2011 Emerald City Comicon Recap

This year’s ECCC was a blast! The event organizers have estimated there were 30,000 people in attendance which is about 10,000 more than last year so it seems it was a smashing success! This was the first 3-day ECCC and next year will follow the same format scheduled for March 30th-April 1st, 2012.

The added space made it feel less crowded despite the major increase in attendance. Kudos to the event organizers for that. Personally, I wasn’t too excited about this year’s media guests. I felt last year’s line-up was much better (unless you are a Trekkie in which this year was for you). On the other hand, they had a great line up of comic creators as usual. I came away from the event being a huge fan of first time guest Cliff Chang  and his retro movie poster art and pin ups. He’s got some of his ECCC sketches here (a Larry Blackmon Riddler?! Are you kidding me??!!).

The HeroClix gaming was fantastic. The separate room for gaming made it for a much better atmosphere compared to years past when it was right on the busy convention floor. Props again to Craig and his support for the fantastic job they did in organizing it all. The winning team in the main sealed tournament of the weekend (consisting of one DC 75th and one Brave & the Bold booster) was Deadshot, Batman (DC75), Talia & Jason Blood.  Of course one of the best things about this year’s HeroClix activities is that over $1,100 was raised and donated to Seattle Children’s Hospital.

The costumes were in full effect of course. Like always, there were those who could get away with what they wore and those who looked like they didn’t have a friend or a mirror when they left the house. This year there seemed to be a lot of Deadpool love going on. I also saw a lot of Bobba Fett /Mandalorian costumes.

If you missed ECCC this year or like me you were there but couldn’t be everywhere at once, iFanboy has a great video recap here and CBR has summaries of many of the panels here.