald, Sebastian from the Little Mermaid, Disney) he was gone.

I got back to drawing and soon forgot about the guy until he showed up about an hour later. I saw him talking to some people (no doubt trying to memorize their names) and casually asked the person next to me:

“Hey, who was that guy anyway?”

“Oh, that’s Kyle Baker,” he replied.

“What?” I said, after picking my jaw off the floor.

I had, unbeknownst to me, talked to Kyle Baker. The guy whose Hawkman strip in Wednesday Comics I rated as second best, right on this very site, no more than two months ago. I wasn’t going to walk up to him now and say: “Hey, forgive me for being an idiot and not knowing you were Kyle Baker. Loved your work in Wednesday Comics.” And I blame the comics medium because, unlike film or television or even books where they have a picture of the author in the jacket, comics will very, very rarely display a picture of their creators. And when they do, it’s only in certain paperbacks and never in monthly books.

But I digress.

So he goes away and I’m later standing next to a friend of mine talking bullshit and freakin’ Kyle Baker shows up again. And there’s no question it’s him now because he’s drawing sketches and inking over some girl’s pencils. I wasn’t going to screw it up again so when he’s nearby I tell him “Hey, man. I loved your work in Wednesday Comics,” and shook his hand. He says something like “Thanks, it was very different,” and walks away for the last time.

Freakin’ Kyle Baker.

Of course, the punchline to the story, as I so explicitly state in the title of this post, is that two days later (or yesterday), I get a friend request on Facebook. It’s worth mentioning at this point that Drink and Draw itself is organized via Facebook so a list of members is available to anyone that wishes to see it. Now, as it usually goes when I get a friend request, I’m wondering who this might be and, while the page loads, my brain goes through a list of all the people I know to ascertain who this person that wants to be my e-friend is so as to, I don’t know, better prepare me for it, I guess. Of course, nothing could’ve prepared me for Kyle Baker’s name.

So what’s the moral of the story?

I’m eagerly anticipating next month’s Drink and Draw.

Related posts:

1. Gundam Cyclops
2. I’m on Facebook.
3. How Dave Chappelle got me a drink.
4. So freakin’ awesome…

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