An album of our trip (a truncated one, anyway) has been posted on my Facebook page.

Surprisingly, it was a good trip.

Perhaps it was in the diminished expectations. Last year was a disaster, as I mentioned here about a year ago. And our collaborator on our new book was unable to come to the con, which meant those wonderful posters were never unveiled (they'll be saved for an event closer to the book's release, when the whole writing team can be present). And then, the day before we left, I was told the the hotel we were staying at is owned by a man who gives his money to hateful legislation and that we should have boycotted the place. If we'd known earlier, we would have, but canceling that close to the reservation date meant being charged for the rooms anyway, so canceling would have cost the homophobes nothing and left us without a place to stay.

So with all of that piled up on us when we left for San Diego, we pretty much assumed the weekend was going to be another disaster.

Christina and I talked before leaving and decided we weren't going to pursue meetings with anyone. We weren't going to worry about how the money we were spending would (or likely wouldn't) benefit our career. We were going to sign books, to announce our new series, to go to the zoo, and to see friends, some of whom we don't see any other time but the con.

And I decided that no plan was going to make me worry about if we made it, or if we had to race, or if it was canceled or if it turned out worse than hoped for. We'd just hakuna matata our way through the weekend.

So we left for the con, leaving to drive down some 5 1/2 hours before our Oni Panel, hoping that would be enough to avoid the kind of fiasco that made us miss our meetings at the start of last year's con, but ready to roll with it if we wound up missing it, and everything else.

And the traffic down to the con was minimal, pretty manageable. The trip took 2 1/2 hours, which is what it should take. We played a new road trip playlist, talked and had a nice ride.

We'd gotten to the hotel way earlier than normal, but they had a room ready anyway. Aside from the annoyance of having to pay for internet access in an already overpriced place (which was insult to injury considering we really shouldn't, morally, have been there at all), the check-in was smooth, the room was fine.

And we began our con. Which was near perfect.

At the panel, we announced our new book, Frenemy Of The State. It is being co-created and co-written by Rashida Jones, who is a wonderful collaborator, a smart and funny writer, and who grew up in the world the book comically explores.

Frenemy Of The State is about a Paris Hilton type heiress, American royalty, who is recruited by the CIA. Think about it. This type of girl can go anywhere in the world, and no-one thinks twice. She can do the craziest shit, and everyone just shrugs it off.

The perfect CIA agent, other than the short attention span, the train wreck of a love life and the non-stop demands on her life, social-scene-wise.

It's a comedy-action book, and will come out as an ongoing series of miniseries. The first miniseries will be 5 issues, and will deal with our lead character's recruitment and her mission to stop the illicit sales of nuclear weapons at a rich kid's birthday party in Russia.

The idea got a big laugh at the Oni panel, which was great. But even better, when editor in chief James Lucas Jones announced the book, he started by talking about Rashida, and how she had the core of the idea but needed to be paired with comic pros. He said that Oni paired her with someone that everyone in the room knew, and mentioned me and Christina by name... and the room broke into a decent sized, unprompted round of applause.

I always feel like part of the Oni family, but honestly, the fan-base at the panels don't tend to notice me or Christina. They're there for Scott Pilgrim, or for Greg Rucka (who is my best friend, so it's not like I resent that - he has earned every moment of attention he gets and actually deserves twice as much). Never for us. So this stunned us and was really very cool.

It pays to stack the room with my students, I guess.

The whole weekend, I was running into my students. They came to the panel, they came to our signings, I had dinner with a former student.

One of my students had recently been published and I got a copy of the anthology his comic was in, and when he signed it, he thanked me for teaching him how to write comics (totally untrue, he was pretty good the day I met him) and for never giving up on him (that part was true because he was loaded with talent, but needed nudges in the follow-through department).

The experience really made me feel like a mentor, and was reminded just how rewarding it was to have decided to start teaching.

Our signings were not busy, but we signed a few books, got a few people to check out our stuff who wouldn't have otherwise, and also signed books for people who follow our work pretty regularly and are always good to talk to. We caught up with two different old friends who we'd fallen out of touch with. We spent a lot of time with our best friends in the world, and also spent time with Chris Mitten, our artist on Past Lies and the Tomb, who we only ever see at the con and who is, quite possibly, the nicest man alive. We met his new girlfriend, who is fun and funny and clearly the two are very happy, so that was great too.

Really, the whole thing was pretty perfect.

Did we score big time career opportunities? No. But we went there looking for none, and came away with a couple of (probably very unlikely) possibilities, so we wound up way ahead of expectations, so even on that front, it was a great con.

I think this new Hakuna Matata thing might work for me. If I can muster it again, I guess I'll be at the con again next year!