SEATTLE—Emerald City Comic Con falls somewhere in the middle of the nation's nerd-convention spectrum. You won't find hotly anticipated film and TV premieres or modern, mega-huge celebrities, but the show still draws massive crowds of costumed nerds and geeks eager to pick through exclusive merch, attend compelling panels, and meet the likes of David Tennant, Felicia Day, and Wil Wheaton.
I made my way to this year's ECCC in downtown Seattle (making it the nation's most convenient comic convention for me, at the very least) and brought my camera to show you some of what you could expect.
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A sultry Chewbacca portrait signed by Peter Mayhew? I certainly thought about buying it.
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Funko has a large corporate presence in the Seattle area, which means they do it up big at ECCC. Tons of convention-exclusive figurines sold out in the four-day show's first day.Sam Machkovech
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Another beloved Seattle shop, the retro-games emporium Pink Gorilla, had a wide variety of classic games and toys. These little pieces fit together to form tiny Super Nintendo and Super Famicom dioramas.
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Plenty of local sellers were on hand with handmade goods that ranged from reinterpretations of familiar brands to wholly new and weird pieces of art.
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This was a favorite explosion of weird carvings in the ECCC Homegrown section.
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WETA Workshop was on hand with a selection of movie-prop sculptures, including this crazy-detailed piece from the otherwise stinky Ghost in the Shell live-action film.
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So many rad patches.
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It's not a nerd convention without a giant bucket of D&D dice.
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Giant wall of T-shirts? ECCC has you covered.
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The perfect boxers for the nerd who never plans to undress that much around interested partners.
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If you have over $1,000 to cough up, you can really snazz up your Star Wars wall with some of these rare boxed beauties.
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A retro-gaming corner, run by Seattle's Living Computer Museum, included a rare Assault cabinet from Atari's late-'80s era. It worked quite well, and it was next to a very nicely maintained Asteroids cab.
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You could find pinball machines scattered around ECCC as well.
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This Bally version of the arcade game Space Invaders took the cake. Such gorgeously grotesque artwork (and a cool double-flipper system, to boot).
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Artist's Alley was roughly eight times as big as this photo shows. Walls were arranged in such a way as to make it very hard to show the breadth of comic artists in town to sign and draw some really cool art.
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I didn't take enough photos of the variety of cool art on display, if only because it's not necessarily good etiquette to take photos of artists' works at ECCC when Artist's Alley was set up for selling. Still, some stands, like this one full of nerd-inspired bunnies, encouraged photos.
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Oh, and I bought these—a print from an artist who had some cool Metroid-themed pieces, and two prints from Aaron Alexovich, who is probably best known for his work on Invader Zim. (The bad lighting is because these are currently slapped onto my fridge while I order appropriate frames.)
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Gobs of people wait to enter ECCC.
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ECCC had lots of one-off demonstrations and panels that went outside what you might expect, including cosplay crafting workshops. This here was a martial arts mini-training room.
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Arguably my favorite room at ECCC: the role-playing library. Interested players could check out any book or module and take it to another table to play with friends.
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And there were so many classic goodies to pick from.
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Drool.
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So. Many. Books.
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These boxes definitely weren't in mint condition, but they contained treasures immense.
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Top Secret? Hell yes.
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Honestly, I wanted to sit and learn what Zorg was, but I didn't have an interested group.
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Over 100 chapters of the Lady Planeswalkers Society exist across the world to invite "all genders" to learn about Magic: The Gathering and find friends to play with. The organization was started in Seattle.
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Next to that Lady Planeswalker Society demo room: a place to stock up on Magic merch.
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Ars' own Annalee Newitz (second from right) speaks at one of four panels at ECCC, this time about her recent novel Autonomous.
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Because it was Seattle, some vendors were selling Kurt Cobain Pop toys. I felt weird about that. (Also a little weird about the Reptar Cereal.)
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Tiny charms arranged on tiny arcade cabinets.
The above gallery focuses on attractions and merch options available at this year's ECCC, along with one photo from a panel: one of the four panels that Ars' own Annalee Newitz spoke at. This one in particular saw Newitz and her sci-fi peers talk about how to build fictional worlds in the future—including a nuanced look at how futuristic settings offer an opportunity for "critical distance," and how that differs from the idea of prophecy.
The below gallery, meanwhile, is but a tiny sampling of the cosplay on offer over the course of the show, ranging from the obvious to the niche.
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We don't want any of the captions in our cosplay gallery to read as rude or jokey, so I'm opting to leave them simple. These photos include some very well-made costumes, so here's to you, brave cosplayers.
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There was no shortage of Marvel superheroes, but none quite reached the majesty of this Ronald McDonald/Thor hybrid. That hammer.
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Is it more appropriate to say X-Women, or women of X-Men? Either way: Rogue, Mystique, and Jean Grey.
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The Vulture, as popularized in Spider-Man Homecoming.
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Is this Captain Canuck? Guardian? Or simply a fan's Canadian twist on Captain America? This cosplayer didn't stop long enough for me to ask.
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Jean Grey's Phoenix form poses with some garden gnomes.
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Are these the droids you're looking for, young lady?
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Barf from Spaceballs.
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Squirrel Girl, with quite the elaborate squirrel-pal setup.
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When there's danger.
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This kid probably didn't sign up for this kind of Pokemon challenge at ECCC.
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Dream game mash-up? Scorpion ensnares TMNT's Casey Jones.
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Another unlikely crossover, though I'd watch the Power Rangers and Halo face off.
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This right here is possibly the most obscure video game duo at ECCC: the leading heroes of the EA game Army of Two.
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As seen in the Pixar movie Up.
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I didn't ask whether they were a British family ascribing to the name "Wally," or if these were some American Waldos.
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The Tick and Arthur.
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Spy Vs. Spy.
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This apparent Katniss cosplayer waits for her weaponry to be approved before she enters ECCC.
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A Black Widow cosplayer finds Sparky, a character from the board game Dead of Winter who received his own dedicated comic miniseries.
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I honestly don't know what that is posing with Predator.
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Members of the Venture Bros.' Fluttering Horde.
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Pyramid Head from Silent Hill poses with Chucky from Child's Play.
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Maleficent poses with Kirby.
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Instead of dressing up, I got cute with a giant Kirby.
Listing image by Sam Machkovech
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