The Saturday of any convention is pretty much the main course. On Friday, people have jobs, people are in traffic, people are late. On Saturday, though, everyone’s there. The second day of the Emerald City Comicon was a sizable tide of humanity. When I got to the Washinton State Convention Center, a man in a green staff jacket was bellowing at the lobby (without the aid of amplification) about how badges were sold out just then, and how people could maybe come back at later, at 2:30. “Jostling” was the best verb to describe how attendees were getting from one point to the next. Walking about on Friday was rapid and largely unimpeded. Saturday was a crush.

I busied myself with another panel from Oni, in which all manner of news spewed out of them, not least of which was that the Portland publisher is now putting out the print versions of Penny Arcade.The really big Portland-based announcement of the day, though, was that local cartoonist Erica Moen and writer Jeff Parker have partnered with local publisher Dark Horse to produce a print edition of their webcomic Bucko. If you haven’t read Bucko (or anything else by Moen, for that matter- I’m a fan of Dar) than definitely give it a look. Moen describes it as a “dick and fart murder mystery” set in Portland. It is so much more than just dicks and farts, though. There are also some boobs.

More info, and lots of photos from Sarah, after the jump.

I made my way to an interesting (but extremely dry) panel from Comixology about digital comics distribution, which just sort of drove home the point that print is dead, and people fear new technology. As someone who dislikes the flimsy-ness and disposable nature of floppy copies, though, I came out of the panel kind of hoping that Comixology and their ilk will successfully kill dead tree editions of single-issue comics.

The highlight of the afternoon (at least for me) was seeing Ethan Nicolle (the illustrator of Axe Cop) talk about what it’s like to collaborate with his much younger brother. While Malachai (the younger brother) does get full credit, Ethan went into detail about how he teases out the insanity that is Axe Cop from his younger sibling, encouraging him to play with toys, think creatively, and spew insanity. The picture he painted of the Axe Cop creation process made is it seem that he's one part illustrator, one part editor, and one part bad baby sitter who gets his younger brother all rowdy and hyper.

At the end of the afternoon, the photographer and I made an attempt to see George Takei. The line was a gigantic, undulating ocean of fandom. Even though the ECCC does put comic books front and center, it was a little bit disheartening to see a man who’s never written or illustrated a comic to be a larger draw than any of the creators or publishers there. The line moved aggravatingly slowly, and after well over a half an hour of milling about in a line that did not move for a panel that was not starting, the photographer and I said “fuck it” and decided to take some pictures of cosplayers (more on that tomorrow).

Other news: Paul Guinan and Anina Bennet were aflutter about Boilerplate eventually becoming a J.J. Abrams film. Hopefully. Maybe. Possibly. They apparently have screenwriters, according to Guinan and Bennet. When I asked Guinan about whether he had any worries about seeing his and Bennet's creation adapted by Hollywood, he said no. "I have every confidence," he said, "that the Boilerplate movie will not suck." Here's hoping.

Photos by Sarah Giffrow! Look at them.