Past attendees of Seattle's Emerald City Comicon will doubtlessly get a kick out of this new piece by cartoonist Brandon Graham. The cover of the con's program guide, Graham's illustration places some familiar comic book characters upon the Washington State Convention Center's massive escalators that all con-goers must ride to-and-fro throughout every ECCC weekend.

Thematically reminiscent of a 2011 piece by Michel Fiffe, Graham's celebration of the famously comics and cartoonist-centric Seattle show (as opposed to the infamously everything-but-comics nature of other conventions of note) is populated exclusively with creator-owned or otherwise non-Marvel and non-DC characters. The artist even managed to squeeze the popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast into the piece by way of a jambox carried by Mike Kunkel’s Herobear. Other highlights include Corey Lewis' Sharknife playing a handheld game device, an appearance by Chuck from Down Set Fight (by our own Chris Sims with Chad Bowers and Scott Kowalchuk) and Graham's own Earthling J. J. Cattingworth (from King City) riding the back of Michael Allred's Madman, very likely the comic book character who appears more than any other in illustrations of this kind.

(I have a theory that when you discard all the bad-to-mediocre drawings of much older characters over the course of decades, there are actually more amazing drawings of Madman than any other comic book character simply by virtue of how many brilliant artists have illustrated pinups for Allred's long running series.)

 

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Over on his blog, Graham provided a helpful identification guide to every character featured in this piece.

Emerald City Comicon 2014 runs March 28-30 in Seattle.

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