More views of NYCC 10

Don’t worry, we’re not going to spend the next five weeks going over reactions to New York Comic Con…probably just this post, our own wrap-up and whatever news fallout emerges. Fun Fact #1: This year, it’s been hard to find personal blog accounts of the show. Like San Diego, NYCC has become the province of a lot of professional bloggers and journos, so even a Google blog search comes up with lots of variations on “Marvel vs Capcom!”.

Fun Fact #2: Even though own our immediate reaction to the show was that it worked for what it was supposed to be, there have been a lot of complaints. This isn’t really surprising — there were a lot of rough patches in security, crowding, scheduling and more — but it shows that the crowd had high expectations for the kind of experience they were going to get, and when it fell short, they felt it.

Anyway, here’s a trip around the web starting with an actual con report by Gavok of 4th Letter. Like we said, not too many of these.

§ CNN has a very even-handed report that covers the good and the bad and has a slideshow to boot.

§ Steve Bunche has three posts worth of cosplay photos and Artist Alley shots. More here.

§ Scott Kurtz talks about the showdown that wasn’t:

Saturday evening was also supposed to be the night of the much anticipated debate between myself and Ted Rall. Plans were to keep the name calling to a minimum and try to really discuss the issues and see if we could come up with some solutions. But two days before the convention, Ted emailed to let us know he had double booked the weekend and was needed in Portland for a book signing. Honestly, it’s for the best. The debate is over. Digital is here. The business models are real, and people like Ted can choose to keep their heads in the sand about it if they want. They can rage against the machine for all the good it will do them. I think I’m pretty done with the arguments at this point.

§ Whitney Matheson foundFive awesome comics.

§ A link to the Podcasting Panel.

§ Augie De Blieck has observations of the trenchant kind.

So that’s the folks who had a good time. Of which there were many. But some people just didn’t.

Reed Pop VP Lance Fensterman blogs about the show here, and owns up to the overcrowding and the disorganization. The comment thread afterwards has a LOT of complaints, from Keystone Guests John Romita Sr & Jr not showing up for their Sunday signing, to issues with overcrowding, and the problem of whether the New York Anime Festival was shunted to the side or not.

§ Former NYCC and Otakon staffer Terry Chu has some frank complaints:

However, as a show NYCC 2010 displayed many of the hallmark concerns that a volunteer convention shows (Poor line control, inconsistent enforcement, understaffing); while displaying issues that come with a for-profit motive. I was infuriated to see issues with how badly exhibitors were treated (both large and small), extremely rude red-shirt staff and their attitudes (telling an exhibitor “You GIRLS need to get back in the booth and get WORKING”, and ordering exhibitors out before the attendees have been cleared out), continued horrid bad habits with ticket control, and all events other than the showroom floor being relegated to “afterthought” programming.

§ Cartoonist Mike Dawson had to hide under the stairs:

I was scheduled to be on a panel about “Indie” comics at 7:30PM, so got to the show about 6 o’clock, with the intention of walking around and checking out the floor for an hour. This turns out to have been about an hour too long for me. I’m not sure what it was, but the whole atmosphere filled me with anxiety, so I took a quick loop around part of the show, and then found a quiet spot beneath a stairwell to hideout in for 45 minutes before the panel. It was pleasant enough to observe the con-goers from inside my nook, and see some of the costumes and so on.

Part of my apprehension might have been about the panel, as I wasn’t sure how well attended it would be, being scheduled to take place after the con closed at 7PM. It took place way, way out in the furthest reaches of the conference rooms, well past the large crowds that were assembling for the Stan Lee signing, and whatever else was happening in the main area where lots of people were gathered.

§ The BSC Review (whatever that is) pretty much sums up the traffic problems:

There was a very definite sense of inefficiency when one tried to contemplate how to get from Point A to Point B without having to travel through Points C-G to get there.  The other problem was the multitude of staff giving different directions for everything.  The security guards at the entry points were told to check for badges, but didn’t differentiate between the different levels.  The NYCC Staffers (in the red shirts) would direct the high level of traffic from the registration/badge lines into the same line those with badges already were using to enter the convention center.  The staffers in yellow shirts were too busy just bustling around to be of much help, or the help they gave was vague and incomplete.  And then the booth staffers…I felt bad for them because they would be given specific instructions from the exhibitors but would often get overridden by the NYCC Staffers without any knowledge on the part of the exhibitors.

More in a bit…