Saturday is the day everybody’s been dreading, apparently. It’s the day when everybody is able to make it into the convention, and only the strongest and bravest ever make it out again. But it wasn’t actually that bad! Here’s my rundown of Saturday in New York:
– Entering the hall as I came in for the start of day three, I passed two people cosplaying as Fantomex. TWO of them. And not a single person has been cosplaying as Pixie! Get your act together, New York. Tomorrow is your last day to be Pixie.
– Erm, getting to things you’ll be interested to hear about maybe, I got to say hello to a number of people including Bryce Carlson and Vanesa R. Del Ray, Nick Spencer, and Ron Richards. Despite last night featuring a Multiversity/Image party which apparently lasted much longer than anybody should admit to, everybody seemed pretty level-headed and awake!
– That’d be with the exception of some of the Brits, who had all been kept up until the morning by Garth Ennis and his suspicious hip flask.
– Sgt Slaughter is also still around, in case you were wondering.
– Boom Studios had their panel first thing in the morning, and woke everybody up by starting the presentation with “All Along the Watchtower”.
(There’ll be a full report on their panel later)
– Somebody took a photo of a cosplay Dazzler without her permission. I haven’t noticed too much of this creepy practise – this was the second guy I’ve seen doing it so far – but I told him off for doing it anyway. He seemed uninterested in the constructive criticism.
– One thing I’ve noticed a lot of at NYCC are ‘avatars’. When creators in artists alley head off for a signing or panel, somebody else steps in and minds the stall. One such creator is Michael Bramley, who was minding Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare’s table. We had a chat about his comics work, which you can find here.
– Publishers Weekly had a panel on European Artists, which I attended despite it being moderated by Heidi MacDonald. It’s probably not THE MOST professional thing for two reporters for a site to be in the same panel, but I wanted to see it – the panellists were Will Sliney, Stephanie Hans, Alvarado Martinez and Emma Vieceli, so can you blame me? It was a really great panel, and the crowd were all delighted when we realised that Alvarado was the artist who drew Ultimate Pixie as part of Brian Wood’s run on Ultimate X-Men. Yay!!
(Again – a full panel report is coming)
– Archie’s booth was super-busy, with loads of books already sold. I got chatting to the guys running the booth, and they pressed a copy of Afterlife With Archie into my hands – my first-ever Archie comic! Expect a review of that at some point soon.
– Action Lab are stationed right at the far end of the show hall, and are well worth heading over to visit – I got my grubby paws on a signed copy of The Garlicks by Lea Hernandez, which is an absolutely lovely comic.
– The 2000AD panel was great fun, and the first time I’ve ever heard somebody at a convention mention the phrase “fluffer for gay Italian porn”.
(Once more – full panel report coming)
– Over in artists alley things were massively cramped. I said hello to Joe Caramagna, the Marvel letterer whose e-book Halloween Double Feature has just come out. We had a nice long chat about his work as a letterer, and how he writes the all-ages cartoon adaptations for Marvel. There’s quite a lot of work involved in adapting a 20-minute cartoon into a 20-page comic, especially with such large casts, and it’s startling to think how much effort goes into putting those comics out.
– Before that, I got into a very quite British fluster as letterer Cory Petit and editor Ellie Pyle also came over to say hello to Joe, and had a chat about work. Should I have walked off? Possibly. Did I? No. Rooted to the spot, I neither politely let them have their conversation out of my hearing nor contributed anything to the conversation myself. Sorry, Ellie Pyle and Cory Petit! I wanted to stop being rude by standing in on the conversation, but I was also worried about being rude by walking off!
– Jim McCann had advance copies of Mind The Gap’s third volume at his table – not available in stores – and seemed very excited about the upcoming ‘second act’ which will be starting soon. He’s sat next to Janet Lee, the brilliant artist for Return of the Dapper Men and Lost Vegas.
– Ryan Kelly also seems to be having a good convention, with his new Image series Three just starting up. We also talked about his webcomic Cocotte, which will hopefully also be making it to print soon.
– I wrapped up the day by chatting with Buddy Scalera until the convention organisers shut off the lights and started walking the aisles, telling everybody it was time to leave. He has a range of photo reference books for artists, filled with photos of models in different positions and stances. It’s the sort of thing which is SO useful for artists that it’s amazing more people haven’t done it – you can find more at his site, over here.
– And so, Saturday wrapped! Three panels and countless hours of walking and bumbling into things and people, all backed by the most unique smells imaginable. Comics! One more day left – will a Pixie cosplayer finally appear?
@stevewmorris
