Sure, there’s awesome stuff in Bethesda, like John Campbell’s debut Pictures for Sad Children book — don’t buy all of them, because the leftovers will go on sale online next week. Oh, and I guess Latin Heartthrob Aaron Diaz will have a new Dresden Codak book available. And other attendees (missed yesterday) will include Dylan Meconis (tabling with Carol Burrell) with a new print, and Dave Shabet and Evan Dahm getting a last-minute table assignment.

And that’s not even considering Raina Telgemeier giving away two galley copies of her forthcoming graphic novel, SMILE:

I’m also holding a raffle and a contest! I have a few advance-reader galleys of SMILE available, and I’d like to give them away. There are two ways to win:

Raffle! Come fill out a raffle ticket at our table, any time before 4:30 PM on Sunday. I will draw a winner at 5 PM.

Contest! Tell me a horror story about your teeth! You have to come and tell me your story in person, also any time before 4:30 PM on Sunday. I will choose a winner at 5 PM. Most horrific dental story wins.

Man, I have a great horrific dental story, too. I won’t go into it here, because I realize that some people are squeamish; if you have a strong stomach, the short version is below the cut. Suffice it to say, nearly 20 years later I am still fully prepared to run down a respectable member of the dental profession in cold blood in front of his terrified family, then kick my car into reverse and repeat until the cops drag me away.

But I promised you good news for those not going to SPX, and that would be the First Ever Topatoco Tag Sale:

[W]e ain’t no second-rate ham-shop runnin’ T-shirts out the back of an off-label methadone distillery either — we’re the world’s largest graphical internet entertainment licensing firm, and we got literally twenty dozen different designs that we throw away on a daily basis. We are straight-up and down-low professional and the side effect of all this legitimate-businessin’ is that we got tee-shirts in every orifice and stacked up to reach the danged rafters.

Solution? TAG SALE. This Saturday, September 26, we are opening our doors and urging you, a bunch of strangers, to come paw through a giant stash of our clean cotton miscellany. That’s right — the TopatoCo offices will be open to the discount-loving public for a one-day bargain-basement housecleaning hootenanny. [emphasis original]

Note to every random entertainment company that sends me press releases — use the words “methadone distillery” in your boilerplate, and I’m far more likely to run with it.

Everybody ready? This is fairly icky. I can tell you for an absolute fact that impacted wisdom teeth are removed by shattering them in the jaw with a pneumatic chisel, then picking out the pieces because I woke up during this procedure and the sumbitch oral surgeon decided not to re-sedate me.

You know that tray of picks and needles and proddy things that every dentist has? After making the International Give Me Drugs Gesture (mimed hypodermic into an arm vein) and hearing, You don’t need shot, Gary, I grabbed a handful of those pokey, proddy things and went for his eyes.

My aim was true, but unfortunately, my strength was lacking from the pain and remnants of the drugs. My arms were put into restraints and I spent the next ten-twelve minutes screaming at the top of my lungs. On my way out, I made every vile gesture I could think of in the general direction of that bastard in a waiting room full of rather shocked patients (and my embarrassed mother) while unsuccessfully attempting to shout That fucker refused to give me anaesthetic around a mouthful of cotton. The end.