My fourth New York Comic Con came to an end last weekend, so naturally, I’m compelled to tell you about it. While the earlier years were more based on seeing a million panels, scouring the trade floor and hanging around the Marvel and DC booths to get signed comics from whoever was nearby, I mostly went in a different direction this year.

I’ve been wanting to take this picture for quite a while. Would have been better with Esther there and maybe a fourth person with a question mark pasted over their face. If fighting games has taught me anything, always give the extra spot to the random select button.

DAY ONE

First a non-comic related anecdote. David and I shared a hotel room, along with a mutual friend Gabe. David and I checked in to the hotel only five minutes apart and were ready to hit the show, albeit we wanted to get something to eat first. David just wanted a chai tea at Starbucks, but I had my heart set on this one diner that was between the hotel and the Javits Center. I’d eaten at the place every year I’d gone to the show and it had become a tradition. I took off and walked down the street, somewhat excited to see that a Five Guys Burgers and Fries had moved in. Great, I’d go eat there later.

Then I kept walking and realized, “Wait… isn’t that exactly where the diner was? SHIT!” Being a Jersey boy and being set on hanging out in a diner of some sort, I was at least abated to find out that there was another diner a block down the road. Sitting down and awaiting some French toast, I checked Twitter to find this from Mr. Brothers:

“Was gonna have chai for breakfast, found a Five Guys instead”

Motherfucker.

It’s a really good thing that Comic Con was only a weekend event because I swear Five Guys is the only thing I have seen David eat during the entire trip and another day or two of that and his heart would have gone critical.

Friday was mostly about scouting out the place. I barely spent any time on the main floor, but at least got a good look at everything briefly for later. I intended to hit four panels, but only hit two. The first one was the Marvel Digital panel, but I was too busy hanging out in Artist’s Alley, watching Todd Nauck do a sketch for me.

Todd Nauck is the happiest dude I have ever met. Don’t believe me? Google Image Search him right now. I’ll wait.

………………………..

See?!

Luckily, Chris Eckert would later tell me that the Marvel Digital panel I missed was completely boring. Good!

Up next was the Irredeemable/Incorruptible panel. Mostly just Mark Waid telling fun little anecdotes about writing the two series. We’ll be getting the big Plutonian vs. Max Damage fight sooner than later. During the Q&A, I asked if we’d be getting a story about the Plutonian getting in touch with humanity by walking through the country. I mean, like, literally walking through the country. As in casually breaking through buildings and vehicles as people run in terror. That got a good laugh from Waid and the other people in the room, followed with him laughing about how it would be the dullest comic ever.

Honestly, when I heard the concept of Grounded months back, I felt it would be a GREAT story for any Superman-type other than Superman. Plutonian, Hyperion or even Sentry would make that a compelling story.

I hit the panel for Getting into the Comics Industry the Marvel Way, but it was a bore and I left early. The other panel I meant to go to was Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Oh, what a fun time that would have been. Sadly, they decided not to book it into one of the bigger conference rooms and only a third of the line got to make it in. I got told to take a hike while the place seemed to near a riot.

Even though they had a handful of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 setups on the floor, I never got to play it. The lines were always way too long and it just wasn’t worth it.

I did get to play the demo build they had for Mega Man Universe a couple times. While I don’t know the full mechanics of what the game is about, the gist of it is that you get a choice between a bunch of custom Mega Men to fulfill whatever level. They only had three levels available (easy, medium and hard) with no end bosses. The Mega Men available to choose from included the regular kind, Mega Man with big yellow cannons for hands, Mega Man’s head with what I think is Metal Man’s body, Mega Man’s body with a hardhat robot for a head and the wrinkly, stupid-looking Mega Man from the first game’s box art.

Damn straight I picked him first.

DAY TWO

Day Two is the day where David Brothers and David Uzumeri wore suits because they had a panel. I decided to wear a suit because… they… uh, they had a panel. Really, I had no reason whatsoever to be wearing a suit, but if the two Davids jumped off a cliff, I would too because Uzumeri owes me five bucks and I’m getting it back one way or another.

Don’t worry, Commander. You and I will get our own panel one day. We’ll show them.

I noticed in the weeks leading up to the show that I wasn’t quite as excited for the show floor as I was in the previous years, nor was I too excited about most of the panels. To keep things fresh, I decided that I would finally take part in Artist’s Alley. I always skip the area every year because I feel so lost. I don’t know what I’d even want, but this time I had something in mind.

I spent most of Saturday in Artist’s Alley and spent enough change to get 14 sketches in my book. I went with a theme that I won’t spill just yet, but check back later on for the full showcase. I had so much fun with the concept, as did the artists.

I hit three panels on Saturday. The first one was the one for Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the upcoming Avengers cartoon on Disney XD. They showed the entire two-parter pilot episode that sets up the team and sweet Jesus it is fun stuff. The short of it is that this is Justice League Unlimited for Marvel fans and it deserves to be a huge success. It makes the Leader seem badass for no reason other than being voiced by Jeffrey Combs (who did the same magic for the Question on JLU). Pay attention when this starts airing.

