After spending a whole day shopping at NYCC, I decided that I wanted to experience the full Comic Con Experience, which meant attending events that weren’t on the main floor (as well at eating from vending machines and getting smacked across the face with a backpack full of hardcover comics). Luckily, Saturday had a numbed of panels in isolated meeting rooms.

[ Example of a panel ]

If you’ve never been to a ‘panel’, here’s how it goes : a handful of professionally related people sit at a long table with microphones and bottles of water. In a small meeting room, you might get squished into a folding chair in between a couple of larger gentlemen with breathing problems. If you end up in a theater, you’d be pretty lucky to get a seat where you could still see the stage without a telescope. The assembled professionals talk about an aspect of their trade or craft, and the audience asks questions. This lasts for about 30 minutes, or until the room gets hot and sweaty, and everyone squeezes out when it’s all over. Being given new and exclusive information is not an unpleasant experience, but the ‘panel’ is almost always a static, stilted presentation, with rare exceptions. PowerPoint never helps anything, guys, unless you’re trying to sap my will to live.

On today’s schedule was ‘DC and Mattel’ (a discussion of the ongoing line of DC Universe Classics action figures), a discussion with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, a panel featuring talent from Hellboy II, and a panel with the creators and voice actors from The Venture Bros. - my favorite cartoon of all time. Fortunately, and against all odds and disorganization, I made it into all four events, but not without a great deal of trouble and uncertainty.

The ‘DC and Mattel’ panel was held in the aforementioned hot, unventilated little room and featured members of DC marketing team, a few members of the popular sculpting team of The Four Horsemen, and a brand manager for DC Comics. The assembled crowd was given a PowerPoint presentation that featured lists and images of some of the upcoming DCUC and JLU figures, each ‘new’ item being greeted with the suitable ‘ooh!’ and ‘aah!’, or silence if the pictured item was a re-paint or re-release of something else.

We were informed that the JLU line (seen here in our gallery) has shifted from a kid-centric line towards being a collectors’ line, and as such, it would begin to feature characters that were never actually IN the show but are popular with fans anyhow. The line would also be sold exclusively at Target. Upcoming JLU figures include a great Jack Kirby-inspired ‘New Gods’ box set of six that will include characters like Forager and Lashina. Also new will be a classic Batman (in his blues and greys), Galatea (essentially, Power Girl in cartoon form), Captain Atom, a re-release of the rare Gorilla Grodd, and a San Diego Comic Con exclusive Giganta - in both ‘normal sized’ and ‘enormous’ forms. As someone who’s still seeking a few rare figures (and finding them, years after release, due to strange distribution), this was exciting stuff.

Mattel also revealed details about upcoming DCUC figures (also pictured here), which include Batman Beyond, Captain Atom (in two variants), and amazingly huge Ares, and a collect-and-connect Despero. Wonder Woman (from Wave 4) will have an Artemis variant, and there will also be a Wal-Mart exclusive wave, which will include Amazo, The Atom, The Riddler, Black Lightning, Eradicator Superman, and a collect-and-connect Brainiac. Anyone who’s collected toys for a while will shudder at the very mention of anything being exclusive to Wal-Mart, because ‘Wal-Mart Exclusive’ equates to ‘impossible to find and expensive on eBay’ - but Mattel assured the crowd that the wave will ship consistently throughout the year, alongside regular figures. Toys ‘R’ Us will also be getting an exclusive 2-pack of Lightray and an unmasked Orion, as well as a 2-pack of some Batman re-releases. We were also shown a glimpse of Hawkman.

The biggest news, however, is the release of a SDCC Exclusive Lobo. Now, Lobo is a fun character with a hilariously ultra-violent background. Because of this, DC avoids making toys of him at almost any cost, because they just don’t want to present the character to children if they can help it. Because the SDCC environment isn’t general retail, and assumed to be a mostly-collector event, Lobo will be sold there and only there. However, once the NY crowd collectively moaned and frothed at the Mattel brand manager, he promised to make the figure available online also.

Questions were fielded regarding this character or that character, and they were all answered openly and honestly. One thing that did surprise me was the tone of the complaining about not getting figures in NY as quickly as our West Coast brethren - an observation which showed a complete ignorance about how toys are distributed in the US. Most toys come in at California ports, and over the course of a few weeks, dependent almost entirely upon the distribution system of any given retailer, they make their way around, leaving Mattel with little say on what is sent where and in what quantity. To complain to Mattel is a fruitless activity, unless you’re asking them to just make more toys - and even still, the retailers need to order them. For a few minutes, it was like sitting in a whiny message board, and it was uncomfortable.

