Emerald City Comicon 2016

Yesterday my daughter and I took a trip into Seattle to attend Emerald City Comicon.  It was our first visit and I can only compare it to other large conventions I have attended, such as PAX Prime or Gencon.  The vendor hall was huge and interesting, and it was certainly the convention with the highest percentage of people in costume.  I'm used to seeing Deadpool cosplay at conventions, but this time he was almost overtaken by Rey from Star Wars as the most cosplayed character.

Some other thoughts and highlights:

• We attended a panel hosted by Ashley Eckstein, the voice of Ahsoka Tano from Star Wars: Rebels.  She was promoting her new book publishing company, Her Universe Press.  Afterwards, we waited in the autographing area to met Ashley, who is friendly and was interested that my daughter has been a huge fan of her character, Ahsoka, for many years.  She is one of the most authentic celebrities I've met - its obvious she loves her job, and Star Wars and its fans.
• In Artist Alley, my daughter was drawn to the booth of Camilla D'Errico, an artist from nearby Vancouver, B.C.  I'd describe her art as a mix of manga and fantasy - she has fun, colorful, and unique designs that are full of mood. We picked up a print of her work, Neo New York.  Camilla was easy to talk with and really engaged my daughter, which was great.
• There were a few limited gaming exhibits and I picked up some sheets of PennyGems from ImprobableObjects.  The founder demonstrated the product to me last year at ETX.  The PennyGems are stickers that you fix to both sides of a penny to create a high-quality gaming token.
• I caught a glance at a number of celebrities at the signing booths:
• Sean Patrick Astin (Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings),
• Norman Reedus (Darryl from The Walking Dead), and
• many others, such as the Foggy from Daredevil and even the Weasley twins from the Harry Potter movies!

While standing in line to meet Ashley Eikstein, we heard a huge cheer erupt throughout the hall. Puzzled, I shot a questioning glance at another person in line.  She just replied... "Nathan Fillion...".