By the time I was awake and ready to leave for the
convention on Saturday morning, I’d fully given over to not using the press
room as a viable option for completing my tasks for Bleeding Cool. Since my
computer would be of no real use to me and my archaic-tech flip phone had all
the necessary connections, I opted to pocket anything I really needed with me
and go all out basic. You guessed it, the handy, dandy notebook was my
preferred device for this day. At least it couldn’t be silenced by lack of
power and impossible to maintain wifi! I was also feeling much, much better
than the day prior and really needed to step it up for the site. I had nothing
scheduled for the entire day, purposefully keeping it free for what is
traditionally the busiest of convention days, regardless of city. I had a list
of booths and people I wanted to visit and whatever came at me for the length
of the day would certainly throw some hiccups in those plans.
I was getting messages from people wondering where my
articles were, and as of early Saturday morning, none had appeared. That would
change later, but I couldn’t share them to social media with my phone. Luckily,
my favorite magician, Jason Azze, discovered the first one to be listed for me,
for which I thank him beyond the Facebook. After that, they started to trickle
in. I didn’t understand the delay and never got a chance to ask anyone why, but
I suppose that’s the nature of the medium now, considering the way this sort of
reporting operates.
One of the things I really wanted to do was reconnect with
Jacob Kirton and Tristan Powell, and discuss with them their Seven Scrolls of
Shitorio in more detail. I flipped through it Friday evening, trying to get a
feel for it. I spent a little more time with it before leaving for the city and
was blown away by what I saw. THIS was what I loved to discover at shows like
NYCC. And I was going to make sure others knew about it. But before doing so, I
needed to connect with IDW Games and swing by the Steve Jackson Games booth,
which was being sponsored by the Compleat Strategist, one of New York City’s
greatest game stores. Steve Jackson was, by far, the most high-profile tabletop
game company to be appearing at NYCC this year, and I aimed to see what was up
with them. It was also imperative that I talked to someone at the Action Labs
booth. Action Labs, a small comic book company that I discovered a few years
ago by accident, had published some of the most interesting comics I’d read
recently and their growth had me extremely interested. They were being promoted
on the NYCC website and catalogue as a premiere exhibitor, which I never did
find out the meaning of, but I did know they had a rather large booth, so that
may have been one reason.
A pleasant aspect of the Jacob Javitz Center and the
unprecedented growth of the New York Comic Con is the versatility of the
building itself. There are so many different entrances and exits, it’s become
fairly easy for ReedPop to organize designated entrances for specific badge
holders. Guest and VIP badges go through one entrance, Press and Professional
badges go through another, daily attendees through still another. It makes for
better than average crowd control, in most cases. Having had a Pro badge most
of the years I’ve attended, I can appreciate that. The first couple of years
were a misery, even if you were a vendor on the exhibition floor. I can’t say
that NYCC is perfect when it comes to crowds and crowding, but they have
improved in ways comparable to the opposable thumb. As more of these types of
conventions stray into media blockbusters, signature and photo ops, cosplay
shows and hype, as more and more people are finding “geek culture” to be
acceptable, attendance is spiking and greed is becoming the norm for event
organizers. The recent overcrowding of the Rhode Island Comic Con (RICC Apologizes) and continuing last-minute shuttering of conventions for no real
reason (Awesome Con Miwaukee Canceled) proves that fact.
NYCC isn’t completely innocent here either. The true reason they wanted to open
the convention to all on Thursday was to sell more Thursday individual tickets
and claim they had more unique ticket holders than the biggest and oldest comic
convention, the San Diego Comic-Con (don’t forget that hyphen, they trademarked
it!). I have been toying with running a convention for some time now. I just
think it’d be fun to attempt, but the cost layout is daunting. I wouldn’t even
try to compete with these guys that have come in and plopped another blowout of
a con in Bridgeport (ComicConn) or the monstrosity Connecticon.
It was one of the reasons I was so interested in the Library-based Comic Con
panel the day beforehand; it may be a way to have an event that’s not so…
flashy, yet fun and reminiscent of conventions I enjoyed before being a geek
was “cool”.
