Mikaela’s Emerald City Comic-Con 2019 Recap – Thursday

This year marks my second Emerald City Comic-Con (ECCC), my first repeat con, and my fourth total convention… So at this point I have enough experience to be so stoked, and to anticipate high levels of exhaustion, but am still naive enough to be totally blown away and overwhelmed by the experience. It’s a pretty good place to be, and I feel pretty danged lucky to be living this life right about now.

Our ECCC trip started early this morning when we rolled our tired butts outta bed to get on the road and make it to Seattle for a soft ten. Derek did the driving, Jake held it down in the back seat, and I napped on and off… did I mention how lucky I am?! What a dream! Once we were settled into our AirBnb (which had the cutest freaking Pug in the yard) we made our way to the convention centre. We easily made our way in and were surprised at how freaking chill it is! It turns out that Thursday is the best day for avoiding crowds! Last year I was in school and had to rush down after class on Friday just to get a couple of days in, but this year we get to do the whole four days, and I’m hoping that we will be able to go on the first day every time we do anything ever, because it is so slow and relaxed, the perfect way to start a convention!

We found our way to the main floor and were immediately swept up into a game of Bakugan. I had never heard of it before, but apparently they were around in the early 2000’s and are making a comeback. It was legit a lot of fun, mostly because you get to play with these little plastic creatures that roll up into balls and then explode and dictate what happens that turn! It’s also a card game, which I had an easier time getting on board with since I have become an avid player of Keyforge: Call of the Archons! Because it was such a chill day I was lucky to have one of the employee guys at my side helping me figure out what to do for most of the game, which was suuuper helpful. Man, I wish I could just have an expert at my side answering my questions for all of life’s tasks! I ended up with a surprise win too which was a real thrill, and I thoroughly enjoyed rubbing it in Derek’s face!

The Bakugan guys asked if we would like to join a tournament which I immediately said no to, and in turn immediately regretted when we heard a roar of excitement go up from the crowd and watched two people step into a caged ring with a table in it to commence the tourney! It was a pretty awesome spectacle to watch all this people screaming and yelling about Bakugan Brawls as this guys battled. It was super fun even to just watch!

After this we decided to just explore the main show floor. I figured this would be a great day to do it as there wasn’t 4,000,000 people in the place. Turns out even without the crowds we did not make it through one whole floor before we had to call it a day, I was flabbergasted. However I thoroughly enjoyed feeling un-rushed and just pausing to look at whatever struck our interest.

For the first time I went out of my way to grab something from the convention’s specific merchandise booth. I am a huge Stranger Things fan and this year ECCC will be hosting some of the Stranger Things cast, and there is an ECCC exclusive cover for the first edition of the Stranger Things comic. I was super anxious about getting a copy of the comic before they ran out so I made us take a pit stop to grab it part way through the day. I am so friggin excited about it, and am totally gonna frame it to display in our house. It’s also kinda poetic, since at the first convention I ever went to (Fan Expo Vancouver a few years back) one of the most special things I bought was a comic with a commissioned cover where the artist drew a classic Eleven from Stranger Things (I also made Derek an epic Eleven halloween costume, so I might be a bit of a fan!)

We continued to walk around, looking at comics, games, art, and spending way to much time reading the back of so many amazing looking books. I ended up buying myself a book, Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller, but it was sooo hard to choose! There was a lady with red hair, who’s name I wish I knew so I could give her internet props right here, at the Harper-Collins booth who literally knew sooo much about every book and was so helpful and informative, and I can’t wait to start the book I picked! I also got a free book with my purchase, and a Neil Gaiman bag which is pretty much the bomb, especially since I am on a real Neil Gaiman kick right now (If you haven’t read The Ocean at the End of the Lane stop right now and go find it. So. Good…. Also Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book are stellar stories by this great man!)

We got sucked into a booth by a man holding out his hand and saying something that I didn’t quite understand. I mostly just felt awkward and shook his hand, but then he asked if we read comics, and when I said we mostly didn’t he decided that his might be the one for us. I know this sounds pushy and off putting but it was actually great, he instructed us to open the series he was selling and see if it spoke to us. Immediately I knew that it wasn’t my style, even though I would have liked it to be, I just wasn’t drawn in by it, which he totally picked up on and was not offended by. He then opened up another book for us and immediately I was invested. The book is called Rosalynd, and it’s a graphic novel written in a diary style from the perspective of a young girl who will grow up to be a vampire hunter. Between the three of us I’m pretty sure it became blaring obvious that I didn’t want to put this book down. Without even consulting me Derek asked to purchase it and the gent who were were talking to, who happened to be both author and illustrator, promptly signed it for me! I’m stoked! As we walked away Derek informed me that this person, Stephan Franck, was a supervising animator on The Iron Giant. I was floored, and extra stoked!

In my wanderings today I found so many different things that I want to read. It was really hard to not buy everything, and even harder to have all these conversations with people who are so proudly discussing with you their heart’s work, and then having to make the decision to walk away even though you are so interested, just not rich enough for all the things. I am glad I have the rest of the weekend to decide on some of the things I feel torn over not buying. There was a really interesting erotic graphic novel that I was super stoked on, and I’m pretty sure if I’m still thinking about it by Sunday it is going to be coming home with me! I’m also hoping to bring home at least one print, although I found a whole bunch today that I really like, and we haven’t even ATTEMPTED Artist Alley yet, so wish me luck in narrowing it down to just one! Last year there were a couple of prints I snagged that I totally love and have proudly displayed on our kitchen wall, it was pretty cool to see the same artists having booths here this year.

We also stumbled across Laika’s The Missing Link characters, which was super cool! We had some Monster Energy Java samples, found a both repping Pet Semetery, that literally had nothing but a few employee who were googling just what the heck Pet Semetary was and handing out little branded flashlights… it was a bit odd.

Once we decided to make our way out we quickly hopped into the Jelly Belly BeanBoozled booth to take the gross flavoured vs good flavoured Jelly Belly challenge. I literally ate 3 jelly beans that were supposed to be either dirty dishwasher or birthday cake and they all tasted the exact same amount of sugary sweetness and not gross at all… I’m pretty sure I was just enjoying the dirty dishwasher flavour *hangs head in shame*

We then took a Lyft over to a Japanese grocery store, which was super neat (and where we bought a peach-flavoured Coca-Cola), where we met our friends and then headed back to our AirBnb. Now, remember how I talked about feeling lucky? Picture this: our friends literally went grocery shopping (and more importantly beverage shopping) for all of us today, and after arriving at home they made dinner for us while we worked on writing. How freaking amazing is that?!

All in all this day has been pretty freaking amazing. I feel so happy and absolutely fortunate to be able to enjoy this experience, and so frigging grateful to the people around me who have helped make this day super lovely. Special shout out to Derek for not only introducing me to this magical geeky life, but for also taking every opportunity to encourage me and spoil me as much as he can. I can’t to wait to see what the rest of this weekend brings!