ECCC Part 1: The Booths

After months of planning, yesterday my girlfriend and I went to the Emerald City Comicon.  In short, it was amazing!  It took over the whole convention center and spanned four floors.  The panels were hosted in rooms on all the levels, but the comic-centered booths were only on the fourth floor and the gaming booths were on the first floor.  There was a huge crowd of people (many of whom dressed in cosplay) from all ages and areas of interest, which made for a really fun atmosphere.  The show ran from Friday to Sunday, but we only went for Saturday.  There is so much to say about the con, so over the next few days I'll break it into three easy to chew pieces: the booths, the panels, and of course the costumes.

Booths
The fourth floor was the main floor where they had a huge hall set up with lots of booths.  There were booths of artists, shops, and organizations.  When most people think of comic books they picture super heros like Batman (DC Comics) or Spiderman (Marvel Comics), but there is a vast world of comic books that cover all kinds of genres.  There were little kid comics, historical comics, graphic novels, LGBT comics, web comics and more.  Comics are a great artistic way to explore a lot of rich worlds.  We had a fun time just going around and looking at all the variety.

On the first floor they set up all the gaming booths.  There were card games, an arcade, a Guitar Hero contest, and demos of the latest Star Wars game for the Kinect.  They had a really cool R2D2 Xbox with a C3P0 controller.  The gaming section booths looked great and had a lot of stuff, but since the area was pretty small it was packed with people.

The artist booths were my favorite.  Their artwork covered original material as well as personal takes on well known subjects like super heroes or television shows.  The artwork was not just limited to drawings; there was a lot of comic-inspired figurines, crafts, and jewelry.  Many of the artists were there doing sketches at their booths.  It was cool to see the artistic process first hand.  And since most comic book artists are freelance the show is a great way for them to get fans and find work.

There were also a lot of shops set up with really cheap comic book deals, toys, tshirts, etc. but we didn't bring any extra money for shopping.

The booths were interesting, but it was hard to get a good look at them since we were in costume and everyone was stopping us to take pictures (including the people running the booths).  We mostly just used walking around the booths as a time filler while we waited for tomorrow's subject: panels.