04/23/2008

“Hey, Is The Bat Eating Batman Here This Year?”: New York Comic Con 2008 Part 1

by Matthew Edward Hawkins

So yeah… the New York Comic Con that took place this past weekend was pretty damn awesome! All things considered. And pretty exhaustive, hence why only now have I gotten the chance to actually about it. Well, the day after I had to entertain a Canadian game designer and show him around the city. And yesterday? Worked on stuff that’s way past due, as usual. But anyway, I took a ton of pics, as usual, so on with the show!

NYCC 2008 Day One

Here’s a shot of the show floor, early Friday afternoon, which was only open to press and professionals…

… Meaning the aisles was nice and wide, with plenty of breathing room, which was especially convenient to play video games. So with no line to deal with, I had no problems getting my hands on Iron Man…

… I’m assuming those interested in the game have already played it, since the exact same demo was also released that day for Xbox Live. Anyhow, I liked it, though I will openly admit that a lot of it had to do with my love for the character. Without that, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much, though it was far from trash either.

Konami had a super big booth, I believe the biggest of all the game companies. with Metal Gear Online being the star attraction…

That’s where I ran into the MTV Multiplayer crew, including Stephen Totilo, who I always run into at game related functions. And Steve’s always busting my chops for the constant blogging about all our menial interactions…

Back to Iron Man, they also had the new Incredible Hulk game on-hand. Though I personally can’t tell you how it played because I never got the chance. And that’s because they wouldn’t let me touch the controller, or anyone else, with the reason being that the build on-hand was an early one, with all sorts of debug options turned on, so any random button press would illicit some crazy reaction. So I could understand… but, they wouldn’t even let me take pictures of it, and instead insisted that I grab a screenshot from their FTP. Not that was rather lame… in that case, why didn’t they just have a video rolling?

Anyway, here’s a shot of the big fake Hulk they had on display at the Marvel booth…

… BTW, I believe I might be the only person in America that’s actually interested in the new Hulk movie. I dunno, I think it could be okay. I like Ed Norton, and the story sounds cool. Yeah, Liv Tyler is no Jennifer Connelly, but her career peaked with ass-to-ass, and I’m just glad for the lack of Ang Lee (who is normally an awesome director, but he totally dropped the ball on the first Hulk… I’m still trying to see if its true if he actually said that he didn’t bother to touch the Hulk comic when directing the movie based on it, as well as his assumption that didn’t need to) and no Hulk Dogs. Plus, I’ll gladly take the Abomination (played by Tim Roth!) over the big blob, or whatever the fuck Nick Nolte was supposed to be, any goddamn day.

But the one thing Marvel was pushing, and pushing hard naturally, was Iron Man. And it sure made this shell-head devotee’s heart a flutter by the strong showing, as well as hearing everyone being genuinely interested (for the longest time, I was convinced that I would be the only person to give a rat’s ass), which was evidenced by the barrage of Iron Man related toys. I would actually snag one by total accident when covering a Kevin Smith panel for Comic Book Resource on Saturday… more on that later I guess, though the good news is that I got the vanilla plain, Mark 3 version, and not some wacky iteration, like Hydroplane Action Iron Man, or Luck Of The Irish Green Iron Man.

They’ve even included Iron Man as part of the new upcoming line of Transformers/Marvel toys (based of course on the highly successful Transformers/Star Wars hybrids)…

… At least the idea of an giant Iron Man that also turns into a jet makes more sense that Spider Man being all big and turning into a sports cars. They also had another line of figures that each came with a piece of Fin Fang Foom, which when combined made this…

… Of course I asked the Hasbro representative on-hand why in the hell was Fin Fang Foom not wearing his patented purple boxer shorts. The answer given, not surprisingly, as hardly satisfactory.

