Conventional Wisdom

(Historical Notes: Alright, here we go.  More than anything else, THIS needed to be a much bigger deal in the comics, and Past Me actively avoided it. Anyone familiar with these comics knows that the Digimon cosplay photoshoot is one of the most enduring traditions I do every year… except for this one.  There’s a whole story to be told of people not being able to go and me hearing there just wouldn’t BE an official photoshoot and then finding out somebody else had scheduled one without the usual organizers knowing about it and me having already packed without bringing any Digi-stuff and the general location of this shoot being waaaaaaaay more out of the way than previous years… but I cleraly remember Past Me being afraid it’d come across as too negative and dropping most of it.  That was the wrong call on pretty much every level.  Even setting aside that poor organization totally deserves to be called out for what it is, I cannot stress enough just how badly this TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ENTIRE COMIC desperately needed to focus more on the traditions of the comic at this convention.  So many years saw this as the climax of the Otakon comics, so even if I had a perfectly defensible reason not to be taking part, it still really needed to be a part of the narrative.  Heck, I even totally skipped over the traditional Digimon picknick/pajama party/meet-up, which technically DID happen this year, even if it was just a few of us sitting around a hotel lobby for a few minutes Saturday night.  Again, the decline of that mini-event over the years is totally a story unto itself, but I left it all out of the one comic I drew, and then held that comic back for Patreon.  Yeah, I get that it’s a bit depressing to think about, but I can’t just will everything to be 2008 again, especially if trying just means I’m left with no material at all.  TELL THE STORY THAT’S IN FRONT OF YOU, PAST ME!)