… which equals about 233% more chaos than anticipated.

For the inaugural, first-ever, boy-are-we-excited New York Comic Con, the organizers decided to pull out all of the stops and summon the very elemental forces of thermodynamics and subsequently kick them in the kidneys. The NY Comic Con is what ensued.

It’s wonderful to finally get a large-scale Comic Con on the East coast. Until now, all of the good conventions happen in the great big elsewhere. The San Diego Comic Con, arguably the biggest comics-related event of the year, is thousands of miles distant. Wizard Entertainment, despite being based in New York, has never held one of their shindigs on the East coast. Us New York geeks have had to suffice with medium-scale conventions in the basements of churches or wedged into the attic of Madison Square Garden. Years and years of built-up nerd pressure has all come to a head, and thousands upon thousands of collectors and costumed heroes swarmed forth to the Jacob Javits Center, and the Javits Center, unflinching in its accommodation and nobility, winced.

The Con ran over the weekend of February 24th, from Friday until Sunday. During this time, the Con organizers anticipated maybe 20,000 attendees - roughly 10,000 on Saturday and 5,000 on the other days. An estimated 20,000 people showed up for the Con on Saturday alone, and you can imagine what that looks like in a room that will hold only 10,000 people. Fire marshals come in, state troopers yell at you to keep on moving, and ultimately, thousands of people who paid for tickets are out in the cold. Literally. The entrance was so full of people that no more were allowed in and attendees were kept outside in below-freezing temperatures. I like to call those people ‘nerdcicles’.
My lovely companion and I managed to arrive relatively early, having pre-ordered express tickets online, but were still told to wait on one of the serpentine, endless lines, because the word ‘express’ ceased to exist. Lines. Everywhere. Wrapping into themselves. Giant, undulating things with no beginning or end. I wasn’t going to stand for this, and the only way to get inside within a sensible time frame would be to accost someone. It’s an unfortunate turn of events, but sometimes you just need to be the implement of your own justice.

We spied a haggard lady who had a handful of access-granting wristbands and a barcode reader, and we latched onto her like a bear trap on a ragdoll. I’ve not seen too many ragdolls ensnared in bear traps, but I’d imagine they’d be very tenacious. After ten minutes of this accosting, we were guided around to a bizarre secret entrance through the underground food court and set free.

Unfortunately, the scene inside wasn’t much better. The Con happened to be in the smallest hall of the Javits Center, the rows were packed too narrowly to move around comfortably, and there was little stopping to look at or purchase anything, as the constant ebb of people would shove you ever-forward. So, I didn’t get much of an opportunity to collect anything, just catch passing glances.

Evan Dorkin has said it best in his own blog about the Con. It was a good convention, but it was not outstanding in any way. While some cons are an excellent place to find bargain toys, the climate of comic and toy collecting has become a thing of little mercy, without an impressive discount to be found. The dominant fare were racks of carefully-guarded and high-priced Golden Age comics, overpriced action figures that could be easily found online, and the occasional dollar bin of semi-desirable books. I left Rachel in charge of the camera, but her own inclinations leave me with a disk full of pictures of the attendees, mostly cute chicks that she noticed.

Perhaps one of the stronger statements about the lack of organization of the Con was the fact that there was no seating available to escape the crowds, so many people were huddled into corners and in front of fire doors, just to have a place to take a breather and a bite to eat from the pretzel cart. If you left the main floor, you were out of the Con for good, no excuses, no matter who you were. This was all frighteningly unsafe, as well as uncomfortable.

The Con did manage to attract a fair number of prominent comic artists, writers and celebrities. Around the outer edges of the Con floor were the artists, often with lines of people waiting for signatures or to ask for sketches in front of their tables.

Sketches are one of the few things that you can find at a convention that is unique to the convention experience. Usually for under 50 bucks, you can ask your favorite artist to draw whatever you desire and walk away with a completely unique keepsake by the end of the show. I managed to score a Poison Ivy from an indie artist, though the chaos of the show prevented her from completing it by the time I had to depart, so she graciously agreed to mail it to me.

Aside from that, the appearance of Milla Jovovich to promote her new movie, Ultraviolet, was the highlight of the day. She appeared for about 40 minutes near the end of the con to engage in an question and answer session. Due to the chaos of the con, my friend and I decided to stake out second row seating, but were told to move back ten rows before Milla arrived. Unfortunately, this edict was not enforced and we were stuck at the back of the audience while the auditorium rushed to the front. It was just another testament to a day of poor organization and miscommunication. Many of the questions aimed at Milla were uttered forth by awkward individuals and contained meekly sexual undertones. Someone was handed the mic and inarticulately announced the following : “Yo Milla, I think you gots the hottest body in all the movies!” It was all downhill from there.

To the right here, you can see Milla at the actual size that we got to see her!

So, artist and businessman Todd McFarlane announced a Batman / Spawn crossover project, there was a ticketed screening of Dan Clowes’ ‘Art School Confidential’ that no one could get into, and my legs got really, really tired. We kept on asking each other “We’re having a good time, right? This is fun. Is this fun?” Was there any reason to really exceptional or unique besides the artist signings and interactions? Would I do it again?

So the question is, ‘was it fun?’ The answer is a resounding ‘kinda maybe’.