New York Comic Con has only happened twice before, and I was there. I think that I left parts of me there, actually… you know, the parts that were carelessly torn off by obscenely surging crowds without an inch to breathe in. This third NYCC, held in Manhattan’s Javits Convention Center, didn’t suffer from the notorious problems of its predecessors - so bite it, San Diego Comic Con! We’ve got a good one now too!

We arrived at New York Comic Con expecting to not arrive at it at all - no, like years before, we expected to be on a line that led a solid mile away from the entrance, our delicate nerd flesh exposed to the harsh April elements. Throughout my three-day exploration of NYCC, I only encountered one ridiculous line. NYCC has finally found a formula that works for the capacity of the crowd that it generates - and it’s a huge crowd. Of course it would be a huge crowd - NYCC isn’t just about comics. It draws in fans of all forms of entertainment - movies, music, video games, collecting, art, literature, and that good ol’ fashioned ‘ogling chicks in tight-fitting fantasy costumes’ form of entertainment. If you don’t fall into any of these categories, stay home and knit yourself a coffin, because you’re already dead inside.

I wasn’t looking forward to being sardine’d (or associated) with a bunch of stereotypical geeks and their stereotypical issues with personal space and personal hygiene, but I also encountered very little of this. The NYCC organizers have widened the aisles between each row of booths and added a lot of free space to breathe in, so I can finally say that I wouldn’t hesitate to return next year. The misanthropes could remain at a comfortable distance from one another, and still ogle the beautiful girls who somehow blundered their way inside, slightly terrified.

I had a few small goals for the weekend : get a signature from artist Dean Haspiel for my Bizarro Comics book (the only thing I ever get signed), attend the Hellboy, Mike Mignola and Venture Bros. panels, and not spend too much money. I almost failed at the first 4 goals, and completely failed at the fifth - but that last one was my fault alone. That, and the awesomeness of Re-Ment dollhouse miniatures. Yes, you heard that right. This Hellboy-lovin’, Tom Waits listenin’ blogger loves dollhouse miniatures, and they were at the Con. I also wanted to buy the NYCC exclusive Iron Man glass, because I loves me some Iron Man and temporarily storing liquids.

I’d decided that the initial Friday of NYCC was to be relegated to exploring the main area of the Con and getting first dibs on collectibles, wandering the huge expanse of the Javits floor and just experiencing the heck out of it. The crowds were sparse all day, so it was a relaxed experience. A tip to Friday collectors, though : many booths don’t put out their ‘exclusive’ items until Saturday because of the limited Friday attendance and possibility of early sell-outs. Also, companies that have new things to display might not put them out just yet - they don’t want to spoil the surprise for regular attendees.

Vogue International, the company that provided the larger-than-life statues of Batman and Superman that were peppered throughout the Con (guarding escalators and such), had a booth just outside of the main display area that featured large statues and sculptures of various entertainment properties. Most interesting to me, however, was a display of props that were used in the filming of Batman Returns, including Danny DeVito’s Penguin mask and feet, as well as a robotic attack penguin. The rest of the Con didn’t have much of a museum quality - nor were these items for sale to an amateur prop nut (and professional Bat-nut) like myself. It’s probably just as well - once you start adding a category of ‘things that Danny DeVito has sweated in’ to your collecting lexicon, it’s all but over.

I wasn’t three steps inside the front door before I ran into NECA’s booth. Two Nightmare Before Christmas action figures (Pirate and Vampire Jack Skellington) that I’ve been coveting for well over a year - and $40 - later, I realized that I’d have to lug them around all day. I’d totally abandoned my wise strategy of locating the things I wanted to buy and then going on a spree at the end of the day to avoid the fatigue of the luggage and chafed backpack shoulders. It’s a real problem. I’m red for days.

From here, we wandered the smartly organized floors - the left side was for larger companies, while the right side was for small shops, small press, and artists. The organization really catered to a logical exploration of the entire floor with a purpose - and unlike previous NYCCs, the prices on items were discounted, not inflated, making it a great place for collectors to stock up on a few much-wanted odds and ends. The far back wall was given to larger autographing events, a mass of tables for trading card games, and a performance stage. Con attendees should also note that some signing events require a large fee and/or a ticket, so there’s never a guarantee that you’ll get to meet who you traveled 100 miles to meet.

