Fluke 2005 – On the Rocks

on February 7, 2005

Howdy folks, sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to the site.

So, Fluke was awesome, in so many ways. Antar and I drove up the night before, which was lucky. When we woke up the next morning, there was almost an inch of snow/ice on the ground, and more falling. Luckily, the roads were warm enough that they stayed mercifully slushy. We ended up hiking to Tasty World, as Robert and Mary Jessica were afraid to back the car down their rather steep driveway. And of course, the city of Athens has absolutely no contingency plan for dealing with ice and snow. At least 50% of the city was shut down.

So we were worried about the turnout – and it did start a little slow – but pretty soon the people started rolling in. The turnout from Savannah and SCAD was great this year: Eleanor, Antar, and myself of course, but also my friends Chris, Doug, Joey, Adam and David. Dean showed up too, late as usual. Of the featured guests, Lauren Weinstein and General Jinjur turned out, but sponsors Top Shelf, Alternative Comics, and Adhouse were all missing in action. Nonetheless, eventually almost as many people showed up this year as last – the place was completely choked at the peak of the afternoon. We did at least as well as any single day of SPX… They’ve gotta move Fluke to a bigger location next year!

After the show ended, we all tramped off through the ice and snow to Transmetropolitan, a hip little pizza place downtown. I had three of their super-thick n’ bready “Sicilian” slices for my first meal of the day, and Robert managed to capture my raw hunger in photo form. Yes, I felt sick after that much pizza. We then headed back to Tasty World for Mary Jessica’s punky trapeze act, and a performance by the Flaming Fire, which was… interesting. Then it was time for the polar expedition back to Robert’s house. Eleanor and Patrick Dean decided to spend the night, because by this time, a solid, half-inch thick glaze of ice had formed on every surface. Barring little things like “personal safety,” it was incredible – the trip probably took twice as long as it should have, as we kept having to stop and shatter enormous sheets of glass on the traffic signs.

And by next morning, it was all gone. So we headed home after a nice little vegan brunch Mary Jessica made for us all.

Here’s some links to some photos people took at Fluke.

Here’s a couple articles about it.

I had a two page comic called “The Legend of Blar” in this year’s Fluke Anthology. I think you could probably totally still buy a copy of it if you emailed Robert at rnewsome “at” uga.edu.