Emerald City Comic Con

It is undisputed scientific fact that Seattle is the greatest city in the world, and home to the greatest Comic Con in the world, and least in my very scientific study of only having attended ECCC. OK, so perhaps there is some dispute. Nevertheless! Attend ECCC I did, and I wanted to give you my highlights.

On Thursday, I actually went up to the Funko store in Everett to grab some exclusive for our very own Mister Newhouse-Bailey, my brother in silly toy collecting, as well as for my friend who runs Collect it Here, a collectibles shop which I will blatantly plug now. This was really exciting, because I hadn't actually been to the Funko shop yet.

This is not where I got in the line

But seriously, the shop is an event unto itself.

A photographer I am not. there is a reason I write.

Saturday and Sunday I spent at the con, and I'm just going to sort of-apologize for not taking many pictures. As you can see up above, it's not my greatest skill in life, it was crowded as hell, and there are lots of outlets with very expensive cameras and professional photographers that took loads of pictures, if you want visuals.

Saturday was my day to mostly wander around (even once I got inside the con, since I ended up parking, I am pretty sure, further away from the convention center than I actually live). The cosplay was - as per usual - amazing (my own cosplay consisted of "doing my hair slightly different and wearing my jacket that everyone says looks like Wolverine anyway". No, you don't get a picture.). There are some great roundups of the cosplay on io9 and SyFy wire. The highlight of the cosplay, for me, was a spot-on Last Jedi Leia, which, how do you even put that on without sobbing? My goodness.

Also receiving votes: pink-bonnetted Mal, tiny Rey & Kylo,and anyone who wore a costume that didn't cover a lot, because it was really cold.

Sunday was more geared towards art, games and shopping. Artist Alley featured its usual assortment of people far, far more talented that I, so that was annoying.

If you like impossibly adorable stuff, check out Little Brigade. I mean, seriously. 

I'm only human. Take my money.

On the less cute side of things, Mike Manomivibul caught my eye with some really clever, almost-surreal work.

Outstanding in my eyes was Geoff Pascual's watercolors. There is just something about this style I adore. - and the images online (like most art) really don't do them justice. 

(not appearing at the con, but you should also check out Megan Levens)

If anyone wants to buy me a set of Norse Foundry dice, I will love you forever. PROMISE.

Which actually segues nicely into the part I've been avoiding, which is that I spent most of the day Sunday just playing board games. Which was super fun, but not exactly riveting to read a description of me trying to remember how to play Arkham Horror since I haven't played it in years. On a related note, Arkham Horror game night, my place. Who's in?

In all seriousness, we've moved so far beyond Comic Cons being about comics. If that's your thing, there are a million booths with (what I presume are) awesome comics. I'm not super into comics, and I could have spent a week playing games with random people and spending far too much money on toys and art, and there still would be more to do. 

ECCC has done a great job of running an organized, clean and (hopefully) safe and inclusive con (I'm a white guy, so I can only speak to this so much).

 

-DESR

Dean is the author of the 3024AD series of science fiction stories (which should be on YOUR summer reading list). You can read his other ramblings and musings on a variety of topics (mostly writing) on his blog. When not holed up in his office tweeting obnoxiously writing, he can be found watching or playing sports, or in his natural habitat of a bookstore.

Comic Con from Afar: Third Annual Lamentation

I try to go to cons that are nearby me in Minneapolis. (Here's me with Lou Ferrigno and me in a TARDIS at the Wizard World con this year!) But I've never had the pleasure of attending the mommacon, the San Diego Comic Con. But I hang out on Tumblr a lot. So -

Welcome to the Third Annual Nerds-of-a-Feather Comic Con from Afar post, wherein one dorkly gal gathers up some cool stuff that makes her sit up and geek out from #SDCC14. This is a totally totally biased list of things I love.

ALL MARVEL, ALL THE TIME
I saw Guardians of the Galaxy last night, and it. was. freaking. fantastic. (though my sister-in-law disagreed: “Heroes in space? That’s just not believable”). So it was doubly awesome to hear that Guardians 2 is already a thing that's happening.

Some Avengers 2: Age of Ultron footage was shown, which I would give my left nut to see. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver! They can’t call them mutants, since that would impinge on Fox’s licensing of the X-Men - even though both characters were in X-Men: Days of Future Past. You can catch a glimpse of them in this lovely retrospective from Marvel (but it's just the same brief moment from the end of Winter Soldier) :


Ant-Man too had a teaser shown, even though they haven’t even started filming.

The big panel ended with this delicious dish - Josh Brolin (Thanos) wearing the Infinity Gauntlet!!

