by Michael Raiz and Bernard Siregar
This February, at the 4th New York Comic Con, comic fans across New York City and beyond had the chance to experience the biggest nerd convention on the east coast. The amount of attendees is said to have more than doubled since last year’s convention showcase.
The giant event took place in the Jacob K. Javits Center from February 6 to 8 and it was a wild assortment of the casual, die hard and scary fans of comic books, video games, and pop culture in general.
“This event is like San Diego Comic Con’s younger brother,” said a regular attendee.
Comic Con in San Diego, the Mecca for comic book fans across the nation, doesn’t just feature comic books, but also the appearances of many V.I.P.’s from the gaming, media, and, of course, the comic book industry.
Compared to the show on the west coast the NYCC is still rather small, but there was a fairly large and impressive amount of guests including some of the industry’s star artists of recent popular comic book publications, celebrities, spokesmen, merchants and journalists.
The core audiences of the event were of course the die-hard fans, card-players and followers of comic books and anything comic book related. Some fans came dressed up in homemade costumes that likened them to their favorite characters; some of whose designs may have looked inappropriate. Either way, they dressed up appropriately for the convention’s theme and had many pictures and videos taken of them by fans and guests alike.
This year, the NYCC events that took place included premieres of movies such as Watchmen, Yatterman, and, the direct to DVD movies, Wonder Woman and Futurama. There were also many panels and discussions about upcoming and current comic book story arcs as well as some educational panels made for aspiring artists and writers.
The show floor was filled with merchants peddling their goods. Among the merchandise that was being sold there were many comic books and graphic novels, t-shirts, posters, toys, character figurines and action figures, playing cards, and various other souvenirs.
A large area of he convention, dubbed “Artists Alley,” was devoted specifically for the comic book industry’s artists. There were a few hundred artists, both older pros like Greg Horn (cover artist) and newer pros like Paolo Rivera (Mythos), who were selling autographed posters of their most successful artworks and doing commissioned artwork as well while chit-chatting with fans.
There were some pretty interesting movie screenings including an exclusive looks at the upcoming Watchmen movie. In the panels for this particular movie, Dave Gibbons, the artist of the popular Alan Moore twelve-issue graphic novel, Watchmen, was there to talk about his involvement in the recreation of this masterpiece. He told certain TV journalists that aside from helping director Zack Snyder understand how he had visualized the world of Watchmen and gave a hint that he drew a few new pages for the purpose of the movie.
Another special screening was of the Yatterman movie, which is based on the late 1970’s Japanese anime. The director of the movie, Takashi Miike, was there to give some brand new information about the movie and to answer questions from the fans and media. There was a short 10-minute clip from the movie that amused much of the audience and made them laugh. The majority of those attending were Japanese fans of the director and anime series.
Among American celebrities Jim Lee was at the convention selling his autographs and the cast of Fox’s sci-fi episodic show “Fringe” who also signed autographs and talked about the future of the show in a conference on the last day of the convention. There were also some less recognizable celebrities like Peter Mayhew, the actor who played the Chewbacca in the original Star Wars Trilogy.
Speaking of Star Wars, the convention had a fair amount of content for sale and enough people dressing up like their favorite jedi characters.
There were multiple conferences by the major comic book publishers, DC Comics, Marvel, Image, and Dark Horse, in which they talked about upcoming and current storylines of their major franchises.
DC Comics gave a review and explanation of their just finished arc titled Final Crisis, which has been said to be very confusing to most fans. On the other hand, Marvel spoke about their just-finished Secret Invasion and their upcoming arc Dark Reign.
What was expected to be a newsworthy conference on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) to commemorate their 25th anniversary was purely fan service. Creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were absent which was a big disappointment and a sign that the franchise is again in a state of transition.
The show floor had a good amount of video game kiosks and demonstrations. The most popular playable demos were Battlefield 1943, GTA: Chinatown Wars for the NDS, Prototype, Velvet Assassin, Infamous, and Ghostbusters: The Video Game.
Among the coolest demo, which was unfortunately non-playable, was the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game. NYCC was among the first places Activision viewed it’s new masterpiece. Fifteen minutes of gorgeous gory and extremely bloody game play and CG were shown to interested attendees in a small booth, which may have persuaded many non-gamer fans of the con to buy a next-gen system just so they could slash away with Wolverine’s claws. The game is not entirely based on the upcoming movie, but is rather based on the comic book origins of Wolverine. It has been in development for much longer than the upcoming motion picture of the same title; hence, it has many extras, such as the costumes and the comic book settings that fans should like. Nevertheless, the game and the movie will both be released on the same date—May 1.
Not surprisingly, the video games that got the most attention at the convention were those with a comic theme and feel. Other than Wolverine, Prototype, and Infamous, fans were very excited about Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Champions Online which are new superhero MMO’s that’ll be released, hopefully, later this year. DC’s MMORPG, DC Universe, which is currently in development by Sony Online Entertainment, who is getting a lot of help from Jim Lee, is most likely scheduled for release early next year.
Throughout the convention there were many opportunities to obtain free stuff. The only problem was that the supply of freebies was finite and the sea of freeloaders was endless. Those who did manage to grab some freebies left the convention with various sized posters and paraphernalia.
At the end of the day: the only other drawback from everything being too expensive, especially the food, was that the NYCC had a long line at the coat check, which, sadly was not free. This meant that many of the attendees had to walk around the convention with full hands and heavy burdens.
NYCC was a good place to find bargains on old comic book issues. There were also some large sales on mangas that were at least 40% lower than their retail price.
Even though there weren’t enough costumed fans to stare at and take pictures of, there were a lot of colorful, large-scaled decorations including some huge posters and life-sized statues.
For those who were unwilling or unhappy to venture out into the cold weather they will be happy to hear the convention showcase is moving to the fall. So the next NYCC will be scheduled for October 8 to 10, 2010.
The only other point of contention was that one day was nowhere near enough time to experience everything the NYCC had to offer. Next year, best spring for weekend passes and, if you are interested, next NYCC will have its 5th Anniversary.
|
