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Saturday, November 7, 2009. New Comics were 3 days ago

 

Emerald City Comicon 2008

By Kristy Valenti

Tuesday May 20, 2008 09:00:00 am

Emerald City Comicon's strong point is this: it's a great con for fans to get some genuine face time with the creators. At the sixth annual ECCC, held Saturday, May 10 and Sunday, May 11, at Seattle's Washington State Convention & Trade Center, Pacific Northwesterners were able to chat with mainstream writers and artists such as J. Michael Straczynski, Ed Brubaker, Tim Sale, Greg Rucka, Kurt Busiek, David Finch and Robert Kirkman in a way that would be impossible at Comic-Con International: San Diego: there, it's logistically impossible even to see all of the independent/small press/self-published creators one might wish. This dynamic is one that the creators themselves seem to appreciate: comics convention veteran[1] Mike Krahulik, half of the pair behind the webcomic Penny Arcade, indicated that he enjoyed ECCC's creator-focused, laid-back quality. My coworker Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics' PR guy) observed that ECCC has a "lo-fi" sensibility and likened it to the San Diego Comic-Con of 10 years ago, before the videogame, movie and television companies moved in. He also noted that the fans were more "fringe" than at San Diego, in that this was probably the only comic convention they attended this year. Additionally, ECCC is quite democratic for a con that is traditionally mainstream: for example, Ed Brubaker's table space didn't appear to be any larger than, say, the Madison Middle School Cartoonists'.

This is especially admirable considering that, by swapping the Qwest Field Event Center for the Convention Center as this year's venue, ECCC had more space to play with. This was a definite boon in terms of panels (at the Qwest Field Event Center, panels were held in an open, second level directly over the exhibitors, which was distracting and made it difficult to hear) and overall comfort. Post-show, con organizer Jim Demonakos enthused that, in regards to the venue, there were "no real cons, which is nice and one of the reasons we made the move, we wanted to make sure that we had all the space we needed to do all the cool stuff we wanted to accomplish at the show and that, in the end, was what we were able to do. I'm very happy with the new venue."

Nevertheless, the move to the Convention Center was not without consequence. Parking was more of a concern and the swankier digs caused a hike in ticket price, from last year's $12 for one day and $18 for both[2] to $30 for two days, $20 for Saturday and $15 for Sunday. Although this didn't appear to have an effect on the number of people attending the con — when asked if the con met the projection of 9,000 attendees, Demonakos responded that "attendance was above the projections we had, so we're thrilled with the turnout" — from my perspective,[3] and coupled with the fact that that Sunday was also Mother's Day, it at least had the effect of weeding out some of the seemingly mildly curious or just-killing-time attendees that I had seen (and had been one of) in previous years. This and the Convention Center contributed, I think, to my feeling that ECCC seemed more "grown up" in 2008 (probably due to the widening acceptance of the medium of comics in the U. S.); somehow, the wares and the booth displays appeared to be more tasteful (even the Teenage Kung Fu Cottontails primping in the ladies' room were more charming than your average booth babes) and the sea changes in comics readership seems to have helped cut down on the egregious forms of fandom (or at least, I saw a lot less of it). (Having said that, I personally spent a good deal of time that weekend giggling at the con badges, drawn by Tim Sale and mystifying out-of-towners, which featured the Hulk eating fast food from a local restaurant chain called Dick's.) Demonakos explained the ticket price "was hugely affected by the venue change, but we also expanded the show quite a bit in terms of exhibitors, guests, programming and more, so all those factors contributed to the increase."

One area of expansion was ECCC 2008's appeal for the indy-comics crowd. Demonakos informed me that "we made an effort to reach out and get more cool indy creators to the show, like Jeffrey Brown, Andy Runton, Derek Kirk Kim, Bryan Lee O'Malley and tons of others, so we could offer a great variety of creators to our fans […]." He was happy with the results and in my opinion, this goal was met successfully. (Conversely, the indy-comics professionals I interacted with seemed pleased by the availability of Golden Age back issues.) I was able to meet (and buy reasonably priced original art from) some of the creators of my favorite graphic novels of 2007, Tom Neely and Matt Kindt, as well as touch bases with others in indy publishing, such as the gentlemen (and at least one lady) of Top Shelf, Oni and Sparkplug. However, I was more booth-bound than I had initially planned on (due to another coworker's unfortunate illness), and, despite being there two full days and attending the after-event/Jordan Crane signing at the Fantagraphics store on Saturday night, I felt as if I hadn't adequately explored what ECCC 2008 had to offer. This is a great sign of things to come, and I hope that Demonakos continues to foster strong indy presence at future ECCCs.

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Kristy Valenti currently works for The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

Uncharted Territory is © Kristy Valenti, 2008

 

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