|
A Newbie & NYCC 2014
I've only been attending cons since 2010 and last year's WWC was my first attempt at con sketches, so NYCC 2014 was my first big con away from the friendly confines of Chicago as a newbie comic art collector.
It's been about a dozen years since I last was in NYC (and about 15 for my wife), so the trip was both a convention special (for me) and sightseeing tour (for both). We were also meeting up with wife's best friend (and friend's family) from Michigan for a few days in the city. We flew in early Wednesday and spent most of the day taking in some of the sights & food in midtown. I only had single day tickets for Thursday and Friday, so my expectations were tempered as best as possible, especially knowing that on Friday I would be going to the con with my wife's best friend's husband and two of their very young kids. The two of us had gone to C2E2 a few years past with his oldest in tow, so I knew it would be difficult to navigate and/or stand around too long. No problems as I love seeing what is hopefully the newest generation of comic readers get excited about seeing the people behind the books they read!
So my experience at NYCC?
Artists - loved seeing all the artists there, especially as WWC further marginalizes the artists. A few artists I wanted on my jams had lists that closed for the day within 10 minutes on Friday, so that was a bummer, but it was pretty cool to briefly speak with them in person about their art! I was tempted to arrange for some work to be done on a few jams and have it shipped to me, but decided with the holidays coming up there might be some delays. Will wait to see them at the next cons.
The crowds - NYCC on Friday makes C2E2 look like a small hotel con (even though our con center is much larger than Javits). I know I gave up on purchases at some booths, especially the main floor, because I couldn't even get in towards the merchandise.
The main floor - not a big fan; not sure if it's the sheer number of attendees or layout or both, but massive bottlenecks were up front by the Bandai/McFarlane/Kotobukiya/Capcom areas. I think the aisles were the same width as in C2E2, so maybe it was the crowd size.
The Cosplay - typically most of my photography at cons is here, but I shot officially for WW this past summer so I didn't focus on it as much at NYCC. What I saw was good - ran into some of the same cosplayers at C2E2 and WWC here - the dedicated ones travel all over! The winning entrant here for some odd reason didn't even place at WWC - I remember having a conversation with him then about it.
Panels - forget about it. Didn't even bother, as people lined up crazy early. Unlike going to C2E2 on a VIP pass and skipping queues, I didn't want to spend too much time away from artist alley.
Overall - great con, but as Carlos mentioned in his thread, NYCC is reaching that point where the crowds become a detraction. That said, I'll probably go again, although not annually. I think I'd stick with Thurs/Fri tickets still, even if that means fewer commissions.
Thankfully, NYCC helped me to start focusing in on which jams I want done. All the blank pages were causing inaction on my part! Speaking of which, here are a few items this newbie picked up at NYCC:
GL - Ivan Reis - met a few gents from here while standing in line on Thursday; loved seeing what folks had picked up/getting done and talking comic art in general. Picked their brains for some timely advice to boot! Ivan, himself, was very personable. I am not a big fan of the trunks "removal" on Supes and Bats in the New 52 - and he was of the same mindset.
X-Men jam: Nightcrawler - Daniel HDR; Psylocke - Craig Yeung; Colossus - Sajad Shah; and Omega Red - Adelso Corona (Beast by Mike McKone was at a previous con); all great to talk to as well. Daniel actually had a number of questions for me about Chicago and C2E2 atmosphere, so the roles were reversed! Sajad and Adelso are awesome artists, spent a lot of time discussing my big jam piece with them (that said, I'll have to get around to posting it here) and arranging for future commissions from these two.
Transformers jam: Optimus Prime - Andrew Griffith; Starscream - Brian Shearer; this one was one of the first I laid out in grid form, but finally had the chance to get some work done on it. One of the cartoons of my childhood, G1 Transformers all the way. Both these gents were great in getting my requests in and done mid-Friday afternoon!
|
