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Emerald City Comic Con 2012

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So I’m a fairly recent transplant to Seattle.  I’ve been here about a year and I got here just in time to miss Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC) last year.  This year, having heard so many good things about ECCC, there was no way I was going to miss it.  Luckily for me I had attended PAX 2011 in the same convention space, so I was already familiar with the layout.  As a veteran of New York Comic Con, I went in with some expectations and some hopes.

The Pros

Guest List:  ECCC had a stellar guest list.  There were a ton of awesome comic writers and artists both mainstream and indie.  Some of my favorites were going to be there and some people I hadn’t even anticipated seeing.  The media guest list was awesome too.  Two Firefly actors (Adam Baldwin and Summer Glau), two Battle Star Galactica stars (EDWARD JAMES OLMOS!!! and Katie Sackoff—who actually didn’t show up) plus George Takei and Wil Wheaton.

Costumes: ECCC had some of the most imaginitive costumes I’ve seen at a con.  An out of work Death Eater offering to slaughter your enemies for food, tons of Doctor Who variants, a bunch of Blades, an exoskeleton made out of cardboard designed as a means for the wearer to keep his baby in the cockpit were just some of the awesome costumes I saw.

Webcomics: There was way more attention to webcomics at this convention than I’m used to.  It was great.  My first day there I got three volumes of Girl Genius that I needed and had them signed by Phil Foglio.  Sweet.

If you hear "gaming" and don't automatically think "video gaming," ECCC is more your kind of Con.

Focus:  With a bunch of big cons in this area and season, ECCC was able to focus purely on the comics.  Very little attention was spent on Anime, movies, tv, and gaming.  While I do like all that stuff, this focus on the comics was refreshing.  At NYCC, I’ve felt a little overwhelmed by the attention spent on Anime and blockbuster movies.  But ECCC’s focus on comics alone seemed like it gave the con an opportunity to have a more solid list of guests and panels.

Scaled down:  There was not a lot of glitz at this con.  The big two (Marvel and DC) had minimal booths, and in many cases were outshadowed by the smaller publishers and the webcomics (the Girl Genius booth was bigger and more elaborate than the DC booth).  While I do love the flash and glitz of NYCC and San Diego, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the lights and bright colors.

Friday:  Friday at the con was awesome.  It wasn’t very crowded and most of the guests were there meaning that you could wander around the area where the artists and writers had their tables and get pretty easy access to your favorites.  Want to meet Kurt Busiek or Greg Rucka and chat with them while getting something signed? Go ahead; they didn’t have any lines at their tables.  This was super refreshing after NYCC where I might have to wait 15-20 minutes just to get within view of an author I wanted to meet and talk with.

The Cons

Attendance surge/line managment:  From what I heard about Saturday, the con staff was just not prepared for the surge in attendance they had this year.  This meant that the line management for the panels was awful.  I mean, really awful.  The hallway where the panels were being held was one massive line and it was difficult to tell where you had to be to get into a specific panel.  The bonus was that they didn’t completely clear the rooms between panels, so if you knew where you needed to be you could just hop into the room during the previous panel and just hang out.  If you were really lucky a couple of panels you wanted to see would be in the same room and you could just hang out with your choice seat and watch the festivities.

No glitz and glam:  Because NYCC and San Diego are right around the corner as well as PAX and other big conventions, there really isn’t a lot of money or effort put into this con from the big companies.  No big announcements, no high energy panels, etc.  The DC New 52 panel I attended was kind of lackluster and really didn’t do anything to turn me on to reading any of the titles.  Same with the Dark Horse panel I attended.  They just didn’t seem to want to put the effort into getting people to read new titles because they knew they’d have bigger audiences at the other Cons.  I remember a Vertigo panel from 2 years ago at NYCC where every single title they talked about turned me on and made me excited to read it when it came out.  Now I know every panel can’t be like that, but I shouldn’t be bored when you’re trying to sell me on your upcoming line ups.  Especially if you’re DC and you want me to start reading the New 52.  Having said that,  both Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato, who co-writes the Flash, were pretty engaging and entertaining and gave me a pretty good look at their creative process.   Greg Capullo, writer of Batman, also did a good job of engaging me and making me interested in his title.  Both of these were more about the personalities of the writers than about the actual titles they’re working on.  It’s also possible that these three shined brighter because of the lack of interest from everyone else on the panel.  It wasn’t unusual for someone to ask a question about New 52 and have the panelists look at each other and say, “I don’t know anything about that, but I’ll try to answer that.”  As you can imagine the answers usually weren’t very informative.

Final word

Overall I enjoyed the con and am looking forward to going next year.  I’m hoping that next year they anticipate a rise in attendance and manage things better.  It’s possible that I would recommend this con to hardcore fans over NYCC or San Diego.  The easy access to industry insiders and the derth of indy presence was enough to make this THE CON for true comic fans.



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