LEGEND OF KORRA

Nick announced that Korra was moving off-air into digital-only the day before the Korra SDCC panel. Thankfully, show creators Konietzko and DiMartino helped me turn down my worry. We’ll still get all of Book Four.

WARCRAFT
The World of Warcraft movie still has more than a year of post-production, but they showed a bit of footage. Director Duncan Jones, said "We really want to make this an origin story. We want to show how the world of Azeroth falls into conflict between orcs and humans.” Well, I’ve only got one thing to say to that… For the Horde!

OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS

Of course there’s tons more stuff - Sam Raimi made more promises (this time an Evil Dead series!!), WarGames is getting remade, Firefly Online is still not here (but still using the Papyrus font), Jack Black is doing R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps movie, Mockingjay blah blah blah - but we gotta wrap up with the cosplay.

Comic Con from afar

It's that time of year when I can hardly keep up with my Reader feed because it's filled with awesome announcements on all things nerdy -- must be ComiCon! There is a LOT to report, but here are a few things I'm freakin' out about: 

AVATAR: THE LEGEND OF KORRA, the sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender, was renewed for a second season, which means there are 40 more episodes to look forward to!! Tor has some great ideas about what it'd be fun to see in the future, but the really good stuff are these sneaky pixx from the Korra panel at ComiCon, showing new outfits, new characters, new locations, and new creatures. 

Now I love love Korra just the way she is, and I know she's a different Avatar in a different time in a different show, but I'm really looking forward to more flashbacks of Aang, Sokka, Katara and Toph, mostly because I didn't really think they got the characters right when we so briefly saw them. Sure, they've grown up, but why was Aang so serious, even if he is the Avatar? Same for Sokka! "Goofball" is, like, the first thing you'd say to describe them, and stripping the humor from those two characters was pretty much the worst thing about the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie. (Maybe I'll just see if there are any grown-up fanfic-- oh, yeah, of course, here it is. And for good measure, here's the grown-up grown-up stuff.)

(FYI, if you're into Katara/Aang as your OTP, it's called KATAANG -- which I discovered by googling "ktang," one of the sounds that Rick Jones's wristbands make when struck together to call Captain Marvel from the Negative Zone. I was looking for a graphic for this post about comics and language, but instead found a bunch of incredible KatAang fanart, like THIS. You're welcome.)

(Also -- I just learned this a couple of days ago and it blew my mind -- Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender is voiced by Mae Whitman, the chick that played Ann on Arrested Development (and Roxy in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). Her? Really?!)

I'm also definitely hoping for more past-life Avatar awesomeness. So far, we've really know the stories of Korra, Aang, Kyoshi, and Roku. 

But the ten-year FIREFLY REUNION is all we really care about, right? So grab your Jayne hat, your tiny plastic dinosaurs and box of tissues, because here it is in all its glory:

Jose Molina, Tim Minear, Alan Tudyk, Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, Sean Maher, Adam Baldwin and god himself, Joss Whedon all ended crying. My boyfriend Nathan Fillion summed it all up rather well: 

“When Firefly died, I thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen. What I realize now, looking over this room, is that the worst thing that could have happened is if it had stayed dead.”

Robert Downey Jr with Iron Men!

But what I love most about Comic Con is -- well, first maybe I should tell you I'm kind of a dork. My favorite thing about Comic Con is, of course, the COSPLAY. (#nerdalert I've done a little myself... see Billy & Phoebe. They're from books you've probably never heard of. #latfh But you should!) My favorites are exclaimed!

• Here you'll find GENDERSWAPPED Geordie, Indie, Avengers, Han & Leia, Rocketeer, Tin Tin, and a really really ridiculously good-looking lady Wolvie (!).
• Here you'll find KIDS as Amidala, Hawkye, Flash, Dalek (!), Finn & Jake (!), Edward Scissorhands, and Sakura & Chung Li (!).
• Here you'll find the Engineer from Prometheus (!), Henry Jones, LSP, Carmen Sandiego, FemShep (Mass Effect).
• Here you'll find Nausicaa (!), Princess Mononoke, Ghostbusters, Batman & Bane, Scott Pilgrim & Ramona Flowers, Rorschach, Mary Poppins, Duffman, Bilbo Baggins, Disney princesses, Xena, Spy vs. Spy, Earthworm Jim, Sailor Moon, Silver Surfer (!), Arthur & the Tick, and Darth Vader grilling up Jar-Jar Binks' head.
• Here you'll find Galactus (!), hipster!princesses, regular princesses, hipster!Zelda characters, Futurama, Jem (!), MegaMan, April O'Neil and one of the TMNT, an Oompa Loompa, and zombies zombies zombies.