Second panel was the Avengers Assemble one, where Quesada and friends announced a bunch of upcoming titles. Squirrel Girl is the new nanny for Luke Cage’s baby, which they announced at the con because nobody gives a shit otherwise. Onslaught is getting a new series and they tried to pretend that this was something people have been wanting. Spinning like a cyclone. Then they showed a movie trailer for the next arc of Avengers which was completely worthless.

Stuff that you already read happened… then Red Hulk is going to show up and do something. You didn’t need to make a 60’s-style Marvel cartoon to tell us that.

The last panel of the night for me was Comics Alliance, featuring the two Davids and their online coworkers. Very fun Q&A for an hour with an impressively filled room. Not bad, considering there were a couple major panels going on at the same time, like the Green Lantern one.

Shortly after that, it was time to call it in for the night. We returned to the hotel, where the Funnybook Babylon guys showed up to do a lot of drinking. I spent about an hour and a half being a guest on two podcasts. The first was the Funnybook Babylon podcast, which was a good time, despite me being very silent during the talk of Vertigo comics. What do you expect? Vertigo comics are totally fine, but they’re just about the opposite of what you’ll usually find me reading.

The other was the Fourcast. Yes, after all this time, I’m finally going to take part in the podcast of the site that I write on. That one should be up this coming Monday and definitely give it a shot when it’s uploaded. Me, David and other guest Pedro Tejeda had an absolute ton of fun and I really hope we can do it again. All I can tell you is that somehow discussion about the Comics Alliance panel leads to a discussion about Sanford & Son: One More Day.

You know what? We need another picture of me with a suit!

There we go. Good Ares cosplayer there. The con was filled with lots of Deadpools, Harley Quinns and Poison Ivys. The latter makes me think of one of the funnier failures of the whole cosplay concept. I don’t know if this will sound creepy or what, but if you plan on dressing as a character who’s wearing a sexy outfit, don’t half-ass it.

Here’s what I mean. Some girls might want to dress as Poison Ivy and go the full nine yards by wearing what’s essentially a leaf bikini. Hey, good for you! It isn’t even a female-only thing, as I saw a Daken cosplayer on the first day who was shirtless the entire time to show off his fake tattoo. But let’s say you don’t want to go with the risqué outfit when you’re Poison Ivy. That’s totally fine. I saw lots of girls wearing green dresses or outfits that resembled the Uma Thurman movie version.

But when your outfit is peach-colored sweatpants, a peach-colored shirt and a bunch of leaves pasted on to look like a big two-piece ensemble, you have to realize how silly you look. The other 100 Poison Ivys are making you look like Ralph Wiggum dressed as Idaho.

Here is a Cable cosplayer. I only took a picture of him so I could crop him out at the ankles and make him more accurate.

Enough about that. Time for the last day.

DAY THREE

I didn’t go to any panels on the last day, as the only thing that interested me was a Marvel panel and I gambled on leaving it be. David later told me it was uneventful. By this point, I think when I’d ask, “Anything interesting happen at the panel?” I’m really asking, “Did any fans go completely batshit and embarrass themselves?”

Which reminds me, the Sergeant Rock cosplayer who went to the X-Men panel to yell, “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WITH FRANKEN-CASTLE?!” at Rick Remender and the Kingdom Come Lian Harper Red Arrow cosplayer who went to the DC panel, got invited on stage and then pitched a fit for every little thing until they took the mic away should be set up together. I think we may have a love connection here.

Other than finishing up some final business at Artist’s Alley, Sunday was all about traveling the floor. Saturday is way too busy for it and feels like trying to run a marathon in a cornfield. The more important reason is that everyone working there does not want to lug around too much of their stuff on the way back and you end up finding some nice deals. I saw one place selling 60 comics for $20 at one point. I would have taken them up on that had it not been crawling with dozens of other people with the same idea.

I met a couple writers on the floor and made some nice small talk with Rick Remender and Jason Aaron. I also finally crossed paths with that bigshot Chris Sims and challenged him to a fight to the death as I promised.

I don’t remember much about that. I later woke up upside down in a trash can, but I was still alive, so I think I might have won.

David and I each had our own objectives on this final day, so we knew we were each going to go our separate ways. Our goodbyes were more or less this.

The difference is that David had a closed fist.

As for buying stuff, I scoured the different places for some early Thunderbolts stuff, as I feel it’s about time I get on that. Also got Thor Corps just because. One place had trades for $5, which included Showcase Doom Patrol and Reign of Supermen. That’s a damn good deal.

Soon my wallet was crying and I had to pull myself away from making purchases I knew I would later hate. One place was selling the entire run of Morbius for $30 and when I found myself pondering it for two minutes, I knew it was time to go home.

I had a blast and I’m sure I’ll be back in 2011. Maybe I should look into hitting San Diego next time around. I’m sure they’d let me and Cobra Commander have our own panel.

In the meantime, check back soon to see the fruits of my time at Artist’s Alley.

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Posted in comic books, Conventions, New York Comic-con by Gavok |