Emerald City Comic Con - 2009

The show is over, I've rested up a bit, and I'm now ready to share.

It's a long post, folks. Better be prepared to read for a while.

Friday I got up early with Hotness and packed the car for the weekend.

She had to work a half-day, so I went into work with her until it was time to head into Seattle.

We got to Seattle and checked into the hotel.

Whoa! It was a sweet room and the service was great. Looking forward to staying here again.

I took surprisingly few pictures this year, but I wish I'd gotten some of the room.

The bathroom was H-U-G-E!

After unpacking, we met up with Steph before going to the convention center. While we were in the lobby I saw Filip Sablik (from Top Cow). He had just gotten in as well, so we decided to grab some lunch together.

We ate at the Daily Grill and had some really yummy food.

Then it was time to meet up with everyone at the convention center.

Quite a few of the volunteers had already gotten there and were busy stuffing a few give-away bags and organizing the registration area.

Hotness and went our separate ways about that point. She stayed to talk and catch up with some of the volunteers while I went in to check out the floor layout and get familiar with where everything was. I also wanted to see who was here and possibly give some of the gifts I had for guests if they were around.

As luck would have it, Brian Pulido was there setting up his booth. When he was here a couple years back, we'd talked about bands we were into and I told him about my collection of concert bootlegs.

So this year I made him copies of Black Sabbath w/ Ozzy from 1978, and w/ Ronnie James Dio from 1980. I also made a copy of a concert right before Van Halen's debut album and one of Aerosmith in 1990. (All of which our some of my favorites). I even found a few mp3s of a band called Beatallica and made up a CD of them for him to check out.

Lastly, I remembered that he and his wife really liked sushi so I printed up a list of restaurants near the convention center for him.

He was pleased as punch to receive all of the gifts and really surprised that I had even remembered talking about it.

That night a group of us wanted to get some drinks and then food (in that order).

We went to Von's for martinis. we were sitting at the table when I noticed Stephen Silver come in. He recognized me from Calgary last year, so I went up to say "hi" before he got a table.

When the waitress arrived it was a round of alcohol for everybody. Not having anything to eat really put the alcohol into my system quickly. When she came back and asked if we wanted anything else I ordered another drink, but I wasn't able to finish it as I was REALLY starting to feel it now. It was an absinthe, and man that stuff is strong!

I could only finish half of it before I knew I'd better quit or else face dire consequences.

We walked up the block and had dinner at the Daily Grill, where more people joined up in our group.

There was about 12 of us just sitting around eating and drinking and having a great time.

By the way, look at the size of this pot pie somebody ordered! It's freaking GINORMOUS!

It was getting late, so we all went back to our hotel rooms and sleep (as best as we could) for the convention the next day.

On our way to the room, four of us popped into Ruth's Chris Steakhouse to see who might be hanging around and we ran into Ted Naifeh and a friend.

He was hilarious and since Hotness was really hoping to meet him at the show, this was a geek moment for her.

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On Saturday morning I met up and had breakfast with Chris B. at the Dragonfish.

Then went back to the hotel to gather up my stuff.

The show opened at 10:00 a.m. I got the the convention center around 8:30 and there was already a very large line waiting to get in.

We had a brief meeting (the guest service volunteers) and then went about waiting until the show began.

Guests started trickling in and I introduced myself to the new ones and reacquainted myself with the ones who'd been here before.

Some of them I had brought gifts for, so I wanted to make sure and give them to them before I got too busy and forgot.

I saw Colleen Coover and Paul Tobin who were very nice. I gave Paul a copy of an out of print Tom Jones CD, since we're both big fans, and told him how much I was enjoying his books. I hadn't read any of his stuff the prior year, so he was glad to hear that I since we last met.

Rob Liefeld was just getting settled in at his both, when I stopped by to say hello and leave a bag

of mini Snickers for him. I remembered that he was a big candy junky last time he was here, so he was really glad I had brought them for him.

Mike & Miriam were back and I brought them a copy of a U2 concert from Israel in 1997.

Next to them was Jim Mahfood. When I saw him in Calgary last year, I told him I'd get copies of some of the mashups I've collected to him. Taking a cue from this, I made my own version with over 100 different mashups and remixes. He was suitably impressed and I'm looking forward to hearing how he liked the music when he gets the chance.

I also met back up with Gene Ha and Stuart Immonen, who both remembered me from Calgary last year. Dan Brereton and his wife. Steve Rolston (who I remembered to bring Red Bull drinks for). Stephen Sadowski and partner. Jeff Parker. And quite a few others.

When 10:00 a.m. came around, the doors opened and the attendees poured in.

After that it was a blur of activity.

I'd like to tell you a lot of interesting stories while I was on the floor, but to be honest it went by really fast and I was extremely busy.

We had some trouble getting drinks in for the guests, so that was a hurdle that had to be jumped. Not to mention trying to get the lunch orders handed out and picked back up in time to get the guests their lunches. It was a busy, busy day.

When 6:00 p.m. came and the Saturday show was over, the guests headed out to do their own thing while the volunteers and staff went to do theirs.

Hotness was working with the media guests, so I really didn't get to see her much during the day.

She made some loose plans for us to have dinner with friends, and then possibly followed up with having drinks with the BSG guys if they made it out of their rooms for the night.

We had dinner at Daily Grill which was fantastic and followed it up with sushi and drinks at Dragonfish. The BSG guys never showed up, but many of the other volunteers made their way over to Dragonfish later in the evening so there were a few "pockets" of us scattered throughout the restaurant. I made my way among each of them seeing how their day went and so on.

A long day followed by a long evening, so we thought we'd go back to our room and sleep before Sunday rolled around.

And right about now, I realize this is getting extremely long-winded. So I'm going to cut it off here and I'll follow up with the second day of the show in another day or two.