Columbus and its suburbs are home not only to our host but to David Willis, which means I finally get to pay a personal visit to the peer I felt closest to, back when we came through the early days of webcomics together.
David and I went through a lot of the same things, though unlike me, he drew his own material, and unlike a lot of our fellow cartoonists, he kept refining his style.
I've done some guest pieces, a crossover, and a whole guest story for his series over the years—I still think the last of those is one of my best works overall. His latest work isn't really built for such collaborations, and my own career is no longer comics-centered, but my admiration for him as a creator has never wavered. (I should mention he’s about to launch his latest Kickstarter.)
Most of our interactions, though, have been via email or social media—I had to update his number from my 2002 records just to text him.
It’ll be good to get together and converse like a pair of social humans. Assuming we can remember how.