Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Emerald City Comic Con Seattle - 2014

Wow, Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle was one of the best comic conventions I have attended.  Great guests, efficiently organized and a large enough venue so it never felt crowded (despite 60k+ attendees).  The distance from Orlando to Seattle was not a short trip but I was lucky enough to have some kind relatives put me up and get me around Seattle for a few days!
 
Overall, this one had many guests who mainly do West Coast cons so this was a chance to meet them for the first time.  This was the 14th year for ECCC and I can tell it is a fan favorite.

Here is a summary of what I accomplished.

Daredevil "Foes" Artists (4 sketches so far)
 
To continue my Spider-man and Daredevil sketch collection, as mentioned in the post below I decided in Megacon to continue the villain trend and collect sketches of the Daredevil villains. 
 
I asked the Daredevil artists to sketch their favorite villain (as long as their favorite is not the same as another artist!) or a villain that they have drawn many times over the years.  I even outlined boxes to make the sketch area more linear and comic panel-like.  While at ECCC, I added three villains to my collection, Bullseye (Klaus Janson), Typhoid Mary (Paul Azaceta) and Man-Bull (Stefano Gaudiano).
 
Stefano wanted to sketch an obscure DD villain and was debating between Man-Bull and the Matador.  If you can see the detail on Man-Bull, he went the extra mile and did a full figure of the character running through an alley...you can even see a garbage can being knocked over!  Even funnier is he wanted to put the sketch on the back cover as he did not feel such a character deserved to be on the front!


 
Daredevil Artists (33 sketches so far)
 
For my additions to my "Daredevil sketch collection", I was able to add four Daredevil artists.  On the front cover, the small quick sketch at top was done by Mike Avon Oeming and Michael Allred mentioned that he does not sketch at conventions so he signed his name at the bottom in red and added devil horns around it in lieu of a sketch.

 
On the back cover, I added Terry Dodson (dead center) and the newest DD artist Jason Copland (middle far right).


Lastly, as the above DD cover was full on the  back and front, I had Stefano Gaudiano start a new cover...I love the radar sense around the head.

 
Daredevil Writers (11 in total so far)
I was only able to add one writer to the Writer collection this time but what a great one it was Ann Nocenti!  She had an extensive run on DD and was so nice to talk to!  I also had her sign three book covers, her first and last DD issue and the issue where she introduced Typhoid Mary.
 
 
 Spider-man "Foes" Artists (8 sketches so far)

As mentioned previously, my other "project" is to have Spider-man artists sketch their favorite villain (as long as their favorite is not the same as another artist!) or a villain that they have drawn many times over the years.  I even outlined boxes to make the sketch area more linear and comic panel-like.
 
The sketches I received at ECCC were Kingpin (Mark Bagley), Doctor Octopus (Erik Larsen), Boomerang (Steve Lieber), Morbius (Matthew Clark) and Shocker (Matthew Southworth).  I did break my "rule" of letting the artist choose who to sketch with Morbius as I liked the way Clark sketched him in Amazing Spider-man issue 679.1 and requested that sketch and since Lieber is the artist on "Superior Foes of Spider-man" which features Boomerang, that felt like a natural thing for him to sketch.
 


Amazing Spider-man Artist (38 sketches so far)I was able to add four sketches this time.  On the inside back cover, I got a Randy Emberlin sketch (big eyes!) and on the back cover the remaining space was filled by Darick Robertson (top right), Erik Larsen (middle right) and Matthew Clark (bottom right).


 
Amazing Spider-man Writers (16 in total so far)
Just two signatures added to the Writer collection this time - the aforementioned Ann Nocenti and Joe Keatinge (lonely signature on the back cover).



Great experience!!!  Great con!!!  Great guests!!!  Not sure how I can top this one..but I will sure try.