This last weekend, the Ministry of Art & Design forayed into the wilds of Tennessee to visit the Con Nooga 2008 show. It was very nice to meet some of you who have read the comic produced by MAD, and an even greater delight to meet new people and introduce them to the Monday Night Crew webcomic. I would like to give out a special thanks to the Con Nooga Artist Alley security team:



An Elite Bunch: Picture of the Con Nooga Security Team

They fearlessly gave of themselves to protect our stuff from rabid loonies, but also made time to keep the entire design staff of the Ministry of Art & Design in line and, at certain dull moments, entertained.

- MAD

After a long and grueling drive, MAD and I finally arrived home late Sunday night after spending the weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We had a table in the Artist Alley at the first ever Con Nooga event being held at the "almost-nearly-world-famous Chattanooga Choo-Choo."

We arrived on Friday and had to hurry to get our table set up in time, as we were running a little behind schedule. After we got everything set up, we sat back and got to know our surrounding neighbors a little better. Be sure to check out the links to some of their sites at the end of my little update here, you will not be disappointed.

This was my first ever con that I’ve visited that was focused more on comics and anime. I’ve been to PAX, but this was a whole different type of monster. I’ll start off by saying that this con was small, but had a very personable quality. It was their first shot at getting a con started in Chattanooga, so the turnout wasn’t as it could have been. With more time to prepare and coordinate, I’m sure that future cons in Chattanooga will be successful.

The artist alley section was made up of about twelve or so tables. Like I said, small. That’s fine with me. The more intimate setting gave me time to talk about the site one on one with the attendees. If you’ve never met me in person, know that I like to talk a lot. It’s that retail in me coming to the surface. People walk by and I just start talking, using my "opening" questions and trying to coerce them into making that one simple glance at our booth morph into a full-blown conversation. It strikes me as odd that people are still shy and coy when walking through an artist alley at a con. It might just be their personalities, but if it were me, I’d at least talk to the people I’ve paid money to see.

All in all, I had a good time. I got to play some Guitar Hero III for the first time and jammed out on some Rock Band with completely random people. Kudos to those guys that were playing guitar on expert and making it look easy. Extra kudos to them for not bombing out completely when I was adlibbing during their solos. I like to talk to the imaginary crowd or compliment their insane playing skills of the other players during lulls in action.

A final shoutout goes to the Amber and her support staff for making the Artist Alley experience painless. It was her first time overseeing an artist section, but she made it look easy. Now if she can only do something about keeping some of the artists at their table; may I suggest handcuffs?

Here are some of the people that I met at the con. There are several others I’ve forgotten to mention, but I will get them up by next week, promise! Thanks to everyone for stopping by!

Allen Drinkwater and his group have written an online novel, a revenge quest involving science fiction, television, sandwiches, and porn. Check it out at victoryisyours.net.

Kevin Williams and the Muley group were responsible for bringing their puppet Muley to the con. He ran a few interviews and was a pretty cool guy all around. He can be found at www.muleythemule.com

Liana was my next door table mate and she was selling self-created buttons and stickers of various anime characters. Not bad for thirteen years young. Her prices were reasonable and her site can be found here.

- Dover

I have a toothache and I don’t like it at all. I wanted to write about Cooking Mama 2 for the DS, but I cannot even think of food or chewing right now. Ouch, damn it! I hate the dentist. These people are the guardians of Hell, of that I am certain.

The CIA should employ dentists to torture our enemies into submission. Waterboarding has nothing on the tools at the disposal of your local dentist - items designed to instill fear in the deepest region of the human soul. Objects that can be found in video games like F.E.A.R., Condemned, and Jericho. The list goes on, but I think you catch my meaning.

Soulless beings, bringers of pain, mouth murderers - back to the hell from whence you came! Back to the fire and brimstone that spat you out into our world!. I have to go now. My pain is almost as unbearable as my fear, and my appointment with the Devil of Drills draws nigh.

- Beau

I pulled out my Sega Saturn a few nights ago and jammed away on Guardian Heroes. It felt good. Just wanted to share.

- Irving