CAKE 2014 is done.

Well Cake is done and it was another great year. It was probably the most fun and relaxed I've been for the 3 CAKEs so far, which I guess comes with experience and I'm sure was helped by the fact that it was our 2nd year at the Center on Halstead. What a great staff they have, which made the whole event go off without a hitch.
 
We lost a couple organizers this year. Edie Fake, whom we decided to invite as a special guest, and Grace Tran. Grace finished out the year with us, and both her and Edie were impeccable partners to have in this adventure. You'll see some pictures of picture frames containing the going away presents that we presented them. We asked the show artists of each years shows to make a small drawing for each of them. Laura Park, Jo Dery, and Carrie Vinarsky knocked it out if the park in creating some truly beautiful pieces.
 Also you'll see some pictures of us organizers putting some last minute exhibitor packets together, and a shot of our last meeting, and a dark photo of the post Cake wrap up meeting held on Grace's porch.

Also myself and new organizer Marnie Galloway who proved to be a total pro, as we all expected.
Once again my family came to the show and stocked up on some of the family fare that you can get at
CAKE.
 
Thanks to Chris Eliopoulos for distracting Van from getting his homework done. One of the highlights of the show was getting a Hilda book from Luke Pearson and hearing that he was a fan of Burning Building Comix. We also picked up a book of Phillipa Rice and regretted not getting more from her. Also got to exchange books with Erik Nebel and was glad to meet him and chat about making comics with kids in the house. I also regret not being able to spend more time with the Top Shelf representative Hatuey Diaz, who is one of the best guys to spend 7 hours with at a convention. We did get to have dinner on Saturday night with Ezra Clayton Daniels and his better half Buki. We had Ethiopian up north and it was delightful. Another common theme at CAKE is the posts I see on the web afterwards and the amazing stuff I managed to miss. I may be biased but this show is truly stacked with so many incredible talents that your pockets get shallow quick.

We also instituted some new items at CAKE this year. The mini comic incentive punch card, that rewards attendees with a free show poster if they buy mini comics. That's artwork by your truly you see there, and we were very excited by the success of the card. We also provided "Debut" and "Limited Quantities" signs that we ran out of too quickly despite having handmade over 70 of them. That's Edie's great cake art on those.
I didn't have a chance to go to any panels, but I heard nothing but good things and technically they were recorded on audio. Heard that the moderators did an especially good job this year, and I look forward to listening back to those.
 
Thanks thanks thanks to all the special guests, moderators, exhibitors, COH staff, volunteers, Sponsors, Retailers, Publishers and of course the other CAKE organizers, Neil Brideau, Ben Bertin, Marnie Galloway, Max Morris, and Grace Tran, and to Ness DellaMorte for organizing the volunteers and Candace Corner Miller for all her help with PR. CAKEs success is dependent on the amazing Chicago comics community and how the shows feel and spirit is representative of that group of people.
Organizing a show is a tremendous amount of work and does not exactly help ones own comics production. I'm sure all of the organizers have questioned how long we want to continue to sacrifice so much of our time for this endeavor, but in the afterglow of the success, I feel an energy to continue on and push myself to help make the show what it is for the near future.