The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: Shows And Events



By Tom Spurgeon

* one of the final "first events" of the calendar year, Emerald City Comicon dominates downtown Seattle. That's a fine show, well-run, and with some smart administrative touches like mostly separating the comics stuff from the Hollywood stuff in a way that allows the comic book stuff to feel like its own thing.

* I don't know what downtown Seattle is like anymore, not really, but I know that Seattle's history as an urban center has been in some ways about finding a balance between corporate/national and local businesses. Do yourself a favor and don't eat anything in a mall, or anything you know also has locations in a mall. Don't drink chain coffee -- get your hotel people to direct you to something a bit more homegrown, even if it's only a bit. There are things within walking distance that are as close to real Seattle things as anything that was there in 1989, you just have to look a bit. That's way too great of a city for there to be a convention/city disconnect at its big comics show.

* I heard this show had good energy in 2015 and the video would seem to confirm it. That's an interesting part of the country for artists to visit right now, too. I hope I can go this year.

* the Chicago Zine Fest just did their big press e-mail in terms of "here we are/he we come" so the web site for the late April show might deserve some special, recurring attention from those interested.

* this is great: Steve Bissette found an advertisement for the 1997 Comic-Con International.

* finally, I went to PIX over the weekend. I thought the show was pretty strong, but the crowds were not all that great. I got to see Bill Griffith teach a 90 minute class and enjoyed that a great deal. I even got to meet Kaz! I'll try to upload some photos in the space below later on this morning.
 
posted 5:25 pm PST | Permalink
 

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