I arrived at the Jacob Javitts Center for New York Comic Thursday with a Professional Pass ready to check out the vendors. Traditionally New York Comic Con is less about the fans and more about the industry, most presentations are run by major companies such as Funimation and other publishers. Meanwhile the bulk of the event was the show room floor which hosts a variety of vendors, displays and video game demos. That first day simply consisted of checking out the vendors and grabbing as much free stuff as possible. I scored a few shirts including a Mass Effect shirt, a Sailor Moon poster, bags and some stickers. I was also fighting a rough cold and possibly spread a zombie plague…
Day 2 was when the convention really began thousands of people running around, many in a variety of costumes including DC Heroes, Star Wars, some Sailor Soldiers, and several Super Sentai Heroes or Power Rangers if you prefer. It was difficult to get as many free things as I did on Thursday but got a ton of awesome pics instead.
My final day at the con was Saturday, which is notorious for being the most crowded day to the point where you can”t text the person next to you. It also ended up being the best day of the con. I think there were over 50,000 attendees present on Saturday. It also became a mini high school and college reunion for me at times. The main highlights were hanging with the Sailor Moon Abridged crew and Avery Danielle, the star of an upcoming Sailor Moon fan movie created by the SMA crew. I also managed to meet Chuck Zito, Kevin Brown who is better known as 30 Rock’s Dot Com, and the creator of Tekken himself Katsuhiro Harada. It felt great being around so many fellow gamers, comic book lovers and anime heads. As a huge Sailor Moon fan, I was happy to see that Kodansha’s booth prominently feature the Sailor Moon manga and that a few vendors were carrying some of the new Sailor Moon merchandise.
I will definitely go again next year, hopefully I won’t be sick next time and can attend all four days. I hope that future NYCCs will allow for me fan contribution.
Images courtesy of Daniel Charles Fiumano
