New York Comic Con 2014 - Day Two - Saturday

Day two of New York Comic Con in 2014 for me was Saturday and I admit to being slightly apprehensive about Saturday at the Javits Center. Last year, I attended only on Friday but the year before (2012) Leslie and I went on Saturday and the convention was mobbed and over-crowded. I suspect, at least partially, it felt that way because I knew I was attending only one day and felt it imperative to get to EVERYTHING in that condensed window. This year; however, I followed my wife’s advice as we took a leisurely stroll up and down the aisles of the entire convention floor. When we first arrived, we attended the panel for FX’s The League on the main Stage on the bottom floor. Neither of us watches the show; but two of the stars – Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas – run a podcast we both like called How Did this Get Made? in which the panelists picks apart crappy or craptacular films. After a forthcoming episode was screened at the panel 1) we realized the show probably isn’t for us and 2) the panel was worth sitting through to hear Mantzoukas riff on the audience.

From there we went up and looked through the DC Entertainment booth which was highlighting Batman’s 75th Anniversary. There was also some gameplay footage of a new game - Infinite Crisis which looks like it could be fun. After the bat-visit, we proceeded to take our time walking up and down the aisles of the main floor. The first booth we hit was Obscura, the booth representing the store/show from the Science Channel show Oddities (a show my wife enjoys and one of the few reality programs I can tolerate). We chatted with proprietor Evan for a bit and Leslie purchased the book, The Morbid Anatomy Anthology they were selling which featured an essay from Evan. Leslie and I chatted with a few of the independent authors along our journey, purchased a couple of books and generally just absorbed everything.

I drifted through Publisher’s row again and made small talk with Ardi from Tor (and snagged a copy of Max Gladstone’s Three Parts Dead) as well as the folks at the Penguin, Hachette/Orbit and Random House booths. My wife was purchasing the puzzle of a novel S (the novel conceived by J.J. Abrams and written by Doug Dorst) and tugged on my shoulder at the Hachette booth. As it turns out, while she was making her purchase (and getting a couple of free ARCs with the purchase), a gentleman was looking at Leviathan Wakes and was likely asking about it. She said to him, that he should talk to me about out and I basically made him buy it. I guess my description of how great the book is worked on him.

Then we arrived at the BOOM! booth, saw a small gathering and realized Brian and Wendy Froud were signing things, particularly some commemorative editions of The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and The Storyteller. The Frouds, as in the creative forces behind some of the most iconic fantasy imagery of the past 30 or so years, including a film very near and dear to both our hearts: The Dark Crystal. Even better, while Leslie was getting her book signed by the Frouds, a woman next to us began chatting, in a very familiar manner, with the Frouds. We came to realize she was Cheryl Henson, one of Jim Henson’s daughters. I loved The Muppets growing up and most of the Henson productions, but my wife’s love for the Henson creative empire is far more expansive than mine. She couldn’t stop thanking Cheryl Henson for all the wonderful things her family’s company has created and done for people. Leslie may have even offered to work for any Henson company in any capacity, even if it mean just retrieving cloth from the warehouse to make Muppets. That might have been one of my favorite moments of NYCC, having Leslie meet somebody who meant so much to her as a child

Up and down the aisles we traversed, spotting art and assorted geekery ephemera. When we arrived at Neal Adams’s booth, I was tempted to purchase either a book for him to sign or a Batman print for him to sign, but I’ve still got some other geekish art pieces yet unhung in my house. Up and down, up and down…hit the Baen Books booth and snagged a copy of Larry Correia’s Hard Magic. I really enjoy his Monster Hunter books and wanted to give this other series a shot. Larry was going to be there later on, so I stopped by to have him sign Hard Magic and he was kind enough to give me a hardcover of Monster Hunter Nemesis before signing it. I know Larry’s got a rather…vocal online presence, but the few minutes he and I chatted he could not have been nicer. I was also hoping to get a copy of Charles Gannon’s Fire with Fire signed, but I missed his signing time. Jim Minz, who was running the booth, was kind enough to hand me a copy of the second book in that series, Trial by Fire.

