Somehow, comic convention season is upon us again; as you’re reading this, I’m in Seattle for this year’s Emerald City Comic Con, which I’m working as part of the Popverse crew for the second year running. (I say year, but the last one was just August last year; it feels simultaneously far closer and further away than 12 months ago.)
It’s the start of at least four shows for this year: I’m doing ECCC, Star Wars Celebration, San Diego Comic-Con, and New York Comic Con as things currently stand, and there’s potentially more where that came from, depending on how things work out and what the Popverse editors have in mind for me. I’m at once excited and anxious about the prospects of a new con season, which feels like the most appropriate response: happy to see old friends and familiar faces that otherwise I wouldn’t get to see, and worried about the travel and potential for everything to go wrong that always comes with this kind of thing on every single trip. At least I’m starting with one that I can get to by train, so airports aren’t in my immediate future… he writes, a month before a transatlantic flight beckons.
For this show, I’m keeping myself busy: in addition to reporting, writing, and all of the traditional journalism business, I’m also moderating a couple of panels on the Friday afternoon (and one on Saturday, too) and also ideally attending a couple of things that are convention-adjacent that haven’t been around before. If there’s a theme to my work in 2023, it’s a quiet attempt to get better at what I do, and try some things that I don’t normally do, as well. (See also: appearing on video, which others really want me to do more of despite my natural unease.)
I’m writing this ahead of time, before I’m even in Seattle, so we’ll see how it all goes on the day(s), but: it’s a trip, no pun intended, to be back on the circuit again so quickly after it last happened. I already find myself wondering if it’s going to be as good as I hope.