Yes, it’s today!
Sadly, we don’t actually own a gorilla suit. We have some stuffed monkeys, but that’s about it. If we did have a gorilla suit we would put it on and surely–well what would we do? Maybe we would just sit down and watch some DVDs. That could be fun.

Yesterday was notable here at SBM for a couple of things. #1, Cindy the Intern was finally able to come back and resume doing the events calendar. Yay! This is doubly good because all of a sudden things were going nuts at SBM with New York Comic-Con around the corner, and everybody wants a booth or a badge or a booth and a badge, or a panel or whatever. And then there was the Swiffer to deal with, and the hidden stash of Vietnamese Instant Coffee we uncovered…well, let’s just say it was Hellzapoppin’ for a while there.

According to scuttlebutt, the NYCC panel schedule will be out any minute now. A few of them are leaking out here and there. The news about Stephen Colbert doing a signing rocked the world, eclipsing even the arrival of such con stalwarts as Frank Miller, Michael Uslan and a bunch of BUFFY stars.

If you check out the Autographing page on the official website, you’ll see some guests who haven’t been much publicized yet, like Chuck D (Public Enemy), Claudio Sanchez from Coheed and Cambria, Mick Foley, John Canemaker, George R. R. Martin, Mister Cartoon, Denny O’Neill, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, John Dolmayan from System of a Down, Miriam Katin, Takashi Okazaki, Bill Schanes, Gary Panter, Jason Little…and etc etc etc. Check out the guest page, which is being steadily updated.

Against this, we keep hearing how hard it is for people to get badges. People like comics pros. Apparently, comics pros are being charged $45 for a three-day pass. (There was a long Engine thread on this topic a while back which we didn’t get to link to.) Convention organizers suggested that pros would need to get badges via their publishers.

Yesterday we heard a new wildfire rumor that publishers were being limited in how many creator badges they could get, and in some cases the amount was Not Enough. Stress that it was a rumor, but all of this seems to be making it hard for the crazy mix of artists and writers from all walks of life — especially The Beat’s it seems — to swingle and mingle in that crazy comicon way we all love so much. We understand that keeping the guys who staple their cousin’s minicomics from flooding the zone with non pros getting in for free is necessary, but we’ll have to see how this plays out.

Anyway, expectations are high, and so is anxiety. Whatever happens, we’re going to pack power bars…and Vietnamese Instant Coffee.