Nerds, geeks and dweebs…ASSEMBLE! The 20th annual Emerald City Comic Con is now open as the first event to truly take over the Seattle Convention Center’s new Summit building.
I took some time to talk to one artist, who is “fighting” for inclusion. Kayden Phoenix assembled her band of “Latina Superheroes” back in 2019 – a group of artists who create works from different facets of Latinx culture, including Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and even Tejana because Kayden says the Latinas from Texas are a culture all their own. Having lived 10 years in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, I would argue that the Southern California Latinx community is also a unique sub-culture
Kayden tells me she didn’t get to see herself as a superhero growing up, but she says she was lucky she had a mom she says could do anything so she grew up believing she could do anything. Still, she says Latinas were (and often still are) underrepresented in worlds like those of comics and superheroes, and Kayden says story-telling reflects democracy. “As a Latina, I get told I’m a Chola, I get told like I’m a gang-banger, I get told I’m a maid,” Kayden says, “Now, there’s nothing bad about any of those things, but I’m not a superhero. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a judge. I’m not a journalist that can go and save my girlfriend, right? I don’t get that, and that’s unfortunate.”
Kayden has expanded the work now to “Latina Princesses”, aimed at a younger audience. Kayden says, “They light up, honestly, and that’s the biggest thing, and they’re like ‘they look like me’, which is a very nice thing because they’re so surprised that they don’t have someone that looks like them.” Some of the people who stopped by Kayden’s booth say they appreciate the inclusion of Latinx and LGBTQ communities in the work.
You can find Kayden at the Con’s Artist Alley (Aisle D, space 19) all weekend, and you can see my interview with her in the video above.
You’ll also find a lot of people dressed so strangely that you’ll think you slept from March all the way to Halloween, but really it’s one of the biggest things at the Con: Cosplay – people dressed in costumes of their favorite characters. I talked to a few of them, and they tell me they enjoy being able to embody the character and be someone other than themselves. They say some enjoy making the costumes, others enjoy wearing them – and some enjoy both – but they also say if you think they’re weird, don’t judge. They say they’re not hurting anyone and, in fact, they argue that the little kids love it because they feel like they’re actually meeting their favorite characters. You can also see the cosplayers in the video above.
Emerald City Comic Con runs through Sunday, March 5th at the Seattle Convention Center.
