The Long Beach Comic Expo is *very* small (one small ballroom), but it is very slick and very well put together. However for me personally, it was not worth the drive from San Diego as a back issue collector with them only having 5 or so comic vendors. If I lived closer, I would definitely check it out.
The Long Back Comic Con full show in Nov is a *great* show for the comic collector and reminded me of a much smaller version of what CCI was back in the day.