Hey everyone, I guess I should finally post some stuff about my awesome trip to DC. First of all I have to thank Leticia and Richard from Fans of David for making this incredible experience possible. Without Richard selflessly taking on the huge responsibility of organizing the DC events after the Fanblast controversy and Leticia amazingly offering to pay my way to DC when I could have never paid for it myself, none of this would have ever happened.

Now I'm only going to mention things about my cartoons here, seeing how this is what the site is for. Perhaps I'll post a detailed recap of the entire trip some other time.

Okay, so on the day of the concert I gathered up the booklets I made including most of the cartoons and portraits I had created in the last few months and headed for the buses. In this bundle I had a folder for David, which included 2 portraits I created, cartoons of the top 10 idols, cartoons of his parents, stickers of his cartoon, a copy of every forum emoticon I created for the Fans of David forums, and a small book I made recapping the day Crush was released and the various websites it was announced. I also had with me a smaller folder for Carly which included a portrait of her, cartoons and stickers of her and her husband, and a copy of all the top 10 idol cartoons. And finally I had a folder for myself to show others that had a combination of all of this.

At the buses I met a girl from Hong Kong named Angela, she had actually brought my cartoons with her to get signed and was excited to meet me. She got a picture with me and we talked about Fans of David and Fanblast. We ate lunch together later that day actually, and there's a pretty cool story involving her, David, and a van that occurred later that night that's pretty interesting.

At around 2:30 the idols came out from the Verizon center and began signing autographs. The first people to come out were Ramiele, Syesha, and David.

Thanks to my friends from Fans of David that were also waiting at the buses, I was able to get a spot at the barrier where the idols come along and sign autographs. First up was Syesha, when she came by I handed her a copy of her cartoon, once she figured out that I was the designer she looked on the back of it to see if I had written any information on it. When realizing it was blank she told me "I want to know who you are" and handed it back to me with her sharpie. As I was signing the back and writing the URL of this website she asked me if I had a Myspace. When I told her I didn't she replied "You don't have a myspace?!" I assured her she could just go to this website and she moved along the line.

Next up is Ramiele, when she passed by me I also handed her the cartoon. Thankfully my Fans of David friends were helping me at this time and said to her "He designed it", at which point Ramiele actually got kind of excited. I got a picture with her and as she was walking away I told her I was from Canada and she said "How did you get here?!". Thanks Leticia. :P

At this point I'm probably getting the order wrong but I believe David was next. He was moving by pretty quickly because he had press at 3:00, so when he passed by I said something quick like, "Hey, you know the cartoon of you on those water bottles?", he paused briefly for some processing time and said "Oh, yeah". Then I said "I made it", which he responded with something I can't remember but was probably "Oh, really? Cool". At that point I had to make a decision whether to give him the folder of artwork now or not. I wasn't sure if I would get to the meet & greet later, so I made the decision and passed the book to him. He instantly marked across it, like I expected, so I said "No, that's for you!", and he put it under his arm and went down the line. It turns out Richard did have meet & greet passes for a David-only after party that night, so I totally made the wrong decision and had nothing to show him there. But as long as he has it I'm happy, I hope he got a chance to look at it. When he was a few people past me he asked what time it was, and someone responded 3:00, causing him to freak out for a moment. I yelled out that it was really only 2:52 and he calmed down a bit but still said that he had press "in like, 5 minutes". I'm not really sure if he understood who I was actually. I'm sure many people before now have told him that they made the cartoon.

Going from memory I'm going to say Carly came next. Tara from Fans of David had seen my artwork earlier and knew that I had a portrait for Carly, so she let me get ahead of her to get Carly's attention. I opened the folder to the portrait as she walked by, as she was mostly just looking down and listening to music. Tara may have said something like, "he drew that", or something making sure Carly knew that it was mine but I can't fully remember. I was originally planning to give it to her, but she signed it so quickly that I just kept it. I was a little surprised because I didn't get any reaction at all out of the portrait (I have picture proof :P), but I also said "I did a cartoon of your husband", and quickly showed her a page in the folder with a picture of her and her husbands cartoon together. She chuckled, signed it, and said that we've been seeing these all over the country at every stop.

The order really is a blur so I'm going to lie and say David Cook was next. Cook had attended a meeting earlier in the day so he was wearing a suit, which took me by surprise at first. I handed him his cartoon as he passed by but didn't catch what he said. He looked at it and went to sign it like most of the other idols, but I assured him it was for him. I was surprised that he didn't give much of a reaction because I had heard from dozens of people that Cook loves the cartoons and laughed out loud when he saw the original David cartoon. Maybe they're just old news by now or I didn't properly communicate that I was the creator.

Brooke came by pretty quickly also, I gave her the cartoon and she may have said something like "we love these", and then moved down the line.

When Kristy came by she commented on the similarities of her and Brooke's cartoon. And said that they had suggested to each other that they switch. I thought this was cool because I had so much trouble trying to separate their cartoons while keeping the simplicity I wanted.

Michael Johns was probably my favorite to talk to at the buses. I actually spent more time talking to him than any of the other idols, even David who I saw again at the meet & greet that night. When he came around I handed him the cartoon and said I was the designer. Instantly I thanked him for drinking out of my David water bottle on stage in Utah, and he acted out drinking out of the bottle. He seemed genuinely interested in the cartoons and asked if I was charging for them. When I said I was doing it all for free he said I should be making a million dollars off them and actually commented saying "they're that good." He posed for a few pictures that people around me were taking with the cartoon.

I also got to talk to Jeff Archuleta for a few minutes. He's amazingly nice and complimented me on my art, which really means a lot coming from someone who has obviously witnessed a lot of talent in the past few years. Meeting him in person makes the rumors about him seem absolutely insane. He even offered me backstage passes and called me over by my name (which I couldn't remember if I had told him or not...) after the idols had gone in from the buses. I didn't need them because I was with Richard, but he gave one to Angela, the girl from Hong Kong. ^_^

Chikezie didn't come out because he was apparently recovering from some sort of surgery, and Jason came out briefly but didn't make it to our spot in the line before having to go in for press. All in all I got to talk to 8 of the idols, and most of the responses to the cartoons were overwhelmingly positive, except for a few who didn't really give any response and just signed autographs as usual. Either way, I can't believe I was even there.