It’s here, it’s here, New York Comic Con is here!
I got my pro pass well in advance this year. My plan is to do three of the four days. I took Thursday and Friday off of work, and will be going Saturday as well. There’s some fun stuff on Sunday, but I expect I’ll be pretty wiped by then and ready for a day at home. (Especially as I’m considering attending the Geeks Out after party on Saturday night…)
So the pro pass is a great deal – it’s cheaper than a single day pass, and it’s for the whole con. The only other benefit it provides is you get to enter through a different door than everyone else, skipping the main line. Every other year I’ve gone that hasn’t really been an issue – maybe it’s just been the times I’ve been getting there, but there’s never really been much of a difference in wait time between the “blue door” and the main “green door.” Not this year! The con started at ten, and I got there shortly before. There were con volunteers blocks away steering people in a certain direction, but I ignored them and continued to the blue door.
I got in very quickly, but figured it wouldn’t have made much difference if I had followed the herd. I was very wrong! I was supposed to meet my friends Maggi, Ron, and M at 10:15, but a text from Maggi told me that they were in the main line – and would likely be there for quite a while. The line was winding up, down and all around the town. Some scofflaws were apparently jumping to the front of the line without consequences, but my friends are law-abiding citizens and had to wait.
Meanwhile, I seized the opportunity to explore the almost empty exhibition floor. Er, sorry, guys. (And thank you, pro pass.)
Found a great cosplayer right off the bat – love this TARDIS outfit. (I think she was actually working at this booth, but I can’t remember what it was for…)
Most of the vendors were still getting set up, so I went over to Artist Alley, always my favorite part of any convention. Just at the entrance, a small crowd was gathered, watching some television getting made.
Seth Myers was interviewing cosplayers for a segment on his show. Pretty cool! They were wrapped and gone very quickly – I assume they were taking advantage of the outside line chaos and getting out before the bulk of the crowd had made it inside.
No pictures of Artist Alley – I’ll try and get some tomorrow – but I did stop at Ryan Winn‘s booth to say hello. I know Ryan and his wife Mia through my friend Kate Danley – in fact, I first met them at my first NYCC, a few years back. Kate couldn’t make the trip this year, but it was good to see Ryan and Mia. And to have a place to hover all day whenever I had some time to kill. (I think I managed to avoid chasing away actual customers. I hope so, as I plan to continue visiting regularly for the next two days.) And I picked up the first (or, zeroth, I guess) issue of Death Betty, a comic by Ryan and Adam Jackman. Check it out, it’s great! (Just click all the links in this paragraph. They all lead somewhere good.)
Alas, my friends had still not made it inside, so I went to my first panel of the day, “We Need More Diverse Comics.”
Sorry for the terrible picture of the backs of people’s heads. I sat in the last row so I could slip out discretely if and when Maggi texted me that they had made it inside. But that’s moderator Christian Zabriskie on the end there, and then – and I could have all of this wrong – that’s Karen Green (or her hair, at least), Eric Dean Seaton, Vishavjit Singh, and Ivan Velez. Alex Simmons was also on the panel, but he showed up a little late, after I had taken this picture. Or maybe after and he’s actually in there, it’s not like I can tell.
It was a pretty interesting discussion – I’m a sucker for a good diversity panel. I’m a strong advocate for including lots of different types of people in fiction, as you might know if you’ve read any of my books. Unfortunately I didn’t stay too long – the panel started at 11:15, and at 11:30 Maggi texted me that they had made it in, after an hour and a half in line. Huzzah! I did linger a bit, as Singh started telling the story of how the “Captain America in a turban” phenomenon started. Remember that, from about two years ago? That was him. He’s an artist and had initially drawn an image of Captain America with a beard and turban, which became so popular that he was persuaded to dress that way by a friend. It’s a pretty great story – look him up if you haven’t heard of him.
Cosplay break!
Disney princesses! I think? Who’s the one with the basket, anybody know? I thought it was Alice at first, but the colors aren’t right. What kind of Disney queen am I? Whoever she is, I wish her eyes were open.
Zatanna, mistress of magic! This is back down in Artist Alley.
Hawkman! I am living for those wings.
Lunch at the Javitz Center would cost about the same as my grocery bills for a year, so we all had brought sandwiches. It was pretty crowded but we found some floor space to pop a squat. Hey, wanna see my friends eat lunch?
Ron and Maggi! Note the Predator in the background. Don’t get too excited, that’s a fanny pack.
M!
