Before New York had any conventions of serious nerd merit, we had the tried-and-true Big Apple Comic Con. The BACC has always been the summer convention equivalent of the hot cousin – it’s nice to look at, and maybe visit once in a while, but you really don’t want to GO there, if you know what I mean. Sure, it has a few goodies, but at the end of the summer, you were still groping in a damp basement because there was nothing better to do.
The New York Comic Con (not to be confused with this convention, the Big Apple Comic Book, Art, Toy & Sci-Fi Expo, oft simplified to just ‘Comic Con’) has taken over the NY convention scene, leaving the BACC in the undesirable position of ‘that other, smaller convention that isn’t really as good’. The BACC was held at the Penn Plaza Pavilion, in the convention area of the Pennsylvania Hotel, which is across the street from Madison Square Garden. For the past handful of years, it’s been held in that general area (with at least one summer in which it failed to make an appearance at all), from some weird attic area of Madison Square Garden to its new home in the Pennsylvania Hotel.
For those of you looking to attend the convention at any point in the future, let me note that the Pennsylvania Hotel is one of the older, more historical structures in NYC, and it shows. And if you happen to stay in room 933, pull UP on the handle to flush the toilet. I know, it sounds like some kind of crazy Bizarro World hotel, but trust me. I spent about ten minutes playing safecracker with the shower knobs (one of which defied logic by being attached at a nigh-unturnable diagonal angle), trying to find a combination of temperatures that didn’t remove my flesh from my bones, but only found it when I turned she shower valve halfway off. And that ringing, whistling sound that you hear is not a fire alarm, despite the completely alarming noise that it’ll wake you up with at 2 AM, it’s just someone in another room showering, and the pipes clearly rebelling against it. The TV remote is pretty much vestigial, and you’ll need to chisel away at the dirt on the windows to see the glorious view of the 9th floor rooms across the alcove from you… but at least you’ll have a place to sleep. Kinda.
Accommodations aside, we awoke semi-refreshed for the BACC in the morning, after attending the MOCCA Festival on the previous day.
The BACC took over a large area of floor immediately to the left of the Hotel’s entrance and up an escalator. The United States Post Office was stationed at the base of the escalator, selling Star Wars stamps and pins, and giving away first day bird stamp packets. In my early days of attending the BACC, it was a great place to score some discounted, hard-to-find toys and comic collections, meet big-name artists and get tons of free stuff, but over the years, it’s evolved into something far less rewarding. There were no company-supported giveaways, most of the larger artists were either over at MOCCA or had already attended NYCC instead, and most of the toys there were being sold at inflated scalper prices. Most impressive was the guy who was selling pins that were available for free from the DC Comics booth, which could be found at every comic convention ever. His price? Only one dollar each.
This decline in overall Convention quality has had two positive results for the remaining attendees – the attendance on Sunday was sparse enough to allow us plenty of walking room, and because of this limited population, the nerd-smell usually present at these conventions was barely noticeable. My only brush with it was the guy breathing Dorito vapors directly into all of my five basic senses (and irreparably damaging my sixth one). The BACC can’t be blamed for the malodorous nature of those who view bathing and deodorant as bi-monthly endeavors, though. My cohort remarked that this Convention was very much like picking through someone’s grimy basement – an environment that nerds are likely very familiar with, but which might deter the casual attendee.
Much of the floors were taken over by long boxes of comics at various discounts, as well as walls of non-discounted, rare comics, so the BACC is a gold mine if you’re looking to fill up on back issues and original printings of things, with half-priced boxes of things and dollar comics at every turn. There are also a good number of tables selling ‘bootleg’ DVDs, mostly of TV shows that are not yet on DVD. Of course, there’s a large number of things being released on DVD lately, and some of these bootleg DVDs duplicate published works, making them extra illegal. If you need your fix of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon though, here’s the place to go. None of the DVDs are going to be any better than fuzzy VCR quality, so proceed with caution.
One end of the convention hall was taken over by ‘celebrities’, but please note that when your biggest celebrity is David Faustino, the kid from Married With Children (and who is roughly 16 inches tall), you might have a problem. When you include the son of some guy who was an extra on that sci-fi show that no one remembers on your list of celebrities, you’re well into the danger zone. I did get to glance at Captain Lou Albano, and a couple of mummified porn starlets. The aging porn starlet tables often remain unvisited at these conventions, with nerds still uncomfortable in their own sexuality and usually not ready to admit that they’ve seen said starlet in whatever tawdry publication they’ve appeared in. What do you say to one of those lovely ladies anyhow? I venture it’s something along the lines of “It’s great to finally see your breasts in person!” Which is why I’m still single. And I genuinely don’t recognize them anyhow.
One other table had a couple of people from Ghost Hunters, including ‘Brian‘. You know, the guy who breaks all of the expensive equipment, has tantrums when he has to go back and get something he forgot, quits the show, comes back, and runs away terrified anytime he ACTUALLY sees a ghost, failing to get any valid footage besides that of him wetting himself. I chose not to talk to him, mostly because I didn’t want him to run away screaming if I moved too quickly. The BACC didn’t even attract Peter Mayhew, the mighty Chewbacca, and he’s at every convention I’ve ever been at.
Big Apple does well enough for itself, though, and it’s not a bad convention if you’re looking for actual comic books and little else. By the end of our meanderings, we only saw a few Jedi and one guy in an apparently hand-painted Blue Beetle costume, whose enthusiasm didn’t seem to match his costume. After I took his photo and had walked away, the following conversation took place between him and his friend :
Guy : “Why are people taking photos of you?”
Blue Beetle : “Blue Beetle died a few years ago and now everybody likes him.”
I refrained from turning around and telling him that I dug Blue Beetle well before his untimely demise, but it wasn’t about to engage in a public Out-Nerding Competition. At least he was gracious enough to pose for a photo for me.
I bought a handful of shiny superhero fridge magnets for fifty cents each and headed home. Check out a few extra photos of the event in our Community section – and when you’re done, upload a collection of your own!
