Emerald City Comic Con: Day 3 report

After staying up far too late the night before (albiet having an awesome time while doing it), dragging myself out of bed was not the easiest thing this morning.

Then it hit me: oh yeah! I’m at EMERALD CITY COMIC CON! That realization was better than a cup of coffee, so I was out the door, checked out of the hotel, and ready for day three in a flash.

This was easily my personal favorite day of the con. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as Saturday, and I wasn’t feeling the sense of overwhelmed lost-ness that I had been on Friday. It was a nice, low-key day comprised mostly of buying things I had had my eye on, talking to Kirby Krackle, Adam WarRock and the H2Awesome guys, and finally–after two days!–starting to understand why Artist’s Alley is such a sacred and integral part of any con. The largest portion of my day was spent browsing sketchbooks and artwork and just generally being blown away by the fact that all this talent was under a single roof.

I also bought–over my wallet’s protests–my very first piece of original comic book art! It’s a page from the wonderful mini series Captain America: Man Out of Time (which I review, by the way.) The artist, Karl Kesel, had tons of wonderful pages for sale–including some awesome stuff at more than reasonable prices–but when I saw this piece, I knew instantly that I had to own it. Not only is it one of my favorite scenes in the series (so far), it has beautiful drawings of Iron Man and Captain America–easily my two favorite Marvel characters. Wroth every penny:

Next, it was off to visit the guys who had entertained me so much at the concert the night before. Kirby Krackle was, as always, a blast to talk to, and Kyle Stevens (lead singer) helpfully pointed me in the direction of Adam WarRock and H2Awesome.

Adam, sadly, was out of CDs (ordering one is the next thing I do after finishing this report!) but it nice to be able to shake his hand and thank him for the show. I was smart enough to have bought H2Awesome’s CD the night before, though, so that I had in hand. Only problem: the cover was empty! No CD should have an empty cover! Fortunately, Charlie LaGreca, lead singer (and noseflute player extraordinare) came to the rescue!

“What would you like the CD to be titled?” he asked me.

I was a bit taken aback–since when do fans get to pick their own name for a CD? “I dunno,” I answered. “I think my favorite song you do is ‘Avatard’…so I guess I’d call it Avatard.”

That was all he needed to hear. 30 minutes later, I had a beautiful pencil and watercolor piece for my CD:

Better than some corporate-approved, computer-generated image any day of the week!

Sitting right next to the band was an exceptional artist named Hamza Pecenkovic. Now, I’m a huge fan of the Bat-family, so you can imagine how I reacted to this piece he had on display:

Yeah, that needed to be mine. And now it is. 😀 He also threw in a lovely sketch of Batwoman with the purchase, which I stupidly forgot to get a photo of, but trust me: it’s nice.

On my way to the Sunday Morning Conversation with DC, something catches my eye in a display. Is…is that what I think it is?