Anyway, regardless of ticketing or badge, I entered the con
enjoying my freedom from baggage and heavy outerwear. The best thing about a
pullover hoodie is the ease in which it’s carried after you take it off, if you
need to. It’s also toasty warm on cool, overcast days, which this particular
Saturday was. Rain was being threatened, and it was scattered on and off when I
left New Jersey. The city was still mostly dry, but honestly, I didn’t care. I
was in a giant building with hundreds of thousands of other people. The most
wet I was going to get was from spittle from a rabid Marvel fanboy, or sweat
from Dan the Didiot’s* bald, dull head.
I traveled in a wandering line to the Walk on Water booth,
briefly visiting the Momentum Volsk area again, to at least let them know their
article had been sent in and to keep an eye out for it, but they were mobbed
with people and filming the tables for their website. Cosplay attendance had
increased, as expected with standard attendance higher on Saturdays, and I was
amused to see some volunteers trying to maneuver cosplayers and picture takers
away from areas of ingress/egress. That was new to me and something I’d hoped
to see more of. Or, at least, from actual event staff and not the volunteers,
who are usually young, inexperienced and unsure of their ability to enforce
rules. More on that later, before I get tangential and miss the point of this
particular A Leaf on the Wind.
Nothing new or interesting stirred me on the way to the Walk
on Water booth. People still staggered around with their noses in their
smartphones instead of noticing the things around them, picture takers were clogging
up aisles not just wanting photos of cosplayers, but items in booths.
Wetaworks, the group that designed most of the creatures and sets for the Peter
Jackson-directed Lord of the Rings films (amongst many others) had a huge
display of statuettes and replicas, attracting many a lookie-loo. Other outfits
had the same, but listing them all isn’t my interest or intent. You want to see
them? Buy a ticket to next year’s show. Regardless of how NYCC perceives itself
in comparison to the San Diego show, it still doesn’t sell out as fast, or as
early. I know that and have never been to San Diego.
Tarachu was being photographed at the booth by some schmoe
who thought it was a good idea to sit on the floor to get a good angle when I
finally got there. I didn’t want to get in their way, particularly if it was
helping to promote the book, but it was my impression he was only interested in
the costume, not the reason for it. I could be wrong… but I’m comfortable
typing the belief here, so what do you think?
In any event, I bombarded Jacob with questions, needing more
information for what I felt could be a good piece on The Seven Scrolls of
Shitorio. I spent a goodly amount of time there before letting them free to
promote themselves to the masses, and scampered off to the Steve Jackson booth.
Calling it a booth is somewhat of a misnomer, it was more of a display with
tables to playtest games upon. The actual booth was next to them, that of the
Compleat Strategist, selling the Steve Jackson Games product, along with a good
selection of other product. I spoke with NAME REDACTED of SJG, who
gave me quite a bit of information on their upcoming products, their recently
released products being displayed at the show, and some news regarding one of
their old games, Car Wars, that I didn’t end up using in the blurb I dropped to
Bleeding Cool.
Car Wars was originally printed in 1980, gained a
following and has maintained that following even though no new material related to
the original game had been released in over 15 years. Car Wars, for the
uninitiated, is essentially a game of modified motor vehicle battles, in which
you, the driver, try to eliminate all of your opponents in either a set amount
of time or in a last man standing situation. Think of it as Death Race 2000
NAME REDACTED informed me that not only had SJG run a
successful campaign to reprint the original boxed game of Car Wars (which is
out now – get it here! Car Wars), the company had rehired game creator Chad Irby to produce new Car Wars product. When it comes to games,
everything old is new again.
From there I moved on to the IDW booth, to finally talk
games. I was on a roll and really starting to enjoy myself. It was finally
getting fun for me, low tech and all. I noticed that the stack of games that
was displayed on Thursday was significantly diminished and that two of the
games were open for playtest. I waited until there was a free staffer, looking
over the details of a game called Tammany Hall, which looked like it was
right up my alley. When the staffer was free, I found myself talking with Nate
Murray, the IDW Games guy I’d corresponded with previously. We had a great
conversation of IDW, their Publisher-in-Chief, the games they’re planning and
what they’re doing differently from other game companies. It was a fruitful
talk and became yet another update for Bleeding Cool.