We had different agendas for the day, so after lunch we split up. I found another cosplayer I had to get a picture of:
Squirrel Girl! I love Squirrel Girl. Then I was off to my second panel, “Disabled or Mislabeled? Graphic Novels and Comics About Disabilities.”
Slightly better picture this time – at least you can see the panel. Unfortunately, I’ve no idea who is who. Google image search wasn’t too much help, but I think this is the order, left to right: Natalie Korsavidis, Valerie Acklin, Jessikah Chautin, and Martha Divittorio. It was a fairly interesting panel. I do wish they had found some disabled creators to speak. All four women, I believe, are librarians and comics fans, so they were able to talk knowledgeably on the subject, but it was mostly a listing of comics characters with disabilities rather than an in-depth discussion of the state of the industry in regards to this kind of representation. It livened up a bit when the audience got to ask questions, although many of those were also just recommendations of more things to read.
I’m probably presenting this a little unfairly – it really was interesting. I had gone into it with unrealistic expectations, maybe – I would like to do better at including people with disabilities in my own work, and was hoping to hear from some other writers on the topic. But that wasn’t how the panel was billed, so I really shouldn’t judge it for not giving me something it didn’t promise.
My friends were in panels of their own (and M was in line to meet Felicia Day), so I wandered Artist Alley a bit more, then hit up my last panel for day one, “New York TimesOUT Presents LGBT in Comics.” I had lingered a little too long – I needed a snack and bought some overpriced cookies at the food court, which led to me getting in line a little late. But being on your own has its advantages (he said, eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s while watching an entire season of Doctor Who in one sitting), and I was able to slip into an open seat in the second row, front and center.
Which means better pictures! Here’s most of the line-up: left to right, that’s Kris Anka, artist on Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel; Jennie Wood, creater of Flutter (which I bought the first volume of at NYCC last year, and got it signed by her – it’s good!); Babs Tarr, artist on Batgirl; Kevin Wada, artist on She-Hulk and Catwoman; James Tynion IV, writer of Batman & Robin Eternal and Constantine: The Hellblazer; and moderator Jude Biersdorfer from sponsor The New York Times.
And then slipping in just under the wire, on the far left, is (my favorite) Steve Orlando, writer on Midnighter and Virgil (which I bought from him at Flame Con earlier this summer).
This was a terrific panel – kudos due to Biersdorfer for being a great moderator, asking intelligent questions that kept things moving. Some good questions from the audience, as well. Tynion talked about how important it had been to him to make John Constantine’s bisexuality explicitly clear in the first few pages of the first issue of the relaunched Constantine: The Hellblazer, which I remember came as a very happy surprise to me when I read it, after the producer of the TV show took such pains to make clear the television version would remain heterosexual. 
Tarr was fun, she talked a lot about the designs of the various Batgirl characters, including the new costume.
And Orlando spoke a lot about the importance of Midnighter as the only lead queer character currently carrying a solo book from DC or Marvel, and how presenting him as a single, sexually active gay man is as important, and as boundary-pushing, now, as presenting him as in a steady relationship with Apollo was back when he first appeared. Overall, a great panel.
That was it for panels for the day. But not for cosplayers!
Iron Fist!
At first I thought this was Bloodshot, but I think now it’s Captain Atom, from the shape of the chest design, and the costume color pattern. It’s just the lines on the face that have me wondering if maybe it’s a different character entirely. Anyone?
Gritty 90s Aquaman!
And on our way out…
Deadpool conga line! Because why not? Honestly, I’m sort of over Deadpool cosplay – I’ve never been a huge fan of the character (though I do like the most recent run a lot), and the humor of the cosplayers rarely works for me, despite the endless spins they put on it. Okay, I’m a grump. But I did like that the last person in line (who you can’t see in this picture, unfortunately) was Bob, Agent of Hydra, Deadpool’s perpetually unfortunate sidekick.
One last group shot, and we were out! Actually, they went back for an 8pm panel, but I was done so I said my farewells. I’ve got two more days of this to get through, and my legs were already screaming in protest. Super fun first day, though!
Day one loot and swag! There’s the aforementioned issue of Death Betty, signed by Mr. Winn. I got two issues of the Doctor Who comic from the Titan booth, with the NYCC exclusive covers. I don’t actually give a crap about exclusive covers, but those issues aren’t in stores until next week, and you couldn’t get that nifty Firefly bookmark without a purchase, so I figured I might as well scoop them up now. And that book Arena was a free giveaway from the publisher, I don’t know much about it but it sounded all right. The rest is just random stuff I picked up here and there, but I do like that bookmark from The Martian. Words to live by.
More to come!
