Recap: New York Comic-Con 2010

Yes, that's Pedobear at the Michael Jackson booth. There's a joke somewhere here that writes itself. Photo by Karen Kemmerle (@kenobibear)

I'm generally skeptical of NYCC, mainly because all of the big ticket stuff is at the San Diego convention. However, this year I was anticipating it far more because a. it was several months after SDCC and b. there really wasn't that much news from SDCC, so I was hoping they would make up for it on the East Coast. Of course, I didn't get to see very many developments, but on the other hand it was a great experience. I also would have liked to write a bit more in real-time, but as you can find out from most people there, reception was awful, particularly if you were trying to use Twitter. And apparently, wireless costs $30 at the Javits Center, I heard? Aside from those couple of things, it was good times all around.

Friday night was a bit of a wash for me due to having to be in an office most of the day, but I did get to the Javits Center in time to catch the Monsters panel. Gareth Edwards talks with such an enthusiasm and earnestness about his film and his work, that it moves this a bit further up on my 'to see' list (full disclosure: I worked on the PR for this during SXSW, but still have yet to see the film itself.. go figure).

Saturday bustled a bit more, although I did miss The Thing panel and the DC Nation panel in favor of  sleep. Fortunately, I did get to catch the Green Lantern Animated Series panel, which had some particularly interesting tidbits, such as Red Lanterns right off the bat in the series, and the idea of adapting Bruce Timm's original DCU character designs for 3D graphics. Oh, and spaceships. In a Green Lantern series. Oh well. Anyway, although I think it was silly to have something about it so early considering how little they had to announce or present (a bit of test footage and a few character designs), it got me sufficiently excited for the series.

While waiting for Marvel's Cup O'Joe panel to start, I caught the end of the Jim Lee spotlight. Not only did he breakdance, but the fellow has some of the weirdest fans. Some guy asked him to sign his 'autograph cube,' which I'm assuming was a big cube of styrofoam that had nothing written on it. Jim Lee dubbed it 'The Goddamn Cube' when he signed it. At least he has a sense of humor about that horrible All-Star Batman And Robin book he does/did with Frank Miller.

Onto the Marvel panel, we found out that Bendis is reuniting with Alex Maleev to do Moon Knight, and Bendis is doing some creator-owned series for kids called Takio. Then they said that Marvel's going to be teaming up with ESPN for a project. Yes, it sounds silly, however, the art they showed was pretty cool. From my understanding, it's not an ongoing series (like that WWE thing, or what this Stan Lee thing with the NHL sounds like) but a collection of art pieces in which the sports world meets the comic world.  Observe this awful camera phone picture of a mashup between Lebron James' heel turn at some imagry from Spider-man No More (I took it with my phone because I wanted to upload it to Twitter, but reception was absolute garbage all weekend in the convention center). The only other highlight of the Marvel panel for me was an awkward Filipino gentleman telling Jeph Loeb how great his work on Smallville was and asking if he might return to the series anytime in the next couple years (obviously, that will be difficult considering it's the final season of that godforsaken show).

Afterward was the Green Lantern: Emerald Empire panel, which had the staff behind DC's all-around best franchise right now (including mangod Geoff Johns). Not much was learned here aside from some sort of 'war among the Green Lanterns' arc to come after Brightest Day (which seems like a logical direction), and something that nobody else seems to be writing about- Green Lantern: Secret Origin Part 2 will be coming out, which focuses on the fall of Sinestro. Aside from that, a lot of basic stuff and people asking dumb questions. The highlight of the thing would be the guy dressed as Larfleeze. It was a pretty impressive costume. I have a photo, but it's a profile shot and doesn't do justice to the costume so I don't feel it's worth posting to be honest.

It was then that I gained my first acquisition of the 'Con: a bootleg DVD set of the wretched TV series Freddy's Nightmares, the Nightmare on Elm Street anthology horror show. It's amazing how bad it is. I'm considering writing recaps as I watch each episode just to help folks witness this unbelieveable trainwreck.

Sunday, I missed yet another DC panel, but as soon as I got there it was a mad dash around the floor to get some items so I could get to The Walking Dead panel in time.  One of my main missions going in was to get some old school Flash comics, and I did get some Barry Allen issues for fairly cheap. There's one where a hippie was karate chopping him in the throat, but sadly that was a more expensive one.

Warner Brothers Archive Collection did have a booth set up there, which was in anticipation of Legends of the Superheroes' release. Sadly that wasn't ready for sale like they originally intended, but that booth hooked me up big time (the wonders of a press pass). Not only did I get my long coveted copies of Angus and If Looks Could Kill, but a disaster movie called Cave-In! starring Leslie Nielsen. Can't go wrong with that! I feel like my DVD library is so much more complete now.

I also found out via Twitter (a rarity of it actually working) that Jeff Lemire was doing a signing at Top Shelf's booth, and they were selling The Complete Essex County for pretty cheap. This was good because not only have I been wanting to buy that for less than it costs, but because I could get Sweet Tooth #1 signed. On top of that, Jeff was also kind enough to draw me a sketch of Gus from the series.

After scooping up this good stuff, I declared NYCC a success but still had to make it to Walking Dead. To ensure my place, I endured the M. Night Shyamalan panel, in which he admitted he has a vagina (at least he said he'd rather have a gynecolegical exam rather than do DVD commentaries, so that's how I chose to interpret it). But The Walking Dead panel was worth the wait, because we saw some great footage from the show and Frank Darabont and Robert Kirkman were a delight to listen to speak.

All in all, thumbs up to NYCC. Except for the lack of Twitter. And the overabundance of Anime kids this year from the merger with NYAF. I mean, the freaking Marvel booth on the floor was an absolute zoo- I didn't go near it because it looked like a Justin Bieber mall appearance the entire weekend.