The two Correias and Mike Underwood's book are signed by the authors

Immediately thereafter was the signing for Mike Underwood’s Shield and Crocus at the 47North booth, which was just around the corner from Baen. I was online and having a conversation with a couple of people about Mike’s books when I realized, well rather, we both realized, we knew each other via twitter. I was chatting with none other than Sally of the excellent Qwillery blog. After hearing her schedule and what she was planning for her NYCC trip for the blog, I am even more impressed with her blog. We had Mike sign our books and then Sally and I started chatting with my wife when we spotted the mighty Shecky on line for Mike’s signature. I’d known Shecky for a while and met him in person at a recent Tor.com event (where I also chatted with Mike Underwood), but this was the first time I met Sally. The four of us then spoke for a bit until we realized the hour and how much at that point in the day, we all just wanted to go home.

Both times (Friday and Saturday) I strolled over to the Topatco booth Cecil Baldwin, the voice of Night Vale Radio was finishing up a signing. This just got me to thinking, it would have made sense for their booth to be very near the Obscura booth.

Anyway, that was Day 2 of New York Comic Con 2014 for me.

New York Comic-Con 2013

So...New York Comic-Con...this year was the second year I attended and this time, I was able to get in with a Press Pass thanks to the writing I do for SFFWorld and now Tor.com and SF Signal. Also, thanks to Myke Cole for suggesting I try to get a Press Pass.

Last year, I attended on Saturday with my wife but this year, I flew solo on Friday thinking (and hearing from other folks) that Friday is typically not as crowded as Saturday.  Not so much, if anything, Friday this year was as packed as Saturday was last year.

As I was getting closer to the Javits Center (which, every time I go there, amazes me with how big it is), I chatted with a Dalek.  Rather, we exchanged shouts of "Exterminate!" at each other.

R to L Mike Sullivan, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear,
Brian Staveley, and Drew Karpyshyn

The first thing I did was head over to the The Wheel of Time Turns and Epic Fantasy Remains Epic! panel in the basement at the back back back of the convention.I've read three of the five authors (Sullivan, Lynch, & Bear) on the panel and may try the other two in the near future. Brian Staveley in particular impressed me with how comfortable he came across.  It was a fun panel and the authors seemed to get along nicely. Of course, it helps when two of them are partners, Bear and Lynch. The panel was moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy books and she did a fine job.

At the conclusion of the panel, I had a chance to chat a bit with Irene Gallo whom everybody reading this likely knows is the art director for Tor (as such, she's responsible for the gorgeous design on Brian's debut novel The Emperor's Blades) and one of my bosses at Tor.com. We chatted a bit about Breaking Bad (happened to be wearing my Breaking Bad/Game of Thrones mash-up T-Shirt) and I had to make sure I told Irene how great the post she did at Tor.com featuring the printing process of A Memory of Light was.

I swaggered over to the autographing to get my books signed by Michael (Theft of Swords), Scott (The Lies of Locke Lamora 1st US HC), and Elizabeth (Range of Ghosts).  I bumped into Mike Underwood (author of Geekomancy and Angry Robots Marketing) on line and chatted with him a bit and realized I need to read his books. From there, I entered the chaos that is the main floor of the Javits Center during New York Comic-Con.

To be honest, I was wandering around like a cross between a zombie and a kid at the annual carnival trying to get to everything I wanted to see. Friends of the family own a comic shop (JC Comics) so I wanted to make sure to visit them. Their double booth in the comic retailer area was swamped with customers rifling through the back-issue bins and buying comics. 

Strolling through the aisles, I stopped over at the Orbit Books booth, chatted with them a bit and had to admit that I was one of the few who didn't like a certain book they published and is getting rave reviews but that I was immensely enjoying Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach (aka Rachel Aaron).

