Beware! Loads O’ Pix below. Will take a while to load. Best go get a sammitch and come back.

Paul mugs with two of our favoritest comics-store owners in the world: Dan and Katie Merritt.

After an exhausting Friday of sales, sock hunting and looking snappy, Matt Feazell falls asleep.

Here’s a closeup. Paul says this is the first time he’s ever seen Matt without his glasses.

While Matt slept, we defaced his socks. Y’see, Matt ran out of socks, or something. He brought back three pairs of white socks from the CVS across the street, and the gauntlet was thrown.

White socks and sharpie markers — the temptation was too great. One pair even got auctioned off for the CBLDF.

One of Paul’s fans brought a complete run of the Little White Mouse issues for Paul to sign, even the obscure, hard-to-find Caliber issues. Yay, fans!

Jim O gets surly if you try to take his orange juice.

Paul wears his size with pride.

Here’s about half the crew at the Mongolian Barbecue, Saturday night.

Here’s the other half.

Sean Bieri’s so used to putting his pencils behind his ears that he stuck his chopsticks there for safekeeping.

Ah, Love. To celebrate our First Anniversary being married, Paul shows some restraint in his public displays of affection towards me.

Sunday was time for the big annual picnic and Softball game; Diamond Comics Distributors versus us Artists. Big guess as to who wins every year. I think this game’s score was something like six hundred and eighty-five to three. Still, very fun to watch!

Suzanne Baumann, lookin’ all cute. But watch out — she’s wily! Just when you think you’re safe…

BOOGA!

Softball? What softball? This here comic was made overnight, DURING THE CON!

A steep hillside makes for strange lapfellows.

“Timespell” and “Zoomies” creator, Rich Henn takes a turn at bat. My Diamond Rep, Robert Randle, is playing catcher.

Rafer “Plastic Farm” Roberts! Swing anna miss!

Dunno who this guy was, but he sure could hit. He nailed one of our two home runs. Too bad there was nobody on base.

Karon Flage, one of the ubercool organizers of SPX, snaps pictures of the game.

JimO tries not to slide down the hillside. Matt Feazell shows off his red Chuck Taylors.

Neil “Ninety Candles” Kleid, in his outdoor habitat. Please do not feed the Neil.

A, Dave! How come we didn’t get a shortstop? Poor Lewis here had to play both third base and shortstop for nine innings.

Rich “Three Fingers” Koslowski may hold his bat like a sissy, but he hit the other home run of the day. KPOW! This dude can hit!

Dean “Take my shirt off again?!” Haspiel at bat.

Now Dean’s takin’ pictures of his own.

Jackie Estrada, one of the nicest folks in comics, snaps some pix for posterity.

Awww, Denise and Lisa, yew so cuuuute.

Michelangelo Cicerone takes a look at Suzanne Baumann’s supacool sketchbook. Suzanne took a bunch of descriptions out of an old 1950’s entertaining cookbook and let people draw their own illustrations to go with them. Everyone’s favorite seemed to be “Twirlin’ Turkey for a Crowd”.

After the game, Sean Bieri, Paul and I took the Metro to the Mall in DC to do some sightseeing. The first sight was this cool “Giant Squid versus Sperm Whale” Mosaic, located about 100 yards from our hotel.

Number one in my series of Guys Posing with Big Phallic Monuments in Our Nation’s Capitol.

Number two.

Shaun crushes the horseman’s head. Crush! Crush! Didn’t get close enough to see who the subject of the statue was.

A cool dragon on the carousel near the Smithsonian. If I were ten, I’da totally jumped the fence to ride this thing, even though the carousel was closed.

Here’s the new WW2 monument, which is on the Washington Monument side of the reflecting pool.

“Man… all of a sudden I really have to go.”

As big and expensive as this memorial was, and as gorgeous as all the bronze bas-relief panels were, I really didn’t like it. It felt all cold-war and Stalinesque, with a dash of Orwellian nationalism thrown in for good measure. Not too terribly surprising, considering it was approved and completed under pResident George W Bush.

It really had that, I dunno, Triumph of the Will feel to it.

Still, it definitely had the majesty points going for it. It was pretty overwhelming.

My God… It’s full of Stars… each one of those little yellow dots is a fist-sized gold star.

Lincoln Memorial, seen over the waterfall.

See what I mean? Here’s the big bronze medallion. Almost feels like the standing woman should be holding a hammer and sickle. Captured the WW2 era feeling of ultra-nationalism very well.

View from the “Pacific” arch. Each of the smaller pillars is carved with the name of a state or territory, and carries a huge, cast-bronze wreath.

View of the Washington Monument, back across the reflecting pool. The pool itself was pretty gross, actually; green with algae and choked with molted feathers, it smelled of sewage. Wish I were kidding.

Now, this is my kinda memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial was very moving. Seriously. I actually got choked up while I was in there. It made me feel, for a brief moment, the way I used to feel about my nation. Faith and courage and hope that even after a great disaster we may be able to get our act back together — not because we’re this huge aggressive monolith of a country — but because we’re humble enough to learn from our great mistakes and become better for it. This wasn’t a memorial that celebrated the glories of war and victory; it was a memorial that talked about the long period of tragedy and humility that comes after the horrors of war.

Ah, would that we heard words the likes of these, more often.

Thanks for everything, Abe. You rule.