C2E2 2013: THE WILDSTORM CHRONICLES #3: MEETING PATTON OSWALT

Honestly, I didn’t expect that I would get to meet Patton Oswalt.  I wanted to, but I knew his line would be impossibly long, and there would be no chance of getting in there.  Still, on the off-chance that I did manage to succeed, I wanted to bring one thing for him to sign.  I have a bunch of movies and TV shows he’d been on, but I wanted something a bit more personal.  The only stand-up work I have of his is digital, and I wasn’t about to ask him to sign my laptop.

And then it hit me.  Holy shit, he wrote a part of the “Masks” storyline in WILDSTORM PRESENTS!  Why not bring that along?

Like I said, I knew it would be super-hard to meet him, because he was only signing for an hour.  30 minutes of that would be spent by me in the IDW panel, which I had to cover.  It went the whole time, too, so I only had a half an hour to make it down to Oswalt’s autographing table and stand in a line that would probably be too long.

Sure enough, when I got there, I had 15 minutes to go before he had to go, and the C2E2 employee told me and a few other latecomers that Oswalt strictly had to leave at the top of the hour.  Great.  I looked at that line and knew there was no way in hell I’d get up there.  But fuck it.  At that time, I didn’t have anything else going on.  Might as well take the chance.

I’m glad I did.  The line moved super fast, and the reason was because he was rushing through the signing, hoping to get everyone before the next celebrity showed up to take over.  I knew I’d only have a few words with him while he signed the one thing I’d brought along.

At the very top of the hour, I made it to his table.  I greeted him and told him it was nice to meet him.  And then I put the issue of WILDSTORM PRESENTS down on the table, and he looked very confused.  For the third time that day, someone whose work was in the book had no idea what they were looking at.

“I don’t think I’m in this one,” he said.

I told him that he did a part of “Masks” with Amanda Conner, and then he snapped into recognition.  He told me that, surprise, he hadn’t seen this one.  He signed it as quickly as he could and sent me on my way.  I had time for just one final sentence:  “You’re great on JUSTIFIED!”

He smiled graciously and thanked me as the next fan rushed to meet him.

There were two more people in the book that were at the convention.  As it turned out Brian Azzarello wasn’t doing a signing, so I wasn’t able to get him, but that left Doug Mahnke . . . .