The second panel I sat in on was a discussion with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, who wasn’t given anything but a chair and a table. No moderator, no preface - just a guy open questions and answers. Despite the lack of preparedness on the part of NYCC, Mignola sailed through the questions in good time and gave great, casual answers regarding his many projects, inspirations and aspirations. He wanted to break into comics, he started inking things (poorly, by his own admission), and eventually decided that drawing monsters fighting was his true calling - and he never looked back. It really didn’t get more complex than that, and it didn’t need to be. Oh, and using lots of dark shadows on things meant that the comic’s colorist couldn’t screw it up too badly.

I arrived at the Hellboy II cast panel an hour early. As it turned out, the Lucasfilm panel was running 30 minutes late, so the insanely huge crowd of a line waiting outside of the IGN Theater didn’t even really know what they were waiting for, and no one seemed to be able to tell them. This was exacerbated by the fact that the only crowd control was volunteer teenagers in yellow shirts, none of whom could give an answer consistent with the guy standing next to them. I waited on the line for about 45 minutes before I was told that it wasn’t for Hellboy after all (even though it was scheduled to start), and that I wasn’t allowed to wait on ANY lines until 2 PM. Despite this, Hellboy fans started their own impromptu line off to the side, while we all joked and debated as to whether our line was an official line or if we’d again be dispersed by the angry grey-haired guy. I was chatted up by an anime geek while I mostly shrugged and indicated that I had no idea what he was talking about, but wrote down a few ‘suggested watching’ titles anyhow. We eventually wound our way in, sat through a few scenes of the upcoming action movie ‘Wanted’ and enjoyed a short talk with the Russian director - who seemed totally bewildered at the crowd.

The Hellboy panel, presented immediately afterwards, included director Guillermo DelToro, Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, Selma Blair and Mike Mignola, along with newcomer Luke Goss. After an extended trailer, the lights returned and the stage was filled with creatures from HBII, delighting and shocking the whole audience. After this, the audience lined up to ask questions - most of them directed at DelToro. In fact, I don’t recall Selma Blair or Luke Goss (who actually appears in both Hellboy and Wanted) saying a word during their entire stay on stage - with DelToro vibrantly and amicably (and crassly) responding to every inquiry. He expounded on his feelings as an independent director versus being a director working for a major company - and while the big bucks reside in major motion pictures, he likened it to trying to draw a picture while a dozen hands are holding your pencil. He gave out his personal e-mail address in a search for artists and interns, which I quickly wrote down and began to do sketches for. I’m far more enamored with creators than with celebrity, but it would have been nice to get a few more words out of the actors regarding how they felt about the filming process. Perhaps the most interesting revelation was that the voice of new movie creature Johann was to be provided by Seth MacFarlane - creator and talented voice actor from Family Guy.

The Hellboy monsters were going to stick around for photographs, and a limited edition poster was to be given out, but I bolted out of the theater to make it to the Venture Bros. panel on time. I was very surprised to encounter another ridiculously long line that wrapped around the small events hall. Everyone expressed doubts about the size of the line being able to actually make it inside, but after a quick room change and a couple of crowbars to squeeze everyone in (along with irate people from another mysterious line that also ostensibly led inside yelling at organizers), we managed to get a seat in the back of the room, right next to a curly-headed guy who was making every every to not fall asleep on my shoulder. And failing.

The Venture panel consisted of a few scenes from the upcoming Season Three, followed by a conversation with Doc Hammer, James Urbaniak, Michael Sinterniklaas and Jackson Publick. While it mostly consisted of in-talking and a debate about whether one would rather lose a toe or a finger (given the choice), I found the behind-the-scenes personalities very interesting. A couple dressed as The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend asked Doc Hammer to perform their marriage ceremony, and the panel launched into a hilarious and philosophical discussion about the souls of clones. Everyone associated with the show was really amicable, and even gave out prizes for excellent questions or costumes - though the prizes only consisted of really bad DVDs.

The effect of most of the panels was to come away inspired to create things, which is the most that I can ask from anything. There was still one day left, and I was going to round it out with a bit of everything.

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!

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!

Because of the very brief time span between Toy Fair and New York Comic Con this year, a few companies decided to hold onto some ‘big reveals’ until NYCC and show them off to the public at large, instead of just members of the industry. This made for what some collectors have called ‘a disappointing Toy Fair’, but an exciting NYCC.

