Thread by @GailSimone

It's a ridiculous thing to complain about, but it's a genuinely weird source of anxiety for me, international con travel.

When I was a kid, we were poor, all I wanted to do was travel to different countries and meet the people and I knew it was never going to happen. 1/

Because, as I said, poor.

2/

Now I am blessed that cons all over the world kindly invite me to come...as many as 150 different events and appearance (signings and festivals and other stuff, not just cons) requests happen every year.

I can only go to a fraction. And that leads to a LOT of anxiety. 3/

Contractually and for business reasons, most of the cons I attend each year will be in the states, another one or two in North America somewhere.

So it leaves a few slots each year. And you have to be careful because they consume a LOT of time where you should be working. 4/

So you have these four or five slots to travel.

And promoters make each country sound amazing, and offer wonderful perks and sightseeing and stuff to come to their event. Sometimes, there's government sponsorship.

5/

And a LOT of these place are places you have wanted to see your whole life. It's not all about tourism, a lot of it is getting to meet readers in another country.

There's nothing else like it.

6/

And we have never gone to a country where we didn't find things to love.

People always say, "Oh, don't be surprised if people are cold to strangers in (insert country name)," and it's never, ever true. We find warm, gracious people everywhere we go.

7/

The example I remember is Shanghai in mainland China. It was a brand new con, no one knew how it would do...they don't even have Western comics shops there. We went the first year, and everyone said, oh, don't be offended if they have no idea about your comics... 8/

So we go, not even certain anyone will show up, and in fact, it sold out to full capacity, 70% young women. They waited in line for HOURS for signatures.

We had a panel...first question, a young girl gets up and asks if Nightwing will every marry Barbara. 9/

Everywhere you go, love of comics is the binding force, like musicians who don't speak the same language.

It's beautiful, it might be my favorite thing of the entire comics career thing, that people who don't speak your language still speak THIS language. 10/

But the eternal dilemma eventually becomes, for those few slots, how do you decide where to go?

Do you go BACK to a place you loved so much, where you made friends you can't wait to see again...

...or do you go somewhere new and maybe experience that in a whole new way? 11/

I do realize this is the MOST first-world-problem ever. But it causes a LOT of consternation every year around here. I still feel bad about a lot of places I had to turn down because I've always wanted to go there, but you just can't do everything and still get your work in. 12/

Because of comics, we've visited around 30 countries and every one is still in my heart, memories I wouldn't trade for anything.

Comics have lots of hurdles right now. But man oh man, the community is still the best thing in the world.

13/

This was a bit of a babble. But thank you SO SO SO much to everyone who ever came to say hello when I was at a con outside the US.

You always make us feel so welcome and I can't thank you all enough.

ALL THE LOVE IN THE WORLD, COMICS PEOPLE!

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