NYCC: What happened Friday

Not much time to blog this morning. Still at home, but just got a call from someone on the scene who says the line to get in stretches to 40th Street and the West Side Highway.

From yesterday, so far no disasters. People were lined up at 7 am to get in, and there was a line around the convention center by the time the doors opened to the public at 4, however from what we saw the line moved smoothly and without glitches. There were bins EVERYWHERE with badge holders and lanyards so that people who had pre-registered could simply grab a badge holder and walk in.

The trade-only part of the day was smooth and productive by all accounts. Due to our mutliple hat juggling we didn’t have time to really cover the show the way we usually do. One of the oddities of the floor plan is that Artists Alley is located in a separate location — the Gallery upstairs. We were a little worried that traffic would be low up there, but we heard from one artists that it was jammed from 4 on, to the point where they did have to stop the line from going in there.

No reports on sales yet.

We moderated the blogging panel with Chris Butcher, Ron Hogan and Johanna Draper Carlson. Tip: with Chris and Johanna on a panel, there will never be an awkward silence. There was a great blogger representation in the audience, including Elayne, Manga Blog’s Brigid, Brian from the excellent new blog The Daily Cross Hatch, and Blog@Newsarama‘s Chris Mautner. Hopefully we will be able to get more blogging voices on the panel next year.

Later on, we moderated the “Mothers and Daughters” panel with Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Alison Bechdel and Miriam Katin. All three talked about various levels of maternal disapproval over their work; in Katin’s case, her mother is in her 80s and still worries about that kind of thing. Bechdel said that this was the first big comic book convention she had ever been to — after some 24 years of cartooning. Aline and Alison had apparently never met before so that was kind of cool.

A bunch of people took pictures after the panel — can someone email me one?

After the panel, we grabbed from dinner with Nisha from EW and Elissa and Janna from Diamond , then went over to the Stan Lee reception at MoCCA. We were too late to see what had to be the highlight — Stan walking around and reacting to the pieces in the show. He was reportedly greatly moved by some of them. The show itself is small but fascinating — there are pages of notes for a Dr. Strange story from Steve Ditko, and Kirby pages with the notes intact that show how Lee worked with both of them. For instance, on one FF page, Kirby’s note says that Doom should be angry at the Thing, but in the lettered story he’s raging against Reed Richards. There are other art pages, mementos, and artifacts like the poster from Lee’s 1972 appearance at Carnegie Hall (!). Co-curator Peter Sanderson has written extensive and informative notes for all the exhibits.

After that we were super exhausted, and grabbed a beer near home with a few peeps, before collapsing. There were a bunch of parties going on, but we haven’t had a chance to hit ANY of them other than the MoCCA one. Maybe tonight.

Although NYCC 07’s physical territory is really not all that big, with the amount of stuff going on, and the people involved it already has the same kind of overwhelming feeling that San Diego gets. We won’t be able to get the big picture until later.

PS: There is plenty of news being announced at the show of course. Check out Wizard, Newsarama and CBR for mainstream updates, and PW Comics Week‘s daily mailers for book news.