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At one point on Sunday, during day two of the Emerald City ComiCon, nestled in the concrete bowels of Qwest Field, I found myself standing at a urinal next to Peter Mayhew. That’s right, Chewbacca himself. We all know Chewie is one tall drink of water, but as I now realize, the sheer mass of flesh required to fill that costume is difficult to comprehend until one finds Mayhew emptying his bladder in close proximity. And I know what you’re thinking…did I look? Well, did I?
The 2007 Emerald City ComiCon was my first foray into the world of hardcore public geekdom. I’ve always been the kind of guy who, I won’t say secretly for those who know me would cry shenanigans, at least didn’t advertise his geekiness to the world. I don’t go around wearing Star Wars shirts (my boxers are good enough. It hides the logo and provides me with my favorite pickup line, “I’ve got a lightsaber in my pants. Wanna see?”). I don’t play Magic (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I at least try to prevent my head from exploding when people say Star “Track”. I even felt a little embarrassed to be seen at the 3 am showing of Revenge of the Sith on opening day (although I don’t know why when the guy in line next to me had admittedly just raced to the theater from the end of a midnight showing). The point is that I’ve always been hesitant to truly put myself out there and let my geek flag fly in public domain.
Emerald City ComiCon gave me a chance to do this.
It was a crisp April morn when I arrived at Qwest Field on Sunday, flanked by Panel creator Tyler Swank and a couple of like-minded Panel sympathizers, including local artist Andy Barry, who I’m hoping will lob something our way soon. Andy was the only one of us who had prior ComiCon experience elsewhere, though admittedly, the biggest name at his previous incursion was some guy who bragged that Stan Lee liked his Spiderman.
The Emerald City Con was a veritable who’s who of radness. Aside from the aforementioned Mayhew, Margot Kidder was in attendance (I should have asked for her thoughts on my Kraptonite piece), as well as badass writers like Brian Bendis (Avengers), who joined Ed Brubaker (Daredevil) and Brian Reed (Ms. Marvel) in the most anticipated Panel discussion of the day (more on that later). Kurt Busiek, now with DC but who I revere for his Dark Horse Conan trades, was also in attendance. I didn’t know many of the artists. They all look the same to me. I’m a writer. Although over the course of the day, I became intimately familiar with Chris Sprouse (Midnighter) due to Tyler’s frequent visits to his table. Andy spent the majority of his day cruising Artist Alley, making obscene gestures to represent his various levels of orgasm.
I was personally most amped to meet Brian Posehn. In the comic world, he’s the writer of The Last Christmas, an intriguing look at a future featuring a drunk Santa battling mutants. Outside of the comic world, he’s an amazing stand up comedian and contributor to the best television show ever, Mr. Show. As chance would have it, we ended up in line directly behind him walking into the Con. I later stopped by his booth and awkwardly shook his hand. If I had any sense I would have snapped a photo or something. Our interaction led me to one of my lessons learned: bring stuff you own by the people you want to meet so they can sign it. Even if you don’t care about autographs, it’s a reason to stop and say hi rather than simply talking at them like a jackass, which is what I did to Mr. Posehn. But he was a cool dude.
Tyler and I had a series of awkward interactions near the Media Guests area, which is where Mayhew and Kidder were hanging out, along with Feedback from Who Wants to be a Superhero? and Gigi Edgley from Farscape (hotter in person), among others.
The first of these interactions featured Tyler overexcitedly charging Wayne Pygram’s table and dancing after seeing color photos of Grand Moff Tarkin on display. He didn’t yet realize that Pygram played Tarkin in Revenge of the Sith and that he was sitting right there, visibly alarmed by Tyler’s display. I think that deep down Pygram liked it, though, because when we bashfully shuffled off, he seemed disappointed that we weren’t actually attempting to meet him.
Shortly after, we tried to steal photos of me with Mayhew and Kidder (as they charged a sizable fee). I stood nearby, poorly attempting to look like I was taking notes while Tyler snapped pictures. Someone actually cried out, “Hey! They’re cheating!” But nobody seemed to care, which leads me to my next factoid. Mayhew and Kidder, but more specifically Peter Mayhew, could not have looked more forlorn from beginning to end. Kidder looked downtrodden but kept busy with crosswords. In the multiple walk bys and urinal-buddy time I spent with Mayhew, he didn’t crack a smile once. But I can’t say I blame him. We overheard someone asking him what it was like inside the Chewbacca costume.
Poor bastard.
Sunday featured four Panel discussions, three of which we attended. The first was titled “Breaking Into Comics”. It meant well. That’s about all I can say. The second was about Self-Publishing, and served as more entertaining fodder (as opposed to Bantha fodder—zing!). I’m going to admit ignorance in that I don’t recall exactly who was who on the Panel, but there was a constant sparring between the self-producing badass with communist tendencies and the guy who had “been around forever” and looked more than a little like Elton John. The commie had my vote after Elton browbeat the audience with phrases like “Marvel will rip you off!” as though all self-publishers should resign to being helplessly used. I got your rip off right here, Elton. Tiny Dancer sucked.
As I briefly touched on earlier, the third discussion consisted of Marvel writers Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Jeff Parker (X-Men: First Class), Brian Reed, and Mike Oeming (Omega Flight) fielding questions from a horde of fans. This was toward the end of the day, and generated a strong buzz around the complex. In the prior two Panels we attended, most-ish of the seats were full, but the number of fans at this one could have easily dwarfed the number of chairs two times over. The guys interacted very well with each other, but I was pained by both the lack of creativity and over-creativity in the questions. They were either a “is this going to happen?” question, which in my opinion couldn’t be more useless, or an obviously-rehearsed monologue that the asker seemed to think was genius but the Panel barely understood due to its meandering nature.
By the Panel’s own admission, Seattle asked above-average questions, so I can’t imagine what fruit cakes they’re normally forced to choke down. Despite what I perceived to be a poor showing by the audience, the guys, particularly Brubaker, were full of enough colorful gags and zingers to keep me riveted. And I wish I would have had a ticker on hand to count the number of times Oeming plugged Omega Flight. Tyler actually launched a question midway through the discussion after he and I played the eye-contact lottery with the moderator for 12 minutes. The full, epic ramifications of this question will be explored in a future column by Tyler, so I won’t spoil the surprise by divulging details here.
Things wound down for the day after the Marvel writers panel. We cruised the exhibitors one last time and got caught up in a large crowd around Mike Oeming, who was arm wrestling spectators for swag. By the time we left, the score was Oeming 12, Washingtonians 1. I’m pretty sure he let the one guy win. I thought about throwing down but I didn’t want to break his writing hand.
Emerald City ComiCon was a blast. It was a fine first effort on our part as attendees, and a stellar way to flaunt my geekdom to the public eye. Next year, our dominance of the Con will be even more thorough.
…So did I check out Mayhew’s gear at the urinal? I thought about it, but I decided not to. I hear Wookies tear your arms out of the sockets if they catch you scoping their junk. Maybe in 2008.
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