I’ve spent most of the last two days escort­ing Scott McCloud and his won­der­ful family around and about the RIT campus. The lec­ture yes­ter­day went off with­out a hitch ??? in fact, it was better than I could have asked.

Ingle was filled with a com­bi­na­tion of stu­dents, fac­ulty, and com­mu­nity mem­bers. We’re esti­mat­ing about 375 in all! Scott told me that was roughly the same turn out as at MIT. Not too shabby!

You can read Scott’s account at the 50 State Tour Blog.

Here’s a shot of McCloud lec­tur­ing. For those tra­di­tion­al­ists out there, note that he’s lec­tur­ing in front of a page from Learn to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.

After the lec­ture, a mini-​lecture by McCloud’s daugh­ter Sky, and a long Q&A ses­sion (facil­i­tated by his other daugh­ter Winter), we headed upstairs for the sign­ing. As you can see above, the sign­ing line wrapped all around the upper rooms. We sold out of Making Comics. In fact, I heard a couple dis­ap­pointed atten­dees trying to bribe the book­store to let go of copies that were on hold for people.

For more than an hour (by my count close to two) Scott greeted and talked with each person in line. He made every person seem like they are the only person that he’s talked to ??? regard­less if they were at the begin­ning of the line or at the tail end of it (this is a qual­ity that he shares with his friend Neil Gaiman). I can only imag­ine how tired his wrist is going to get on this tour.

Today was won­der­ful as well. Unfor­tu­nately, I need to grade, so that account will come tomor­row. Either way, I’m beam­ing that RIT seems to have matched MIT in turnout and hospitality.