My Emerald City Comicon experience

I woke up at 5am last Saturday morning and drove to Seattle's Emerald City Comicon. It took about four hours, with me driving like a grandma and stopping a couple places on the way. Finding overnight parking downtown was a bitch, but once I did, I took a leisurely stroll to the convention, which was in the Qwest Field Sports Stadium Event Center, which is right next to SafeCo Field. This is the kind of mass marketing clusterfuck I usually try to avoid, with two hundred foot banners of athletes I don't recognize, but as it turned out the venue was nice and relaxed. I found my pro-badge laying on a table and didn't even have to talk to anyone on my way in.

As usual the excitement of attending a convention turned into instant dread once I was actually there. This is probably because I don't go to enough conventions anymore and once I'm inside the con I don't recognize anyone I know. Everyone I see is having a great time socializing, and I question why I'm even there. I feel like I've just crashed a party that some friend of a friend invited me to and I'm craning my neck above the happy heads looking for that one person in the crowd I recognize.

That one person of course was David Mack, who I'm currently collaborating with on a SE7EN comic book. David attends most conventions and is surrounded by tons on fans (deservedly so) and seems comfortable and relaxed in the venue. But then so do I, on the outside.

I'm not intimidated by individuals, no matter how talented, beautiful, successful, or famous they are. I played darts with Michael Caine when I was a little kid, in the pub he owned and bartended when not working on movies. I met Arnold Schwarzenegger at age thirteen (when he was an action movie god to many boys my age) while filming the climax to Commando on the beach near Hearst's Castle (I lived nearby). And there has been many since, including some of my childhood heroes (comic book creators, mostly) who I've had the opportunity to collaborated with on occasion. When it all comes down to it, they are just people. But crowds of people do intimidate me, because I usually feel like the odd person out, caught in a riptide, even in a place where I very much shouldn't feel that way. Like a comic book convention.

Once acclimated to the con, which took an hour or so of me browsing (or pretending to browse) the vendors, saying hi to Mack, meeting writer Ron Marz (who did the intro to the Robotika hardcover I worked on), chatting with Michael Golden (the superhero artist of my teen years), and talking to Rick Remender about how we'd both recently moved to Portland from California so we could buy a house we could afford. Circling back to Mack's booth I stumbled into writer Derek Fetters, who I'd arranged to meet at the con, and we went out to lunch nearby.

I must say, the highlight of the convention for me, of which there were many, was meeting the immensely charming (and talented) Joshua Dysart, who wrote the most awesome review of my work a couple months back. We'd never met, but one of Dysart's publishers had set up a table for him and I introduced myself. We talked animatedly at his table for nearly an hour and then walked around the convention floor until closing, then had dinner across the street with a large group of conventioneers, followed by a taxi ride to the Fantagraphics after-party at their new retail store and gallery. Although that turned out to be mostly people standing around drinking cheap beer from cans and browsing books I'd already read, I did meet some interesting people and have a few fun conversations.

After the party Joshua and I bar-hopped around Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood along with House of Parlance editor Sean Cranbury and Tabloia creator Chris Wisnia, until we finally got a taxi back to our respective hotels at 3am. Probably the longest almost-continuous conversation I've had in years with someone I'd just met.

What had it been, twelve hours?

My "hotel" was actually The Green Tortoise Hostel right across from Pike Place Market. I'd stayed there years ago (and it's San Francisco sister-hostel) and rode the Tortoise's Adventure Bus line a few times. Lots of fun. I'm opposed to paying a hundred and fifty bucks for a hotel room I'll only see for thirty seconds before my face hits the pillow, so renting a bed in a hostel works just fine when I'm traveling alone.

Miraculously I got nearly six hours of sleep. Late Sunday morning I pulled my car out of overnight parking and drove to the convention center, coffee in hand, feeling rather good.

No convention dread on the second day. And no hangover.

I bought a stack of Joshua Dysart penned Swamp Thing comics (I had really only read his Conan stuff). I also bought an issue of Tabloia from Chris, while chatting with his wife Elizabeth and their baby (who I think was wailing a Led Zeppelin song at one point). And I was given several issues of Kabuki by Mister Mack, for which I offered a single issue of Robotika in trade.


Okay, to backtrack a little: the previous night, while having dinner upstairs with Joshua Dysart, retailer/publisher Mike Wellman and others at the nearby Pyramid Ale House, I found a message on my cell from Mack telling me that he was downstairs having dinner with his own group. I went down, beer in hand, and said hello to actress/model Mandy Amano, writers Brian Bendis and Ed "I just killed Captain America" Brubaker, and spent quite a bit of time talking to current Daredevil inker Stefano Gaudiano.

So, on Sunday I had the opportunity to spend more time with Mack, hanging out at his table, perusing his artwork, and talking to Marvel editor Jen Grunwald and writer/artist Mike Oeming, who invited me to join them for lunch, which was a relaxing way to wrap up the weekend. I decided soon after to hit the road.

I made it back to Portland in three hours, convinced I must start attending more conventions, as I had a really excellent time. And I should probably do more comics too. That way I wouldn't be crashing the party. I'd be the party.