One such company was Hasbro, whose Marvel Legends line is the talk of the town. You know, if you’re talking about a town entirely full of XBox 360s and Doritos and people with breathing issues. Despite this popularity, they didn’t show off anything new at Toy Fair, but had the next two waves safely displayed and encased at NYCC, confirming rumors of future character lineups (which crafty techo-nerds had already gleaned from Wal-Mart stock charts and lost bits of HTML on Hasbro’s website). Wave three will include Bucky (the Captain America sidekick), First Appearance Captain America, Marvel Girl (and variant), Black Knight, Astonishing X-Men Cyclops, X3 Colossus, Danger, and a HYDRA soldier (and variant) with a Brood Queen Build-A-Figure tying them all together. These are pictured in the photos above and in the NYCC photo gallery. The late reveal of these might seem unnecessary, but the manner in which they were revealed presents a very collector-friendly stance that Hasbro is trying to make, in spite of allegations that figure quality has dropped significantly since they took over the line. I don’t care what anyone says - my Annihilus is probably one of the most awesome things to ever fall over onto me while I’m sleeping, excluding of course the array of clumsy but beautiful women that I find myself with.

DC Direct revealed series seven of Justice, a continuing series of figures based on the artwork of Alex Ross, but the showing was unfortunately confusing. Two of the figures included in this wave are Armored Superman and Armored Aquaman, both of whom were slated to appear in a canceled wave comprised entirely of armored heroes (along with Batman, the female Nightwing, and Flamebird). Both of these figures appeared to be almost completely solid colored, with no paint detailing. In addition to that, a Gorilla Grodd figure was on display that re-used the body of the previous Grodd figure, and a John Stewart Green Lantern that re-used a Hal Jordan Body and the head of another previous Stewart figure which looked nothing at all like the artwork of Alex Ross. Since series 5 only just came out two weeks ago, and every figure to date has been excellent, we can hope that the figures on display were only placeholders for the actual figures being sculpted and painted. If not, I have to say that this is the first wave of Justice figures I’m going to completely skip.

Mezco didn’t allow photography of their Goonies line at Toy Fair, where we saw them in their full, painted glory, but unpainted prototypes were on display at NYCC, along with a few replica movie props. As mentioned in the Toy Fair coverage, these still present exceptional likenesses. While Mezco sometimes pursues cartoon figures, or portrays properties in a cartoonish manner, but they’re more spot-on with likenesses than any other company producing toys.

WizKids also displayed at NYCC, revealing the entire line of DC Heroclix : Origins figures for the first time, and a few crucial figure game stats. I haven’t been this excited for a wave of Heroclix in a long time, usually just buying a case each wave to keep up on my collection for the next time I actually sit down and play. I recall discussing a DC Comics based Heroclix set with former brand manager Jason Mical at Toy Fair about two years ago, and putting in my formal argument to do a set based on Golden Age characters, or at least classic ones - mostly to satisfy my jones for an Alan Scott Green Lantern. Finally, my dream set is being released, and in only three days! It will feature such characters as First Appearance Batman and Superman, Mirror Master (with an additional sculpt depicting him in a mirror), Shadow Thief (with another additional sculpt depicting him in his flat and flexible alternate form), Doom Patrol’s Robotman, Mister Mind, Golden Age Sandman, Shazam (with a neat, but suggestive, sculpt of him transforming from little Billy Batson). Overall, very exciting to be able to add these characters to an army. The only Marvel Heroclix figure on display was the colossal Fin Fang Foom, two of which were being given away in gaming competitions during the Con. These are not available yet, but will become so during the summer convention season, much like Galactus and Spectre were in past years.

Next year’s NYCC will happen in April, increasing that divide between Toy Fair and itself, and giving companies more time to prepare their annual exclusives, so there’s hope yet to establish a higher volume of new items for sale by then. The Con will also have increased space, hopefully delaying (or preventing entirely) that good ol’ New York Shuffle, wherein you can’t really place one foot more than three inches in front of the other.

Overall, NYCC has become a convention worth attending, so if you’re in the NYC area, check it out. But don’t get in my way.

Any good convention will have its material rewards and souvenirs, in addition to that whole ‘life experience’ thing. New York Comic Con 2007 was no exception, and had a fair share of exclusive and unique items to motivate attendees to storm the booths and spend their hard earned student loan repayment money. What’s one more week at a soul-rending job if it means you can have that new Stargate figure that you can’t get ANYWHERE else? Depending on how hardcore you are, the tradeoff might seem minimal.

Check out the photo gallery of everything that the Con had to offer here!

