Emerald City Comic-Con in review

[rivendellrose]

For all that we bought the full 3-day passes, The Boy and I did not spend a whole ton of time at Emerald City Comic-Con (about half a day yesterday, plus a few hours today), but we accomplished all our goals admirably. To wit:

1. Got my Hellboy art book signed by Mike Mignola, without even having to spend an hour in line - this last accomplished by a pleasant bit of luck whereby we found his table just as someone started recording a video interview with him, whereupon his line disappeared because the volunteer being somewhat of a guard for him told people he'd be away for about an hour... and then promptly found out that he'd only be doing the interview for about 15 minutes. We waited, and I was able to be the first in line after his interview. Hooray! Nice man, very kind, we discussed how nice it would be if cons all gave their guests a dog to pet so that they wouldn't get stressed (one of the gentlemen interviewing him had a service dog, who I'd seen Mike give an enthusiastic goodbye to at the end of the interview, so I'd commented on that).

2. Ran into royal_archivist and shadawyn! Missed everyone else who was there, unfortunately (if you called me on Saturday, I apologize for not picking up - my phone died!), apart from a work friend.

3. Went to the BPRD panel, where I learned, among other things, that Guy Davis is leaving the series to do other work. Was somewhat heartened by this (I've never liked his figure work, despite thinking that his landscapes and monsters and so on are very good), until I saw the display panel of the new artist at the Dark Horse booth, which... well... it was his first time drawing the characters? But really, we had so many fantastic guest artists on the series at the beginning of its run, why couldn't we have, for instance, kept Ryan Sook? Grumble.

4. Got my con t-shirt! ♥ I'm wearing it now, and I absolutely love it. Hellboy and the Space Needle. What's not to love?

5. Got the ECC exclusive BPRD comic from the Dark Horse booth. Only a few pages, black and white, but it's got a giant crab monster demolishing the Space Needle, the monorail, and Pike Place Market. I love it.

6. Got random art! I bought Pie Cthulhu by Echo Chernik (octopus tentacles, pie, and absolutely stunning Mucha-style art nouveau - how could I possibly resist?!), and a lovely Abe Sapien print (also featuring tentacles... my side of the office is going to look like tentacle central if I get any more of this theme going...) from another artist whose name I cannot at the moment recall but who was very nice (he and his table-mate and I had a rousing chat about my awesome con t-shirt and the Hellboy & BPRD art in general), and The Boy picked up a gorgeous print by Enfu, a local artist whose work we'd seen around but had never actually met. The print he got is "Mixed Signals," the 2nd print on that page.

And in non-con (ha) news, our dishwasher works again! Hooray! ♥

Anyway, all in all a very successful weekend. Going to need to hit the frame store to find frames for my lovely prints. ♥

Comments

[pat-t.livejournal.com]

Love the art. And glad your dishwasher is working again. I remember growing up when my sister and I were the dishwashers.

Sounds like a very successful weekend.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And yeah, I've had many years' experience of being the dishwasher (or sharing dishwasher duty, as The Boy and I have done most of our time together). Honestly, the poor thing's probably been working for a few months now (it was a plumbing problem, not the actual machine), but I had a bad experience with a flooded house back in college due to a broken water heater, and so have a neurotic terror of appliances that involve water. When the blasted thing leaked once due to the plumbing error, it just took me this long to give it another chance. Had to wait until a day when I was willing to sit there and watch it like a hawk through a few full cycles, just to make sure it wasn't planning to leak all over again. :P

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

Hellboy and the Space Needle sounds like an awesome t-shirt! I'm glad you had a good time and got all you wanted accomplished!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It's very cool. ♥ Thank you!

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had a great time. The art is stunning. Very, very cool stuff!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It was very awesome. And I thought you might like that art! She's local to your neck of the woods, too. Nice gal, I got the impression she was kind of boggled by the amount of attention (and business) she was getting here. ;)

[joellehart.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a total success!

