The 2012 New York Comic Con, Part 1

Well, the 2012 New York Comic Con has come and gone, and as you might imagine I am plum exhausted--even though I barely traveled past my table in Artists Alley, where I and my partner Dan O'Connor were promoting Ace Kilroy (successfully, I might add).

The NYCC did things a little differently this time--this year they put Artists Alley in its own building, the Northern Pavillion, which sort of gave it the feeling of a con within a con. Some people didn't like that arrangement, but I enjoyed it just fine--most of the people I wanted to see were in AA, so aside from some brief trips to the show floor in the main room, I pretty much got to see everything I wanted to without having to be crushed by massive crowds.

When I was on the show floor, I was happy to see Aquaman and Mera get such prominent placement at the DC booth:

On Thursday and Friday, the Shrine was represented by both myself and Shrine Correspondent Joe Slab, and on Friday Shrine Correspondent Russell Burbage was there, too, making for a rare moment when 3/4ths of the Shrine staff was in the same place at the same time! Joe and Russell got to see the sights while I was mostly confined to what passed by my table. Luckily, a lot of cool cosplayers did just that:

While there were lots of Batmen, Wolverines, Poison Ivys, and Catwomen, I was really impressed by the diversity of a lot of the cosplay: I mean, how many times do you see people dressed as Animal Man, Dr. Mid-Nite, or Samurai?!?

I also got to meet (or see again) so many cool people not in costume: Paul Kupperberg, Bob Greenberger, Yildiray Cinar, Joe Staton, Ramona Fradon, Bill Walko, Ed Catto, Dan Parent, Chad Bokelman, Kevin Dilmore, Gene Hult, Randy Caldwell, Chuck Dill, John Trumbull, and Thom Zahler. I met a whole bunch of new people (new to me; they weren't infants), possessors of amazing talent: Brian Schirmer, Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett, Jonathan Case, Ming Doyle, and Erica Henderson to name a few. I ended up buying so many books and commissioning so many Ace Kilroy sketches that I had to hit the ATM every morning, lest I find myself with an empty wallet--which still nearly happened anyway!

There was more, much more, so instead of trying to cram everything into one post, the Shrine is going to spread it out a bit: be back tomorrow for more photos from the NYCC!