Comicontinuity NYCC

My brain is so full of NYcomiccon events and people, it's hard to even start. Let's start at the end of the continuity and work backwards. It's like the multiverse at these shows; everyone has a completely different experience of what they see. There were three floors- special events and panels on the ground floor, the main exhibit hall on 2, and artist alley and special guest signings on 3.

View my NEW YORK COMICCON- FRIDAY-PHOTOLOG

The last thing Phillygirl and I did was finally get up to Rags Morales in artist alley. I introduced her, he was sketching. But we had a fun few minutes of talking, and his art for Batman/Wraith Child (?) is so amazing. The level of detail of buildings and faces-- I think he said Bedard is writing it. He should be at Wizard Philly where it might be easier to spend time. Next to him was Ethan Van Sciver, sitting with Brian Bolland. Rags said they caused the traffic jams around him. Ethan said life in Florida is good, and I met his very nice wife Sharis. He did remember I was a librarian (and a redhead). Too bad there wasn't more time. I do think the artist alley allowed me only to see people I intended- them, Mike Oeming, Colleen Doran- and I did not get to visit or find new indie people to support.

The Beat: Artists Aerie upstairs is VERY crowded. Mixed reports on how people are doing — popular artists doing better than non-popular. No surprise there.

5PM
DC's crossing over panel A very adult and thoughtful panel regarding mainstream attention and crossovers from the comic world. Next door the Venture Brothers panel (friend RAB from Estoreal was there) kept howling in laughter through the walls, but we were having a smart and sometimes funny discussion on a panel that included Brian K. Vaughan, Paul Dini, YA Author Casey (and new Minx author for The Plain Janes), Percy from hip hop with his autobio GN Sentences coming, and Marc from EW.
I broke out in a cheer when the subject turned to libraries-
As graphic novels are the fastest growing part of young adult libraries and she is a young adult writer, Castellucci sees comics as a perfect place to continue to reach young readers, something she is “very passionate about"

And BKV went on to talk about how of course we are concerned with the direct market, but libraries are really the place of discovery for many titles and said
Vaughan believes that Runaways is more mature and darker than Ex Machina or Y the Last Man. He then said, “It was unthinkable to me to find graphic novels in libraries,” and got several laughs by comparing the spread of graphic novels to spread of a pink eye infection.

Spent time on the exhibit floor, looking at publishers tables and figures and picking up goodies.
DC puts together a great presence and show. Each day they have a printed schedule for the signings, and a board that updates changes. They give out tons of free pins (although those damn things pop off all the time), posters, and the staff at the DC booth is always very friendly and decent. Marvel's booth always seems rather deserted besides at signing times; great posters and figures, but they don't have staff that mills about and are very stingy with giveaways. I did not get to a single signing at the Marvel booth- didn't even get to talk to Dan Slott.

3 PM Phillygirl meets Nicholas Brendon (Xander)! She paid for the Xander military action figure, so I hung out and watched the signing panel while she was waiting. A great pic of the two of them on her camera, I'll post soon. Xander was wearing a porkpie hat, shades, and a short sleeve shirt that showed his muscles. I believe the platinum blonde next to him was his twin. It was crazy hot upstairs. It was the special signings, gaming area. I walked past Peter Mayhew (Chewy), Gary Coleman, and Hayden from Heroes was behind curtains there.

1 - 2 PM The Stephen King Dark Tower panel While we were told in the morning that all special events tickets were sold out, a nice volunteer around 12 gave us two orange tickets to get in. We sat in the 2nd row, far right, and were able to watch Stephen come out. He was thinner and grayer that the years of seeing his book jacket image prepped me for, but when we he spoke or answered questions, it was the cadence of his characters "you gotta get over this spoiler shit" "I listen to a lot of rock n'roll, man". The Q&A and the panel was a level of gushing I haven't seen-- amazing that he remains as humble and grounded after hearing person after person tell him is a singular genius or changed their life.

10 AM
Buffy the Vampire Slayer panel
Disappointing in most aspects. Nicholas (Xander) wasn't there, Bianca (Kendra) and Juliet Landau (Drusilla) were rather quiet, leaving the other characters - Larry, Clem - to fill in the gap. The thousands of people in line would have liked to get into the panel instead of wait in line for 2 hours; we got lucky and went into to the bathroom and just walked over into the special events room. One fault of the con is how the special events panels were run, and tickets distributed. No one understands that you can go into a panel with your badge without waiting in the incredible lines for the exhibit hall. Good signage for the other panels, and printed in the program though.

I did get up and ask about Joss Whedon, saying we comics fans love him, and I asked if he was strict with the script or let them ad lib, and wanted to hear stories about him. After some a long pause, Juliet did say some interesting things about how "the words were the words" but he allowed a lot of freedom in movement, but that Buffy was such his singular vision, he even approved hair and wardrobe while writing and directing the show.

PW Friday professionals and public at 4 PM

Saturday afternoon post The Beat
Apparently a lot of people tried to get in without standing in line this morning and were upset that they had to go back outside and wait, but we haven’t heard of any major disasters.

More to come from the redhead's adventures in comicland. It's a very special post when I discuss meeting Gail Simone on Fri, and chatting with her attractive and funny husband Scott. So glad they made their first visit to NYC! Me and Gail!