Whoa. Flag, in all my years on the internet, I have not seen one other person ever mention Dresden Codak but me. I absolutely love Aaron Diaz. One of the most extraordinary comic artists today and just the nicest guy to boot. He will talk to you about ANYTHING for as long as you want, especially if you want to talk about Onald Creely.
Come out to DC in September. We have SPX, the Small Press Expo at the Marriott in N. Bethesda. Every webcomic artist I've ever loved and a ton of independents come, along with all sorts of Drawn and Quarterly artists. Last time I went the big names we had were Seth, Jeff Smith, Gene Yang, and Daniel Clowes come out. And those were just the special guests. Add in 300 booths of webcomics and it's just the best way to spend a weekend.