Since NYCC is still in its nascent years, it does not yet have a significant number of exclusive items allotted to it like the Wizard Worlds and San Diego Comic Cons do. Some companies create exclusives for a singular event, and some create items that are sold throughout the entire convention season at multiple events. If you can’t attend an event, there’s a minimal chance that you’ll ever be able to obtain the item in question without paying inflated secondary market prices. A few companies have heard the frustrated outcry of collectors who can’t complete their collections due to this exclusivity and have created special ‘collectors clubs’, which allow dedicated fans to purchase these items after a small membership fee. Rainbows sprout from the foreheads of unicorns, pixies enchant small children into their glens, and everyone chills out.

NYCC saw at least three exclusive items at the Diamond Comics booth - a Spider-Man Icons bust in black, a Venom Icons bust (both numbering only 600), and a Star Trek Nemesis Geordi LaForge figure. Only 1,701 Geordis were made and were hand numbered. Were I a capitalist and had a pack mule with me, I’d have stocked up on these items, as they’re now selling at almost triple the convention price on the secondary market… but then, what kind of person would I be?

Mezco was not offering any new items, but they did make available their 2006 exclusive items which had not sold out yet, including a Family Guy Herbert figure and a Comic Hellboy with Japanese Floating Heads, neither of which are any longer available through Club Mez, their online collectors club.

And while many booths were selling insanely heavy statues and busts, one must question how many they sell to the already weary traveler whose arms are already full of nerdaphenalia and has a long trip back to their parents’ basement to still make. By way of tiny collectibles, Wizards of the Coast had the right idea. For every game demonstration that you watched or participated in, they’d give you a promotional miniature piece. I walked away with a Naboo Starship, a Star Wars Mistryl Shadow Guard and a Dreamscape Freakazoid, none of which are available at retail. Additionally, I got a scorecard checked off at each demo and finally, at the end of the booth, I got to roll a giant, foam d20. I rolled high, and won a free (discontinued) copy of Betrayal at House of the Hill, an absurdly fun, complex board game distributed by WotC, retail value of $36. WizKids, unrelated to Wizards of the Coast, were offering a Vlad the Impaler HorrorClix miniature.

Other tiny collectibles included an array of free pins at the DC Comics booth, and a collection of (not free) blind-boxed art toys at the Toy Tokyo booth (who also had some art toys exclusive to NYCC). When you’re carting around a convention’s worth of awesome, small is key. And it never hurts to ask if the retailer can either hold the larger items for you until the end of the Con, or even have them shipped to you. Of course, pre-payment to an unknown entity that decides to pack up and go home early is always a risk that one must take for maximum personal mobility, and some sellers are very, very ornery and want those dang kids offa their lawn as soon as possible. Dagnabbit.

Comics are relatively easy to carry, if not deceptively weighty. By the end of NYCC, I’d purchased a copy of Spiral Bound, Mutation (which has a neat Bruce Timm style to it), and four signed comics from King Tractor Press. Of note is ‘Family Bones’, the true story of a elderly couple of serial killers, made notable by the fact that the story is written and illustrated by the couple’s nephew, who had spent his summers on the same farm where the murders took place, unbeknownst to him. I’m a sucker for surreal, biographical tales, and hope that my support for indie publishing will one day karmically come back to me when I start publishing my own work.

I’m always amazed by the tenacity of those conventioneers who bring wheeled carts full of 50-pound longboxes full of old comics into convention centers, hoping to get a vast array ofbooks signed by creators and taking out the shins of everyone who threatens to get in the way. More sensible was the gentleman who’d brought a backpack full of comics, alphabetically arranged and tabbed by artist and author so as not to miss a signature, or suffer the penultimate embarrassment, handing a book to a creator that he had nothing to do with. No distance that you can retract your head into your body can protect you from that, and I always get an irrational moment of panic when I hand something over to be signed, just in case I make a similar faux pas.

The aforementioned Bill Plympton was kind enough to sign my Mutant Aliens DVD and give me a free sketch of his Guard Dog character on a postcard. Of course, when I told him I was a huge fan from back in my junior high school days, and he asked what of his I’d seen, my brain froze and I probably said something like ‘my mom cooks bacon in the microwave!’ Unfotunately, and despite a table FULL of things he’d created right in front of me, I failed to mention ‘The Tune‘, the well-known ‘Your Face‘, ‘Plymptoons’ or his contributions to The Animation Show. Regardless, he was easy to talk to after that and showed a marked interest in his fans. Coincidentally, I work with one of the camera operators that he’d used for many of his earlier animations.
In my overexcited haze, I surely missed out on a good deal of free and exclusive items. Please feel free to comment below and let me know what egregious omissions I’ve made, and please stay tuned for tomorrow’s NYCC 2007 conclusion.