NYCC/NYAF 2012

This past weekend was the New York Comic Con, which was located at the Javits Center in Manhattan. This four day event is huge, as far as the guests who are there and the mass amount of people that show up to it. Some of the guests that were there this year included Adam West, Stan Lee, Carrie Fisher, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Davidson, Sean Astin, Tom Felton, and Robert Kirkman (as well as many others). This was my first time attending after many years of wanting to go, I finally got to with a one day pass for Saturday.

One thing to expect is enormous crowds with at least 2/3 of the people there in cosplay. There is a whole floor set to the various venders selling merchandise, an area for all the artists who are either signing, displaying, or selling their work, a bunch of spots for panels or screenings to occur, an area for certain guests to be signing autographs, and just a whole mass of booths set up where I would not be able to list them all. The whole experience is really fantastic though, seeing so many people in costume of their favorite characters, and just the wide variety of people who attend the convention all with common interests.

A major guest and panel for this year was various cast members from The Walking Dead. Outside the Javits Center they had the van set up with the actual zombies from the show, who were interacting with the crowd outside. Not once did they break character, and the detail of their makeup was amazing. It was really cool, they even would post for photos as you can see with me being attacked by them. This was so much fun, which made it really hard to hide my smile here since it was just so cool. Props to all the people involved with putting this all together, and really adding to the whole convention.

In addition to the zombies there was also Jeffrey DeMunn, who was Dale in the show outside taking pictures with people. All of this was occurring while people were waiting outside to get in (or back inside) during the afternoon. Now the reason for this major amount of dead at the convention was due to the panel for the show, and that the season premier was the following day. The panel however I did not get to see due to the vast amount of people who had just attended earlier panels and sat through them to make sure they would be in for The Walking Dead. So that is one of the downsides to the day, but I had a great time and I found an upload on YouTube that I shall watch later on, so not all is lost. But I am just so thrilled that I got to meet with some of the cast, and interact with the zombies as they poked and sniffed the various people around them.

Meeting Jeffrey DeMunn

There were a few people that I really wanted to meet, and two of which I did get to were the artists Yoshitaka Amano and Ben Templesmith. I was just so excited to meet them since I love their art, and they each signed some of my books (Amano signed Vampire Hunter D: Vol. 1 and Templesmith signed 30 Days of Night: Omnibus). If you are unfamiliar with either of them, go and check out some of their work since it's really amazing.

Another panel that I really wanted to see was the Firefly 10th Anniversary one, and that one I did not due to a similar situation with The Walking Dead. Basically some cast members from the show (Jewel Straite and Sean Maher) were just there to discuss Firefly and it's movie Serenity, while also answering questions from the fans. Knowing that Nathan Fillion made a surprise appearance makes me wish even more that I could have been there.

Though I shall watch through any uploads on YouTube (I believe I saw the whole thing up even if it was in parts), and later do a write up on it as well as The Walking Dead one. Now this little write up can't really describe the whole comic con experience, and I only have a few photos up here. The only way to fully grasp the whole experience is to go to one of these conventions yourself one day (if that's what interests you). I hope that maybe you will, as it is a ton of fun on top of being a tad tiring. And as of right now, I plan on attending again next year.