Earlier this week, as promised, the outgoing Board organized a farewell meeting and gathering at the Animation Guild in Burbank, CA, where the group had held its monthly meeting for many years. In truth, given the low participation of recent years, I wasn’t sure what the turnout would be like. Due to the pandemic, in-person meetings had disappeared and Zoom meetings gradually attracted less and less participants—I attended one Zoom CAPS meeting where it was literally just me and another member (though we had a great time!). I also volunteered in an effort to create an in-person component of the meeting where some members could gather together at a site to Zoom in on the meeting with others, but this also didn't gain any traction.
But happily, people turned out in fulil force. In fact, it reminded me of a CAPS meeting from the old days! It was the first time the group had gathered together in person since before the pandemic, with longtime and more recent members in attendance. I saw people I hadn’t seen in years and, in at least one case, more than a decade. Some new members told me that, having recently joined, this was the first time they had ever attended a meeting and seen so many other members!
The centerpiece of the evening’s program included the participation of two of the three founding members via Zoom—Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier (the third founding member, Don Rico, passed away in 1985). There was lots of reminiscing, expressions of appreciation and laughter.
In its later years, a highlight of the group’s activities was an annual banquet that featured the presentation of the Sergio Award, named for founding member Sergio Aragones. Since there were several statues left, the award’s namesake was given the honor to present the remaining trophies to deserving members of the group—in this case, he made the awards to members who were there at or near CAP's founding and played key roles in raising the group's profiles, often serving as early presidents: Mark Evanier, Scott Shaw, Bill Stout and an honorary one to Stan Sakai. (Though I'd seen the award statuette at banquets in the past, I'd never held one. As show in the photo below, after the meeting, I took the opportunity to inspect it up close. I also picked it up and found that it was surprisingly heavy!)
While everyone expressed regret for the group’s demise, people were clear eyed and philosophical about its passing. Pandemic aside, the industry has changed greatly in recent years and the group's demands made it difficult for working professionals to commit the time and effort needed to sustain the group and its activities. And with so many opportunities like multiple comics conventions, shows and other activities that give people a chance to see each other, perhaps CAPS’ time had passed.
The event also reminded me of another reason I found CAPS so beneficial—after socializing with other pros, talking shop and sharing work, I always left meetings feeling incredibly energized. That feeling was there when I drove home afterwards as well. It was the perfect send off for CAPS.
(That said, no doubt due to the positive energy at the event, people raised the possibility of the group getting together again in the future in some form in more informal ways—so we’ll see!)