At the Penguin Booth (ACE, ROC, DAW, RazorBill and other YA imprints) SFF Marketing guru and all-around awesome person Colleen Lindsay was running a tight ship, but a fun ship as she was keeping folks in line for book signings with a bull-horn.  I grabbed a few freebies from them, including a book I've been curious about - Fated by Benedict Jacka as well as The Nethergrim by Matthew Tobin (a YA fantasy publishing in April 2014) and Vitro from Jessica Khoury (a near future YA SF publishing in January 2014). 

I stopped by the 47North booth and was offered copies of The Wretched of Muirwood by Jeff Wheeler and Seven Kinds of Hell by Dana Cameron.

Wandering the aisles I arrived at the booth for Abrams Books, who publishes lovely retrospective and coffee-table type books. I had to buy Jeff Vandermeer's Wonderbook, which is signed so I had no problems slapping down some cash for what is an amazingly gorgeous book. The DelRey/Spectra booth was very nice, and was packed for both the Jason M. Hough signing and the Scott Lynch signing. 

I wasn't walking out of the Javits Center without at least a few comics.  I needed volume five of Joe Hill/Gabriel Rodriguez's Locke & Key so I picked that up.  What I found surprising is that some of the comic publishers exhibiting weren't offering discounts on their books and merchandise (especially when the booth across from it, Midtown Comics, was offering a blanket 20% everything). Typically at these things, a discount of at least 10-20% is an across the board thing. Image was knocking off prices on some of their larger graphic novels and I was able to get a deal for 3 trades at the BOOM! booth, but Dark Horse wasn't offering anything. I would have picked up a couple of things if they were.  Based on a recommendation from Jeff Patterson on the SF Signal podcast (or maybe it was his new Three Hoarsmen with Fred Kiesche and John Stevens), I picked up The Hypernaturals by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning.  I'd been wanting to pick up/read Irredeemable by Mark Waid and Peter Krause for a while, so I picked up those two (and The Hypernaturals) at the BOOM! booth.  Lots of dealers were offering 50% of trade paperbacks and/or trades for a flat $10, so I picked up (after years of knowing I should be reading it) the first Hellblazer collection.

I made some more acquaintances at the Tor booth after informing them I wrote for Tor.com, in particular Marco Palmieri (I think) who was sporting an Orphan Black t-shirt so we both gushed about the show since I write about it.  Brian Staveley had a signing at 5PM (or was it 6PM?) and I was initially planning on sticking around for it, but between the crowds, my growing sense of claustrophobia, being on my feet all day, and wanting to make sure I got on a train to NJ that got me home in a timely fashion, I left at about 4:30. Regardless, hearing Brian on the panel (coupled with my SFFWorld colleague Nila's review of the book) convinced me to read The Emperor's Blades when it publishes.

I was really hoping RED BUBBLE would have a booth again this year, but sadly, they did not make it to the show so I didn't walk out with any new T-shirts for myself. However, I did pick up a "Coulson Lives" shirt for my wife who liked Coulson in the past Marvel movies, but has a full on crush thanks to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 

As I was losing steam, I made one last pass through the aisle where the Del Rey booth was located and ran into of Myke Cole who gave me a Challenge Coin (probably the best thing I snagged at the con).  In tow was Peter V. Brett and his girlfriend Laura who was wearing a cool dress that looked to be comprised of panels from Marvel Comics.

The con seemed to run smoothly from my perspective, even if it was extremely crowded. As I get older, I'm liking crowds less and less. The only real gripe I have is with some of the folks who dress up. Rather, I have no problem with the cosplayers, on the whole because it is cool to see how inventive and accurate some of the people's costumes can be.  The issue is when somebody decides to dress up like a 10 foot tall robot and an entire crowded aisle needs to make a path for him. Or the people who hold up the foot traffic taking pictures of folks in a Deadpool costume having a sword fight with Link from Legend of Zelda.