Emerald City Comicon

Tickets: $16 for the two of us

Bus Fare: $5 for two all-day passes

Food: $13.25 for two hot dogs and drinks (ouch!)

More Sketches for my Aquaman sketchbook: Priceless!

Ahem. Time for the first annual Emerald City Comicon Report. First off, I'm glad I bought tickets ahead of time, as the ticket line was long. As it was, hubby-Eric and I were two of the first people in the door. Yes, dear, I know now that we didn't have to get there so early. You knew I was paranoid when you married me.

Anyway, once in the door and ready to rumble, we wandered over to the artist's alley, then the guests table. First vict- er, first artist I asked for a sketch was the charming Pia Guerra, who did an Aqua-Monkey for me, and a Green Lantern Monkey for Eric (hmm, I'm sensing a theme...). Then we hit the dealers tables for a first walk-through. I was mildly surprised at how few dealers there seemed to be, but hubby did ok and found a book he wanted. I did see a sight that made my eyes pop out of my head and roll on the floor. One dealer had some incredible Golden Age stuff. She said she'd found them in an old school bus where they'd been stored for years. WOW.

After the dealers, we headed back to Artist's Alley. Kathleen Webb was first, drawing a mermaid for me and a Dorothy with Toto for hubby-Eric. While waiting for Kathleen to finish her sketch, I noticed a FANTASTIC Justice League drawing on the table next to her. The artist, one Scott Alan, was doing a sketch of the Flash from that drawing for a young fan. The sketch had all the members of the Justice League as children, doing rather childish things. The Aquaman was so wonderful, I had to have a sketch. As things worked out, I got a different Aquaman sketch from the guy sitting next to Scott first (Brett Cantrell), while hubby-Eric got a Green Lantern from Scott. Then Scott did Aquaman in a fishbowl for me. While it was funny, there was a blank spot at the top of the page just screaming for something. So I suggested fish food, and Scott took it from there:

Brett Cantrell did the Alan Scott Green Lantern for Hubby-Eric, and that turned out to be Eric's last sketch of the con. After a quick lunch, I hit Artist's Alley again while Eric re-visited the dealers tables. I managed to make a quick stop by the Fantagraphics booth and meet the utterly exhausted Dirk Deppey. He's not used to working days, he said. Anyway, on to the Alley, where Jim Smith did Boris the Bear as Aquaman, and I got a quick headshot of Iron Man done by Sean Chen. Last for me, and certainly not least, was Jim Mahfood, who didn't draw Aquaman, but did draw a guy in an Aquaman T-shirt for me. While it would have been cool to stay for the whole con, there were very few places to sit down (the one and only mistake they made, I think) and we're both still recovering from colds. So we left with half the con left to go.

Fun, yes. Very different than the ComiCard shows Seattle usually sees. I hope it makes it to a second year.