OK, so I promised more details on my weekend trip to New York Comic Con with Moore and here they are:
• As I posted earlier, on Friday, before we even got to the convention, we saw a scene of “The Bourne Ultimatum” being filmed. I have reference pictures of the street, so I can compare them to the movie when it comes out. Also, if you see a fat redheaded guy drinking a Diet Coke on that street just before the scene begins, it’s me.
• FRIDAY:
We headed right into the main floor at about 4:30 or so (the convention didn’t open to the public until 4:00). After about 30 minutes of wandering around the exhibitors area, Moore and I got separated. I, of course, left my cellphone in the hotel room, so there was no chance of contact, so I just kept walking around, doing my own thing. Eventually I went up to Artists Alley, which was crazy crowded. They really didn’t set it up with enough room for people to move around. I scoped out a few things and took care of getting some stuff signed before moving on to the “Buffy” trivia contest which began at 6:30.
I got down there just before it began, and for a brief moment, it looked like I would be part of the main contest, until James C. Leary (who was co-hosting along with Matt from DST) noticed I was wearing my Broncos jersey. Being a Cowboys fan, he told me to sit down (though to be fair, he did call on me later for other questions). It was all in good fun and we had a nice laugh about it later. The contest was fun and there were some great prizes, though the 10 people picked for the main contest didn’t really know their stuff. I ended up answering a question correctly (though for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was) and got an autographed photo of Clare Kramer. Shortly before that happened, Moore showed up in the room, having realized that if I was anywhere, it would be there.
Once the trivia contest wrapped up, we went over to the Sci-Fi screening event (they were showing Sunday’s episodes of “The Dresden Files” and “Battlestar Galactica” two days early). I’d never seen either show, but Dresden Files piqued my interest and I may give it a shot. Once that was wrapped up, we headed back to the hotel, got some good old fashioned New York pizza, then it was time to rest up for Day 2.
• SATURDAY
We got up at 7:30 with a plan to get to the Javits Center shortly after 8:00 (even though the doors didn’t open until 10:00. There was already a considerable line by the time we got there, and it just got much worse. Compounding the pain of waiting was the fact that we found out that if we wanted to head down to the meeting area and events hall, we didn’t actually have to wait in line. We could have just gone right in. Oh well. I went in and got my seat for Slayer Tales just in time, as they started the Q&A no more than two minutes after I got in. They started with the disappointing news that Elizabeth Anne Allen wouldn’t be in attendance at all during the weekend, and Nicholas Brendan was running late and wouldn’t be at the Q&A. Still, the session was lots of fun. Everyone told some great stories, I got some pretty good pictures and some marginally good video, and there was even cake!
So after that was done, I figured I’d just be going right back upstairs, right? Wrong. Apparently if you hadn’t gone into the main show after waiting in line in the morning, you had to go back in line. By this point, the line actually started on 40th Street, went all the way down 11th Avenue to 34th Street, then went down 34th Street, back up the side of the Javits Center, around to the second-floor entrance, then wrapped around again inside. It took me about 40 minutes to get through, and I got back upstairs just in time to get in line for the Buffy autographing session. Actually, when I got up there, the line was long enough that I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the front by 1:00 (which was when the first session was scheduled to end). So, I just put on “The Gift” on my iPod and hoped for the best. Luckily, I made it to the front of the line by 12:50, got everyone’s autograph, and even got pictures with Nicholas Brendan, Juliet Landau and Bianca Lawson. It was pretty cool.
After that, I went over to check out Hayden Panettiere’s booth. She wasn’t there, but was scheduled to be back in an hour, which gave me time to take care of some business. I bought some original art from Alex Saviuk then went back upstairs and got in line for Hayden. After standing there doing nothing for about 20 minutes, she arrived and started signing. I got an autographed 8x10 and a lithograph drawn by Mark Sparacio. Plus, I got to have a very brief conversation with Hayden (I told her I liked her in “Ice Princess”. She called me “sweet”. I was pleased).
Once that was done, I went back to the exhibition floor (still no sign of Moore, and now my phone was completely dead, so no chance of communication). I bought my Emma Frost statue, and headed back over to DST to get some questions answered.
Q: Where’s “Fear, Itself” Oz?
A: His head broke off in transit, thus the lack of display.
Q: Where are the “re-vamped” figures we saw at ToyFair?
A: They’re already getting some additional work done.
Q: Does the extra set of legs come off on the re-vamped figures?
A: Yes. In fact, either set of legs can be positioned in multiple pegs on the bases, to create lots of different poses.
Q: Is the Judge being displayed a full-size prototype or a 2-up sample?
A: It’s a 2-up. The final product will be in scale with the rest of the figures.
Q: Do you have a “Watchers Guide” I could buy today?
A: No.
I then went down to the food court area, just to get a drink and sit down. Luckily, just at that moment, Moore passed by. He was headed to the Kevin Smith symposium, something I hadn’t planned on attending, but I really had nothing to do otherwise at the time, and I wanted to sit down, so I went. I’m glad I did, because Smith was hilarious. After that, we once again went our separate ways, but this time made actual plans on how to re-unite. He was going to something that started at 6:30, while I basically needed to kill time before the photo op with Hayden. At about 6:50 or so I got in line for that (the photo op started at 7:15) then that wrapped up at 7:45. I sat around for about 10 minutes or so, and when I got bored with waiting, I wandered over to the Dabel Brothers booth (which was right by the entrance/exit). They were selling Anita Blake T-shirts. I asked if they had any left -- the guy looked in the box and said “all we have left is 3X.” My response: “do I look like the kind of guy who has a problem with 3X?” The guy, who was also a pretty big guy, chuckled and sold me the shirt. After a few more minutes of waiting, Moore showed up at our designated meeting place, and we left.
• SUNDAY
We honestly didn’t have much planned for the day, so we took our time. We checked out of the hotel, then went over to the convention center, and straight down to the meeting area for a session on the history of Superhero movies. It wasn’t bad (some enlightening info, but a lot of stuff we already knew). I was just happy when they showed a clip from Buffy (from “The Gift” even!). after that, we stuck around for a session on the history of VALIENT comics, a company I’d never heard of but something Moore wanted to go to. I stuck around, mostly because my cell phone was still dead and I didn’t want to get separated again (also I didn’t have anything else pressing I wanted to do).
After that, we ran one more loop through the exhibition floor. Neither of us really found anything we were looking for, though I finally bit the bullet and bought one of the pages I wanted from Astonishing X-Men. That was basically it for New York. We gave brief thought to making a side trip to the Apple Store 5th Avenue after lunch, but because it was 20 blocks down the street from where we were (and 18 blocks past where we needed to go for the train) we decided against it, especially since we’d already picked up our bags from the hotel. Maybe another time.