At Dragon*Con I was afraid Mike Mignola would be grouchy (maybe because of that intro in a volume of Hellboy that describes emphatically describes him as grouchy multiple times), but he was friendly then too. There was an attendee in an impressive steampunk-style Kroenen costume -- when Mike saw him he jumped up like a fanboy and asked to get a photo -- I got to take the photo of them together. ^_^

I couldn't agree with you more about Guy Davis' art and the new guy -- you mean Tyler Crook?
(http://geek-news.mtv.com/2011/03/09/eccc-2011-tyler-crook-is-your-new-bprd-artist/)
(Facebook offered me this link just yesterday)
My impressions on this drawing alone: Abe looks okay, about how I'm used to with Guy, Panya is fine, Liz has awesome hair but an expression like she's trying to front some emo-metal band, and Kate looks more putty-like then I'd ever hoped her to look.
And... maybe I'm just behind... but who's the pterodactyl?

On a side note, I just recently watched the opening miniseries for Battlestar Galactica for the first time (got the series as a gift) -- when Starbuck won the card game in the beginning, I KNEW I had seen her making that expression somewhere before.... it's your icon!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

There was an attendee in an impressive steampunk-style Kroenen costume -- when Mike saw him he jumped up like a fanboy and asked to get a photo

Awwwwwwwwww. Oh, I would have loved to see that - both the costume and Mignola's reaction to it! I did adore seeing him get all lovey about the dog, though. Guys and dogs = awesome.

Tyler Crook, yes! Thank you, I'd immediately forgotten his name after seeing it at the booth, and was disappointed because... I'd hoped I'd be able to look up more of his stuff, to see if maybe he was just awkward drawing the characters for the first time? But really... I don't know. I know we can't have Mignola (cripes, I'm grateful enough that he's coming back to drawing Hellboy!), but surely there are artists out there who, how shall I say this... can draw people without making them look hideous? I mean, I love Ryan Sook's takes on everyone back in "The Hollow Earth" - why couldn't we keep him? Or what about the guy who did the first Abe Sapien graphic novel - he was brilliant, and they had him in a side comic in one of the recent Hellboy trades (the one set in Appalachia - I'm still a teensy bit behind and haven't got the most recent), and he was awesome. ...Granted, I probably like him because his style is more organic and he draws Abe absolutely gorgeously. But still. This guy... I mean, yes, Abe looks about like he does when Davis draws him. But Liz and Kate look like they're... I don't even know, but their individual eyes are going different directions and Liz looks constipated. He did a great job with Krauss, but... Krauss is a jar of gas. He's easy. Nice job on Panya, but the thing holding onto her shoulder, the pteradactyl? It, um, has a human hand. Did I miss a plot development about a pteradactyl with a human hand? And, if so, should I be relieved that I did? o_O

Oh, yay! BSG! I hope you're enjoying it! ♥ Starbuck is such a horrible person sometimes, but I love her so much in spite of that. I love that whole damned series so much. ♥ I can't wait to hear what you think of it!

[joellehart.livejournal.com]

Heheh, I'm glad it's not just me who's baffled by the pterodactyl. But I'm not up-to-date on BPRD. The latest volume of Hellboy -- that's the one with Batman, isn't it? It's noteable just for involving Batman, but otherwise unremarkable -- not a big deal not getting it, I might not buy it myself. I'm just waiting for The Fury to start coming out. I broke down and bought all three individual issues of the Storm as they came out, and I'm having a hard time remembering that trade paperback readers haven't seen the twists I've seen yet.

The steampunk!Kroenen has some photos up on flickr, I just googled it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cryptonaut/2813499422/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30460306@N04/2856616249/

You're absolutely right on the guy who did Abe Sapien: the Drowning -- moody settings, dynamic and expressive character drawing. And that panel of the shadow overtaking the witch -- DUDE.

