Let me tell you and amazing story. I woke up at 4:30am after a mere 3 hours of sleep in order to make myself look like a human being. Pat (our resident photographer) came to my house at 5, and at 5:15 I ran back inside to throw up. No, I’m not pregnant. I just forgot to eat some food before taking my medication.
So! At 5:30 we left. I promptly fell asleep in the car, and when I woke up 3 hours later, ta-da! New York City. We walked around SoHo for a bit before heading to the con. Getting our press badges were super easy. When the con opened, I was greeted by the very large Archie Comics banner hanging from the rooftop. Love at first sight! I really don’t know where to go from there. I ran into my friend David, and we walked around. Previews had a wonderful display of toys that were due out in the next few months, such as the Archie Syroco figures. Marvel and DC both had epic booths. DC was previewing a trailer for the next animated film. I’m not big on spoilers (although you can just go to Wikipedia and look it up), but it had something to do with Superman.
The Marvel booth was previewing the Marvel Super Hero Squad: Infinity Gauntlet video game, a family friendly video game that looks like it will be a ton of fun on both the PS3 and X-Box, but might be a bit of a challenge on the Wii. They were also pushing the new Avengers cartoon that will be on Disney XD. You could get a free Avengers ID made at the booth, and I simply can’t resist cute things like that!
Also on hand were the Green Hornet car and motorcycle. You could watch the trailer in 3D at the booth. This movie looks like it’s going to be a ton of fun! There was also a GIANT stage where you could play the new Michael Jackson Experience video game. Basically it’s just dancing to his music much like DDR or Guitar Hero. There were also booths for 5 Hour Energy and Vitamin Water. Yep.
As a big plus, the artists alley and celebrity autograph area were in another room. This broke the crowd up a good deal, so it wasn’t really that bad in the alley. On hand inside of the alley was Intel showing off new PC games, and you could also learn how to play D&D. Instead of indulging my huge inner geek, I sought out my favorite comic book artist (and all around nice guy) Dan Parent! And I found him! Yaaaaay! If you’ve never met him you are missing out. I also met Fernando Ruiz, another great Archie comic book artist. I got two commissions done by them, and you should all be jealous.
Now for the bad. The convention had around 77 thousand people. Javits is a huge convention center, and NYCC is frankly NOT utilizing the space to their advantage. Plus, despite the fact that the anime festival was included, all of the anime dealers were shoved into a tiny corner of the main hall, which was frankly the most crowded. It was if they were an after thought. Plus the variety of anime dealers was not there. Almost all of them sold the same crap, and while you can make that argument for comic book dealers, there was literally not variety or competition. The same crap was the same crappy price at another crappy booth. If you want an example of a real “anime” dealers room, go to Otakon. The anime stuff should have been given a different room, which would have added more space for the con. I highly doubt it would have hurt sales either.
I also heard from a few dealers that theft was rampant at this convention, but at the same time sales were good, and strong. This is wonderful news. I myself did not buy any comics. I did however buy some cutsey items from Japan as well as a True Blood shot glass. However, because of the crowds, I left at 1. It was literally unbearable. I hope next year NYCC utilizes Javits better, and learns how to control crowds better as well.
Even so, can’t wait till next year!
-Lauren
Myself and Han, doing our thang.
Girls With Comics 