2008 New York Comic Con

During the weekend of April 18-20, 2008, Comic, Sci Fi and Anime Geeks from lands far and wide proved that we could all get along, for at least in the short term. That weekend marked the third installment of the NY Comic Con and by my unofficial account, it marked the largest gathering to date.

OK, so I’m not privy to the actual number of people that marched through the halls, and I was only there for two of the three days (the third day was spent enduring the start of a family vacation that should have been easier and taken less time). While I found Friday very productive (great picture opportunities and slower paced (extra time to go through the dollar boxes), Saturday was somewhat of a return to the crowds that have given the NY Con its famous/infamous notoriety.

Let’s talk fun stuff. I was one of the many fan boys stalking everything in costume. Most were cute girls (I know, imagine that) some were guys that just looked awful.

{Check out the top box under "Our Adventures in Geekdom" to see a new slide show running my con pictures. Also, check out the photos taken by Areacode212 over on flickr. (www.flickr.com/areacode212) or my prior con photos (http://www.flickr.com/photos/comic_con/)
Good stuff.}

I heard one of the organizers for the con on the Comic Geek Speak podcast say that there were 260 panels scheduled for the three day event. And further say that the show floor was 60% larger than the previous year. For my part I went to a grand total of three panels and have the blisters on my feet to concede the larger show floor. (The first manufacture to brand comfortable convention shoes will own the world.)

My only panel on Friday night was headlined by some new comic writer, something Jameson, didn’t really learn much there. Nice looking comic but after you read one issue you need recovery time before reading the next. On Saturday I attended the Battle Star Galactica panel. Frakking good time. I won’t go into who spoke or what was mentioned, but I will say that if you think Tory is hot on your little screen, you gotta see her in person. So say we all.

My third panel was by far the most enjoyable. It was an hour with Orson Scott Card . Fantastic. I must confess that although I had heard of Mr. Card, until recently I had never read anything he had written. At the urging of a co worker I read “Enders Game” about a month ago. Without hesitation one of the best stories, best crafted novel I have ever read. The concepts explored in EG are truly profound and make you actually think about the narrative and the characters living this story. How may times have you read a novel and just either hated the ending or saw it coming 15-20 pages before the author? I never saw this ending coming. Fantastic. I’m on the second book now, Speaker for the Dead.

Artist alley seems to remain full at all times and I hope those folks were able to make enough money to justify this trip and many more in the future. In the same vain Podcast Arena seemed to be well represented. I did miss the folks from Raging Bullets. I really wanted to ask them why? Why in the name of all that is geeky, do you guys put out a three plus hour podcast? You’re killing me! Listen, I learn a ton of stuff about the DCU that I never knew and they discuss the heck out of comics I just can’t buy. But three to four hours is a shit ton of time. Please, break them up into more manageable lengths.

However, all was not Golden Age in dollar boxes. There was one troubling aspect. Vendors of video games, card games and everything not comic related seemed to grow and had a much larger presence at this con (a good thing). But, I’m wondering if this advancement was to the detriment of the vendors actually selling comics (a bad thing). It seemed to me that that several dealers from whom I had purchased comic at prior cons (most notably NY and Wizard World Philly) were not in attendance. Was this because they chose not to buy a both? Did they wait until all available spots were already taken? Were the cost too high? Since the vendors I’m thinking of are veterans of the con scene and all have brick and mortar stores, I would tend not to be believe that they did not want to sell their wares in NY or that they were negligent in their business and waited until it was to late to apply for space. I would also like to think that the powers that be would not price out the small guy in such an important Comic Con, but I do have to wonder.

Overall, I believe this was a great con and with a few tweaks here and there, the NY Comic Con can grow to challenge the mightiest of all Comic Cons, San Diego.