After parting with Nate, I realized I had a couple of more
questions to clarify some points with Jacob Kirton and returned to the Walk on
Water booth. He was being interviewed by someone with a video camera, so I
waited while he finished his interview. While doing so, I began to really
notice his neighbors. Here’s a quick list of the people and things I discovered
there, because the article they all landed it was never run by Bleeding Cool.
Nathaniel Burney is a lawyer. He started writing a blog for
lawyers until he realized if he wrote it with the general public in mind, he’d
find a larger readership. Turning it from blog to web comic, he started to
explain various parts of law to the layman, in a straightforward and sometimes
comedic manner. It was an instant hit, and in January of 2012, less than two
months after his comic debuted, he was contacted by the Jones McClure
Publishing group to get the comic into book form. The Illustrated Guide to Law:
Criminal Procedure was the first in the graphic series, with Criminal Procedure
II following. The next in the series is Constitutional Law, due out soon, and
even more are being prepared further down the line.
I had to laugh at the whole concept of it, but it really,
really works. The drawings are cartoony and add more amusement factor to the
whole strip, making it one of the more curious books I found at the show. As we
talked, I discovered I wasn’t the only one to mention Trademark and Copyright
law to him as a topic for a book, or a portion of one. With so many different
fights over comics and comic creations making headlines, I hope he does
consider it. Of course, the best part of my chat at his table was when a couple
came by and the blonde woman in the business attire grabbed each of the books
in an excited manner. She was a lawyer and when a friend had told her of the
series, she had to have them. Her boyfriend was the comic fan, but the
excitement this woman had in finding something that was hers and hers alone
within a shared medium was fun to witness.
The Illustrated Guide to Law can be read at www.lawcomic.net, or you can purchase the
books through Amazon or better bookstores. I mean, we have the Illustrated
Guide to the Universe and the Illustrated Guide to History, so why not Law as
well? Litigiousness is the right of all good, red-blooded Americans.
Next to the Walk on Water booth was the Mythopoeia booth,
housing the creators of the beautiful Skies of Fire first issue, which had been
a successful Kickstarter campaign and focus column before NYCC on the Bleeding
Cool website. I spoke to Ray Chou and Vincenzo Ferriero about their book after
noticing another book sitting on their table, a special NYCC edition of a book
called Action Johnson. I mean, with a title like that, how could I not take
notice? Unfortunately, Nic Shaw, writer of the book, wasn’t at the table at the
time, so I instead took a look at Skies of Fire, which I’d heard about but knew
little of. It’s a phenomenally gorgeous comic, in a non-traditional size that I
find appealing. It’s not quite magazine sized, but it’s not quite exactly the
size of a Golden Age** comic, either. Want to check it out? You should. Their
website is www.mythopoeia.us and you can
immerse yourself into something other than the title to the new Star Wars film
for a bit.
I told the guys I’d try and meet up with Nic Shaw before the
end of the show and work Action Johnson into my small press column, got the
needed answers from the questions I had to ask Jacob and headed to the Action
Lab booth. The day was already getting late and I still needed more info for
the article, and that’s when I remembered FUBAR.
To be continued…
*Dan Didio, aka the Didiot, is co-publisher of DC Comics.
With his regime, I’ve seen creators bashed, blacklisted and driven away from
what was once my favorite comics’ publisher. I’ve seen fan-favorite characters
killed, series ended, editorial policies shift in the most inane and juvenile
way and witnessed, in person, his lying mouth in action. He is the worst
“editor” currently on the job.
**The Golden Age of comics is an era of varying years,
generally running from the late 1930’s to about 1952. Precise dates differ from
historian to historian, and which advent to which advent. Comic sizes of this
era were larger (imagine that), running roughly 7 and 1/4th" x 10 and 3/8th" compared to today’s
“Modern” comic, which is essentially 6 and 7/8th" x 10 and 1/2". Sigh.
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