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NYC Comic-Con

This past weekend was the NYC Comic-Con. Frank and Charlie B met us at our place Saturday morning, we hopped in the car, drove into the city, parked in Port Authority and strolled over to the Javitz Center without incident. Then, all hell broke loose.

We were supposed to meet up with Greater Czarina as soon as we arrived. We called her up and she said she was “standing on a very long line” and we should just find her in the exhibition hall. We walked into the Center and this is what it looks like. Apparently there were about three events going on in the Center that day. Big mistake; the Con should have had the entire building. So, there were lines of people everywhere. Lines that seemingly never ended, lines that snaked around the entire perimeter of the building, lines that people weren’t even sure why they were standing in. We walked around for probably about thirty minutes without finding out how to get in or how to register for special panels. One of us finally realized that the giant line of what looked like about a thousand people was to register for special panels. Screw that! We decided to just get down to the hall and find Greater Czarina. Easier said than done. Trying to work our way through the sea of people, we looked for ANY way to get ourselves signed in. The extremely-overworked ComicCon staff were dressed in red shirts, and I said that we should try and grab that dude in the red shirt to help us find our way. The geekboy replied, “I would, but he’s going to die soon!” [If you did not get that joke, congratulations! You are not a nerd!]

The red-shirts kept sending us to various lines. As we started the mile-long walk to the end of yet another line, in desperation, I approached a friendly-looking girl standing there and asked her if she could possibly point us in the right direction. Ten minutes and one more line later, we finally met Greater Czarina on the hall floor. Yay!!!

The Bad: The Con was oversold and did not have enough space. It was impossible to move easily throughout the vendor floor, making it difficult to browse or even concentrate for more than five seconds. The aisles were way too narrow and way too many comics fans haven’t learned basic manners or even a casual, “Excuse me, please, I did not mean to elbow you in the boob, step on your foot and then push you over. My apologies.” Also, the signage was very bad (read: non-existent) and we never found a complete itinerary. Charlie B. wanted to attend the Frank Cho signing and we never found out where it was. And even if we had, we probably wouldn’t have gotten in. My friend Jon happened to be in NYC that day, and decided to buy a ticket and meet us at the Con. He called around 1:00pm saying that he was in the Center but that the event was sold out. Whoa! I told him I would just come upstairs and hang out for a while, and we made our way towards the exit. We were met with the fire marshall, a couple of cops, and a teeming crowd of people just waiting to be let in. The geekboy asked someone if we left, could we come back in, and she pointed at the crowd behind the rope and just laughed. Ugh. So, we didn’t leave. Right around then was when I started to freak out from all of the people, so we took a break and had a bottle of water and ate a pretzel before jumping back in. I hope the organizers learn a lesson from this.

You’ll notice that most of my photos are blurry…this is because of the crowding and the shoving and the pushing. Sorry.

The Good: We actually managed to have some fun and make it worth the trip. I got to meet Peter Scolari! What a nice guy. We talked about Wendie Jo Sperber and he told me about her fight with cancer and the charity she founded. He chatted with Charlie B and the geekboy about New Hope, PA, and autographed a picture for our friend Kerry, who has always maintained to me that it should have been “Scolari, not Hanks,” to hit the big-time.

Charlie B got to meet Jim Mahfood, of Grrl Scouts fame, who drew him this sketch.

We picked up a book called Geek Mafia, along with a cool t-shirt for the geekboy. I’m really looking forward to reading it; the author seemed like a good guy. That’s the reason I wanted to go to the Con – to find new authors, talk with people about their work, get inspired to do something new. It was disappointing that we really didn’t get a chance to do that, due to the atmosphere of panic that the overcrowding seemed to bring. But the best part of the day, by far? That the organizers placed the Christian comic book people directly across from the porn star.

Here are some more photos.