NECA’s booth revealed a few new items to the public, including the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles April O’Neill figure, and a Beetlejuice variant in his wedding tux (as opposed to the striped attire shown at Toy Fair). While I’m sure if they were new or not, the Arnold Schwartzenegger ‘Conan’ figure, and the Dark Crystal ‘Skeksis’ figure were both really beautiful in very different ways. NECA’s Con exclusive this year was a boxed set of four Ninja Turtles - unfortunately, they refused to sell the set until Saturday. I remained Turtle-free. They’ve been released at general retail anyhow, individually packaged. They sold out quickly, and some were actually spotted being sold at other booths later - at highly inflated prices.

Gentle Giant is offering a large selection of busts and figures throughout the upcoming year, including some really fine stuff from Hellboy II, a continuation of their Star Wars bust line and various ‘animated’ pseudo-properties, including more Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. For NYCC, they offered a collection of exclusive Harry Potter and Hobbit busts, as well as some zombies and Indiana Jones mini-props. They’re even beginning to make 12” Star Trek figures, beginning with the popular Captain Picard.

Not long after I’d seen these two companies, I happened to be walking across the floor and randomly encountered one of the co-stars of ‘30 Rock’ (and regular Adult Swim voice actor), Scott Adsit. Just another fellow nerd, hanging out at the Con. Every so often, someone would take a look at him, do a double-take, and say ‘Hey! You’re that guy!’, which he’d smilingly acknowledge and allow himself to be chatted up.

Big Shot Toy Works produced a beautiful, articulated sculpture of Ashley Wood’s ‘Bertie the Pipebomb’, which we ogled adoringly for quite a while before we realized that the price was $300. As a huge fan of Ashley’s work, and an owner of his Popbot and Lady Sham statues, and his Spawn figures, it’s something that I really would love to collect someday, when I’m more of a high-end kind of guy. A limited edition version, in black and rust, was produced for the show, and potential buyers entered a raffle for the opportunity to even buy the item. I didn’t even want to have my heart broken by winning the raffle and being unable to afford the robot, so I abstained.

We also swung on by Mezco, who have finally allowed the second wave of their Hellboy II toys to be photographed. Diamond Toys had their Minimate figures from Iron Man on display also.

We rounded out the day with a couple of panels - events in which a person or ten sits at a long desk in front of the room and is interviewed by a moderator or the audience, all live and off-the-cuff. Mostly, we just wanted a place to sit down, and the people running the gaming tables kept on yelling at anyone who needed to borrow a chair, as Javits didn’t provide many.

The first panel that I attended was the ‘Weird Tales’ discussion. Any sci-fi nerd knows that ‘Weird Tales’ was a magazine that existed before the term ‘sci-fi’ was even used and was a defining force in the genre of speculative fiction, featuring short science fiction and horror stories from many new, powerful authors including Lovecraft and Asimov. Little did I, or many other people, know - Weird Tales is still being published. Across a panel of four people, the room sleepily chatted abut the magazine, and where it’s come, and the art involved. One guest on the panel was ‘Molly Crabapple’, a known NY-area artist responsible for organizing a regular ‘Dr. Sketchy’ drawing class - which usually features burlesque themes. She’d drawn a few portraits for a recent article in the magazine, but I think that her sense of importance regarding the article was overblown, and I found myself losing patience quickly. Anyone who throws their own name into a list of great, noteworthy artists isn’t someone who I want to hear talking for very long. Overall, the panel raised awareness of the magazine, but generated almost no excitement or interest.

The second (and final) panel of the day was a surprise - ‘Comic Artists Talk About Drawing’. There was no announcement about who would be on the panel, but I soon discovered that it included legendary Thor artist Walt Simonson, Colleen Doran, fan-favorite Jim Lee and Dean Haspiel - who I’d been looking for all day after he didn’t make an appearance at his scheduled table. I had my Bizarro book to get signed, after all.

It was an inspiring panel, with each artist having a completely unique perspective on the process of drawing, and what comics meant to them - from growing up in poverty and scraping together nickels for tattered comics, to growing up in a middle-class midwest family and encountering a plethora of well-preserved comics. Mr. Lee humorously fabricated details about his own life after it became clear that his struggle wasn’t quite that of the other artists in the room.

Mr. Simonson was the most vocal and long-winded panelist, using up most of the 30 allotted minutes, but also came into the room with the most experience, so it’s not as if his meandering was wasted time. The feeling that was constructed was how important comics were to each of these artists emotionally, and how they eventually all realized their dreams of becoming part of the thing that they loved - all very inspiring. At the end of the panel, I summoned the courage to harass Dean Haspiel for a signature, and he was amazingly gracious as we briefly chatted it up about what comics meant to US, and he gave me a few suggestions on continued readings.

We retired to the Roger Smith Hotel on Lexington and rested up for a very busy Saturday. Check out a gallery of NYCC photos here in our own Community Section!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi, events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.