I think I have finally recovered from ECCC 2012. I was there for all three days, from March 30 through April 1st. Overall, it was a great show, with a lot of great guests. The check-in was a little disappointing, however. There were nearly as many people helping the walk-ins as there were helping the pre-sales. In fact most of the walk-ins got in before I even had my badge, so what was the advantage of buying ahead of time? At any rate, the first thing I did when I got in was to head to Thom Zahler's table. Thom is the writer and artist of the amazing, funny series Love and Capes. I had commissioned a piece of artwork from him, and I picked up his con print. I also had him sign my trades of Love and Capes.
Next I headed to Don Rosa's table. Outside of Carl Barks (Scrooge's creator), no one has done more for Disney's Duck comics than Mr. Rosa. I got a free sketch from him, and a print of his Duck Family Tree. He does something cool for the print, in that he fills your name in as the previously unknown father of the three nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie. I also had him sign my Boom! hardbacks of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck and found out how disgusted Mr. Rosa is with Boom! If you see him, have him sign the Gemstone versions which he prefers.
hile I was waiting to meet Mr. Rosa, my wife found an awesome Muppets Doctor Who print by Amy Mebberson at the table next door, which she later purchased.
Then I went to the tables of David Petersen of Mouse Guard fame, followed by Katie Cook, writer and artist of the Gronk web comic. I had my Mouse Guard hardcovers signed, including having Ms. Cook sign Legends of the Guard, and moved on to see Danielle Corsetto, writer and artist of the Girls with Slingshots web comic, where I scored the next two books of her strips. Next to her was Jeff Schuetze, the writer and artist of the JEFbot web comic. I picked up his book of strips because I have never taken the time to back and read the earlier strips, and because I love to support web comic creators.
After that, we returned to our room so I could off-load all the hardcovers I had been hauling around. We ate lunch and returned to the con so I could begin my shopping. I spent most of the rest of the con looking for books I needed for my collection. All told I ended up getting around 500 back issues, including a couple missing issues of Justice League of America, Super Friends, Star Wars, and Kamandi, complete runs of The Shadow and Strange Sports Stories, and large chunks of Alpha Flight, Champions, Logan's Run, Batman Family, Ghosts, Weird War, Weird Western, GI Combat, Detective, Men of War, Challengers of the Unknown, Unexpected, Unknown Soldier, and a bunch of the digest books I was missing. I also found a paperback, published in the 1970s, that reprinted a couple of older Legion of Super-Heroes stories. I think I might have seen it as a kid but I never owned it, until now.
Here's looking forward to next year!
