Everyone knows that New York Comic Con starts on Thursday, but what happens on Wednesday? While Teamsters quickly assemble giant publisher booths and exhibitors unload boxes of variant cover comic books and Funko Pops, the upstairs River Pavilion of the Javits Center is a full day retailer conference — NYCC Retailer Day — open to retailers, pros and press.
Publishers big and small make presentations to a captive audience of retailers lured in by promises of swag and Todd McFarlane autographs. Image Comics thanked the retailers in attendance for all the new series that went back to print on their first issues this year. The rep from Image credited that to retailers hand selling those new titles to customers. Marvel previewed some new issues of hit series, like Moon Knight by Jed MacKay, and said that they are going into 2026 with even more variant covers (yay?).
The entire day was very pro-comics retailer. But it wasn’t just publishers thanking retailers and showing off upcoming art. Companies like WhatNot and PSA pitched their business models to retailers. WhatNot pitched themselves as a platform for connecting to customers on a more personal level than a simple web storefront. They bragged about the amount of repeat business their streamers get, and how dedicated stream viewers are great for repeat business.
PSA showed off their business partners: eBay, GameStop and Best Buy. You can buy cards on eBay, and have them sent straight to PSA for grading, or even store them in their secure vault.
Looking around the room, there were a lot of zoned-out dealers paying more attention to their phones than to the presenters. Many looked from seats at the publisher tables that lined the room, debating whether or not to go grab more freebies.
It’s wild that this retailer conference happens on the busiest day of a comic retailer’s week. Let’s have a full day of presentations just for retailers all day on New Comic Book Day! Great idea! I heard a few retailers grumbling about that. But they were lured here by promises of free Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane signatures, as well as a free lunch.
Don’t get too jealous of the free lunch. Gone are the days of the Diamond Retailer Breakfast with trays of bacon, sausage and Javits Center eggs and bottomless carafes of Javits Center coffee. Lunch consisted of free Javits Center hot dogs, soda, water and chips.
I’m not actually hating on the lunch today though. I gladly grabbed a hot dog (loaded with sauerkraut! And mustard! No stops were spared!) and a couple of bags of chips. Okay, I may have had more than one of those hot dogs. Loading up a couple of hundred bellies with free hot dogs with only two small bathrooms available seems like quite the gamble. Did the people in charge already forget about the Great Bathroom Breakage of Retailer Day at NYCC ’24?!?
Jim Lee was the most entertaining speaker of the day. He spoke of DC’s 90th year of publishing, and the recently announced countdown to DC’s 100th anniversary only 10 years away. Every year for the next ten years, DC will focus on a different decade in its publishing history. Jim made some self deprecating jokes about being behind on Batman: Hush 2. He said he hopes he’s not still drawing Hush 2 90 years from now.
“DC Comics will not support AI generated comics and content. Not now. Not ever.” This caused the room of retailers to break out into applause. Lee continued, “When I draw, I make mistakes, a lot of them…It’s the product of true effort, or perspiration…Fans know this.”
Lee pulled off a rare feat today: he commanded nearly everyone’s attention. There were far fewer retailers looking at their phones while he was speaking (though there were still some, that phone addiction is real y’all).
Following his talk, a huge line formed of people hoping to get free signatures from Jim Lee. He signed two comics completely for free, and gave away a signed Batman Hush 2 poster for anyone who didn’t bring a comic with them.
No presentations happened while Lee was signing. I think the organizers correctly assumed the room would empty out in favor of Jim’s signing line. While Todd McFarlane was in attendance and presented later in the day, he wasn’t signing live for attendees. Rather, CGC was collecting books for him to sign later in the weekend. He waived his signing fee, so retailers only had to pay CGC’s grading and encapsulation fees. Unfortunately, if you just wanted Todd’s autograph and don’t care about CGC, you were out of luck. Still, plenty of people took advantage of it, submitting two comics each to get signed by The Toddfather.
Penguin Random House and Dark Horse were the next up to present after Jim Lee finished signing. Stuart Schreck, Director of Sales from Dark Horse highlighted a promotion they’re running in time for the return of Stranger Things to Netflix. Dark Horse also showed off their new Magic: The Gathering series. The Wizards of the Coast property was previously with Boom Studios.
Siena Fallon, of Bad Idea Publishing, thanked the retailers for their support of Planet Death, their big direct market debut in 2025. She rattled off other successes from this idea, but wanted to focus on one book, Ordained, coming in December. It’s written by Robert Venditti and drawn by Trevor Hairsine and Dave Stewart, with covers by Jorge Fornes. It may or may not be already optioned for a movie. Sienna promised more info on that in the near future.
Square Enix declared “Manga are comics!”, which sounds like a marketing phrase straight out of 1995, not 2025. Is there anyone out there still who doesn’t consider manga comics or balks at the sight of manga in comic shops?
Other artists besides Jim and Todd were in attendance as well. There were artists on hand at this retail day last year, signing and drawing for people. But this is the first year that there was a mini Artist Alley at NYCC Wednesday. Ten artists set up in a horseshoe, some sketching, some signing, some selling original art.
