Emerald City Comic Convention - April 1, 2006

This was my third visit to the Emerald City Comic Convention. Like in past years, the weather was overcast, somewhat cooler than usual, and rainy. In order to prevent having to wait outside in the rain I decided to go there after they've opened their gates. As a matter of fact, when I arrived at Qwest field, the crowd had just started moving inside the building. The line felt a lot shorter than in previous years. I was also surprised to see that the ticket price had yet again increased by 2 dollars (2 years ago it was $8 for a single day). Anyways, within a matter of minutes I was inside the convention.

Once inside I walked around and noticed that some dealer had new Star Wars stuff for sale. At one booth they offered the japanese exclusive remote control astromech droids (R2-Q5 and R4-P17). One of them even had the new Target exclusive "Demise Of Grievous" figure for sale. Several of the Star Wars dealer offered the Ultimate Galactic Hunt figures in price ranges between $20 and $50. With a bit of patience and a big wallet you could have probably gotten an entire set of 10.

The best deal I found was for Kotobukiya figures which were sold at one booth for $60 even with no tax on top. They almost had the entire line in stock (except exclusives). I ended up buying the Koto Sandtrooper, which is pretty sweet looking, and was very easy to assemble.

Unfortunately I didn't see a single fan in costume. I read that the costume competition was scheduled for 4pm, but I ended up leaving earlier than that. Maybe the bad weather in the morning kept costumers from showing up early?

This years guest stars included two actors from the TV show Farscape, Lani Tupu (picture on the right) and Gigi Edgley (I didn't see her). I personally have never seen any of the Farscape episodes so I didn't get their autographs, and didn't wait around to see Gigi Edgley.

The convention this year looked a little bit empty and overall it felt a lot like the previous year. There was certainly much to like for comic book lovers, but if you were looking to find some good deals on star wars stuff like busts or statues (except Kotos) then this was not the place to be. But, yet again it was fun to just walk around, talk to fellow collectors and check out some of the toys up close in person. And, I totally dig the exclusive mini mate figure!

The convention from top of the balkony:

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