As I told you yesterday, a number of publishers and comics creators (including me) have canceled their appearances at Emerald City Comic Con, which — at the time I'm writing this — is still scheduled to go on next weekend at the downtown convention center. At the same time, King County is urging residents to not gather in groups larger than 10 and Governor Jay Inslee has confirmed that he has the power to close down large events in the name of public safety.

Here are the latest developments:

• ECCC has set up an online form for any ticket- or pass-holders to request a refund. This refund form also applies to comics professionals who are attending the show, although it does not apply to exhibitors who have paid to set up booths and tables at the show.

• Some ECCC exhibitors are not happy about the idea of ECCC canceling without a full refund structure:

  If ECCC is going to cancel, here's my fucking invoice:
  Flight: $300
  Hotel: $349
  Table: $265
  Merchandise: $376
  TOTAL: $1290
  This doesn't even include the merchandise that I have yet to pay for from my publisher. They either cancel it entirely & give me my money back or leave it be

  — Steenz⁷! @ ECCC R4 (@oheysteenz) March 4, 2020

• Cartoonist Casey Lau has put together a list of the dozens of creators and publishers who have dropped out of ECCC, including links to purchase their books and art.
• Which brings up the matter of art and money. A lot of cartoonists depend on ECCC to pay the bills. Cartoonist Kel McDonald explains:

  Those of you who read my old year in summary posts would know that con sales are over half my income. And ECCC is about a 1/3 of that half. Last year was a very bad year for me finically, so this winter I’ve been taking some none art work to help me get out of the bad money situation I was in. It’s why I haven’t been posting much new concept art for the past couple of months (well that and depression from it being winter.) I thought I was getting ahead on things but that was under the assumption I would be making a large chunk of money at ECCC. I need it to basically pay my all my bills for April and May. Because that’s what it has done every year I’ve gone.

• You can buy comics directly from McDonald here. Other cartoonists who could use your support right now include Jen Bartel, Yangtian Li, Kate Leth, and Ibrahim Moustafa. We'll share more as we find them.

UPDATE: ReedPop, the company that owns ECCC, this morning sent an email offering refunds to exhibitors in the artist alley portion of the show. They have not, at the time of this writing, offered to refund people who bought booth space on the show floor.