Just after I finished the BSG miniseries, I called the guy who gave it to me and said hoarsely, "What have you given me? This is brutal!"
I mean... the baby! The little girl on the botanic garden ship! I kept thinking they wouldn't go there, and then they went there. And Boomer! Argh! I feel like I got all emotionally swung around and I haven't even started the series yet.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Eeee, that Kroenen costume is fantastic! I love the helmet, absolutely gorgeous!

The guy who did The Drowning... man, I have seriously considered looking up the rest of his stuff, just because... beautiful. Expressive and organic and dark, and... everything I love, right there on the page. I was so happy. Alas, the more recent Abe Sapien stuff has a new artist who, while okay, is not that brilliant. Siiiiiiigh. Where do all the good artists go?

As far as Hellboy... eeeeeeeee, I hate being behind, but I've not yet been able to convince myself to buy individual comics new, just the few that I find at used bookstores. Which, sometimes I find good stuff, but generally not the up-to-date bits. Just little one-offs and randomness (like the Hellboy crossover with Beasts of Burden, which is terribly cute). So yeah. I think I may have inadvertently picked up a spoiler at the panel, but I'm doing the mental equivalent of covering my eyes and humming and pretending I didn't hear it, so, yeah. Must wait until trade comes out! Must! XD

So, advice about BSG: sometimes, things get bad. But they do not, on the whole, get quite as bad as you imagine them getting. Take the bad that you are imagining in the blackest part of your mind and, most of the time, subtract a bit. Just a bit, but it's usually enough. At least, that was what I found. Mostly. There was one point in season 2 where I literally had to tell The Boy that we needed to stop for a few nights and watch something happy so that I could recover completely before we kept going. I have friends who stopped outright after that episode. It's a tough one. But, on the whole, stick it out and it's worth it.

I kept thinking they wouldn't go there, and then they went there.

Yeeeeeah, get used to that feeling.

I feel like I got all emotionally swung around and I haven't even started the series yet.

...And that one, too. :P I had both many times. That feeling of "oh, but they wouldn't... oh my GOD, they just did." But it is worth it to finish. There are so many fantastic, beautiful, awesome moments that make all the horrible things everyone goes through totally worthwhile. ♥ And yay, you like Boomer, too! Boomer is one of my favorite characters. I ♥ her massively, poor screwed up little thing that she is. I have a lovely icon of her, but it is a bit spoily, so I will save it until you've got safely past the spoiler.

...And when you get to That One Really Horrifying Episode (....you'll know it when you see it, I suspect...), we can have an online support group.

(...And sorry if I'm going crazy on the IT'S WORTH IT!!! thing - my best friend and I tried watching it a few years ago and stopped a few episodes in because we felt like it was too bleak, and I always kind of regret not keeping going, now that I've seen the whole thing and know... the overall arc of things. It's worth it. Soveryawesome.)

[joellehart.livejournal.com]

I heard that the Beasts of Burden one-shot was good.
The Storm is three issues for three bucks each -- I figured why not. I got spoiled myself before I read it, by a friend on the internet, but here's the good news: first, even though I was spoiled for one big twist there were still other moments when I turned the page and was surprised and delighted, and secondly, The Storm is really just buildup anyway, and The Fury is going to be all payoff.

I had a chance to watch BSG in early 2008, when a friend of mine lent it to me and my roommate at the time -- but she lent us the Hellboy comics at the same time, and both being too busy with thesis work to enjoy it all, my roommate chose BSG and I chose Hellboy. Mostly it was just our media preferences -- I find it very difficult to commit to watching a full hour or couple of hours on tv/video, but I can pick up a comic book for a few minutes at any time. I don't regret my choice, and I'm glad to have the chance to make up for lost time and get into BSG now.
The friend who gave me BSG is being very good about not giving spoilers -- while still giving all the type of encouragement. He tells me there are at least two more Cylons besides the four in the pilot (the fourth! Argh!) -- which, as I thought there might be eight, is kind of reassuring I guess. Also he keeps playing with my mind by defending Gaius.