NCS Reuben’s Report- Day 0

The Lovely Anna and I arrived in New Orleans yesterday afternoon… amid dark skies and thunderstorms. The weather doesn’t look too promising for the weekend. Hopefully there will be plenty of gaps in the downpours so we can see some of the city.

Not much to report on “Day 0”. We had dinner reservations at a terrific restaurant called Cuvee just a few blocks away, where we meet up with Orlando caricaturist Keelan Parham and his wife Barbie as well as NYC illustrator Ed Steckley and his wife Heather… long time friends. After dinner we had a drink at the hotel bar and got a chance to chat with some of the Usual Suspects including current NCS president and “Family Circus” cartoonist Jeff Keane, animators Steve Silver and Eddie Pittman, “Lio” and “Heart of the City”‘s Mark Tatulli, “Foxtrot”‘s Bill Amend, L.A. illustrator Chad Frye and some fellow MAD men like Sam Viviano, Nick Meglin and Kevin Pope. With Al Jaffee nominated for the big award this year, there is a fair MAD contingent of the Usual Gang of Idiots including Sergio Aragones and Jack and Dena Davis.

Today we will be doing the Habitat for Humanity project all day, so I will report on that tomorrow along with plenty of pictures of the traditional Friday night cocktail party. In the meantime, here is a list of the contents of the NCS “goodie bag” we received with registration… always full o’ fun stuff.

This year’s bag includes a copy of John Read‘s “Stay Tooned” magazine #1, Mort Walker‘s “The Best of Times” Family Fun magazine, “Hogan’s Alley“, Daryl Cagle‘s “The Best Political Cartoons of 2008” book, a copy of MAD, assorting inserts, the official 2008 Reuben T-shirt and of course the terrific official Reuben Journal.