Anyhow, there TONS of toys at the show. The vinyl/designer toy scene seems stronger than ever…

You had old standby’s…

… And some new stuff, like Tobor here. Each figure came with a super groovy mini comic…

Some more random goodness (sorry for not having specific info… there was just SO much stuff!)…

Star Wars was also in full force. I guess that’s hardly a surprise, but I was actually impressed by the variety of the stuff that was on-hand…

Not only do they have comic books at this thing, but they’ve got book books as well, including…

In case anyone has noticed thus far, there’s been hardly any comic books in my comic book convention coverage. Which I just noticed myself to be honest… Though I did snag some funny books… from Japan that is. Went on the hunt for cheap manga with Hilary and managed to snag volumes 2 and 3 of School Zone, a wacky horror manga (a genre I’m starting to get into as a whole as of late) that Dave Roman introduced me to not too long ago, featuring tales of school kids discovering that ghost and all sorts of superstitious stuff are very real. The main selling point of the comic is the art, in which every child is rendered with this look of abject horror and terror splashed their faces; eyes wide open, mouth agape, and sweat rolling down their faces, in every single panel. Trust me, its quite insane.

Also got something called Battle Vixens, which is exactly what one would expect: nothing but cheap panty shot after cheap panty shot. Though the real score was the collected Plastic Little, which I found for real cheap, though it somewhat pissed Hilary off since she just purchased all the individual copies online for a slightly higher price. Yet the real highlight might be In The Light, a phonebook thick collection about a woman raising an autistic child.

Speaking of deals, Duncan, makers of yo-yos had a nice selection of their wares for sale, some of which were dirt cheap. Here’s Steve trying to pick the right one…

Right next to the Duncan booth, and don’t ask me why I love this picture so much, was the Chase booth…

Once the clock struck three on Friday, the show floor was officially open to the public, which meant a bunch of dorks running at full speed, almost tripping over themselves, usually on their own costumes, or simply almost crashing into a huge display. Yet they were most certainly a welcome sight; the show had been kinda boring up till that point, with out all the wacky fans in full fan regalia.

Hence why it wasn’t till mid/late afternoon we saw wacky sights like this: a bunch of dudes dressed as Spartans for some show, but having their shot ruined by the Japanese marshmallow walking into the shot…

Though this one might be my favorite pic from the entire show: two Slave Leias looking at themselves on a camera, with a Scout Trooper and a short Jedi looking on…

Speaking of cartoons, J-pop sensation T. M. Revolution was at the show (yeah, never heard of him either… and this from a dude that knows about Glay, Gackt, and Mister Children… though Wikipedia as usual has come to the rescue, and holy shit, “the end of genesis T.M. Revolution turbo type D”?! God I love Japan) and some of the various costumes he wears was on display…

At the back of the convention space was a stage set-up, and here we have a comic book stand up comic. Basically a dude that told jokes about comic books…

… Not just about the comics themselves, but also the creators behind them. And not so much telling jokes but ranting about them. If you think that sounds horrible, well, it was. This guy was HORRENDOUS. I often complain how the angry gamer shtick is pretty played out, and not very funny. Well, it would seem that the world of comic book fandom has the same exact problems.

Also in the back were a bunch of beanbag chairs for those needing to rest their feet. Like this dude that looked absolutely passed out…

Jesus was a pretty popular dude at the show…

… That’s it for part one! Now, onto part two

  • Sheep Herder

    Those six pics after the text…

    “Anyhow, there TONS of toys at the show. The vinyl/designer toy scene seems stronger than ever?”

    who is the creator(s) of those? Those are some great designs.

    And that small jedi with the two slave Leias, he almost looks like the same jedi that appears in the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog “Waiting in line for the Star Wars Ep. I” video, in which Triumph asks who will stand up to the challenge of pleasing some girl and the little jedi says I will.

  • https://www.fort90.com Matt

    who is the creator(s) of those? Those are some great designs.

    I was going to say, sorry, I don’t know cuz I didn’t take notes, till I realized that I did nab that particular booth’s catalog. And you’ll probably find everything you need at their site: http://mindstyle.com/

    And that small jedi with the two slave Leias, he almost looks like the same jedi that appears in the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog ?Waiting in line for the Star Wars Ep. I? video, in which Triumph asks who will stand up to the challenge of pleasing some girl and the little jedi says I will.

    Excellent memory! Though it was for Episode II. Anywaym here’s a screengrab courtesy of my friend Jason that he just passed along after reading your comment, and also featuring John Green, who happens to be super tight with the Star Wars fan community…

  • http://www.vitaminsteve.com Steve!

    Hey! I didn’t see you after day 1! God, it was an awesome clusterfuck of a weekend wasn’t it?

    COMIC-CON!

    -Steve!

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