NY Comic-Con 2007 Report

I feel and look like Kim Jong-il right now. After a full weekend of breathing nerds into my body, I have acquired a common cold, ten pounds of atrophied fat around the belly, two large pimples on my chin, the screaming urge to test nuclear bombs in the Sea of Japan and crazy hair (in re: NY Comic-Con podcast in previous post).

However. Despite having all these things, what I DON’T have is:

1. So much free time that I am going to wait ten hours in line to go to the Comic-Con at 4pm Friday, exact to the second, which is when the floor opened to the public.

There were some irate otaku out there, I tell ya. My favorite comments from Friday came alternately from the trade at the beginning of the day, and the very end of the day from fans.

10:01 am: Agents are making rounds before they dash off to their “real” jobs, and are quipping about how faboo it is to avoid the fans. (I’m sorry, but last time I checked it was the agents who were posers looking to tap into the comics scene, right? Don’t bite the nerd that feeds you, people.)

4:01 pm: Fans start complaining about how evil it is to keep them waiting to get in on the first day of the rest of their lives. Best comment came from a woman who was homocidally enraged about having to wait till 4pm to get in.

“WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF RETARD MAKES A TRADE DAY FOR A COMICS CONVENTION? WHY COULDN’T WE ALL BE IN HERE AT ONCE?!” (that’s verbatim, btw)

Lady, I promise you don’t want to meet the industry. We’re all just a bunch of stuck up losers…wait…I guess that, just, proves, your, poin…

All that said, the New York Comic-Con must be only trade/fan exposition in America that has the huevos to open the Javits Center at 10am (earlier than that really, for setting up) and leave it open until 9pm. That’s 11 hours of exhibition for some of us. Fortunately this year I had back up.

There is nothing worse than being trapped in a non-flammable bright green cubicle to talk about three comic books for three straight days without the ability to go to the can freely. The company that exhibited directly in front of me for example, whose booth was adorned with innocent (too innocent maybe) educational comic books and inspirational posters featuring little girls doing the “I love what you do for me…Toyota!” jump, had little to no visitors for hours at a time, but that couldn’t stop the exhibitor from trying to join in on the funk. The Bob Newhart plus 50 pounds exhibitor in charge of that booth gave up by hour two on Saturday and was not to be seen for the rest of the weekend.
Semper fi, exhibitor.
Semper fi.

By Sunday the aisles were flushed with skin-tighty whitey “superheros” and Molly Crabapple’s jail bait sex goddess. (Though the best costume was arguably Burger King Storm Trooper).

Quick aside: parents, don’t yell at your kids when they start pulling on your parka hem to buy them a He-Man bearbrick. You can’t take a human being to something as tantalizaing as a comics convention and then expect the kid to stay mute and unwanting of anything. The most painful sight of the convention for me was not the 300 Pound Obi Wan Cosplayer with his ponytail tucked into his tunic. It was the father who yelled at his 5 year old who was in tears:

If you want to blow a hundred dollars on toys, you have to work for it.

2. Moving on…Another thing I don’t have, is a marketing campaign consisting of hookers.

I was totally thrown off by the ladies of Fox Atomic who tried to own the 700 aisle. Little did they know Viz was selling Naruto headbands. Justin Timberlake’s backup dancers will never steer comics fans from metal plated kerchiefs. Ever. Don’t try it. Stay at home. Let the nerds through the aisle!
Speaking of herds of nerds, I also don’t have

3. Stan Lee or Stephen King to attract hundreds of people to my booth. Saturday for the rest of us was like navigating through the beginning stages of procreation. Lee and King were like ovaries (slow oases of life), and the fans waiting for signatures were like sperm (numbering in the thousands, pretty much all identical, and really fucking pushy). Get out of my way! I just want to go to the food court and buy a fifty dollar sandwich!

My problem ain’t the fans though. Seriously. I am as inclined to argue with a DM over my wizard powers as I am to sit in a conference room discussing market share. My problem, was the idiots. Like the dude who tried to “steal” Vertical’s giveaway tote bags. I had to pretend I couldn’t see him, though being three feet away from me, wearing a bright green lantern shirt and tip-toeing like a pansy are details hard to miss. I mean c’mon. If you want a tote bag, the least you can do is make eye contact with me. You don’t gots ta jank that, dawg.

Also, the convention floor is NOT the place to hit on an exhibitor. And even if you felt like you had to, the way to do it is NOT by taking my business card without asking, giving me yours without my wanting it, and saying “I want you to call me,” make sexual eye contact, and then walking away backwards while maintaining that eye contact. Friend- unless you played Batman in any of his last three big screen incarnations, I will never call you.

In sum, I’d say the divide between fans and industry was perfectly franchised by the reality of our interstructural communications networks. In other words, the best professionals are also fans, which is real easy these days with the interweb. Like Ed at MangaCast, and Brigid at MangaBlog (who Ryan and I decided should adopt us as niece and nephew she’s so dope). Also, what a joy to booth next to Top Shelf Comix and to get a chance to hang ever so briefly with David Mazzucchelli and his quasi-protégé R. Kikuo Johnson.

I had the Gingko eye candy providing respite just like last year, and unlike last year, the Giant Robot gang was there to gang-bang it up over the weekend along with Ryan at Same Hat! Serdar from The Gline hooked it up with some great book ideas, and our own David Kalat blew me away with his presentation on Japanese Horror Film.

The comics industry is so wonderfully organic in this way. Let me reiterate how the fans and pros are all in the same boat. For example, Tania Del Rio (Archie comics, Sabrina) the mega-cute mega-talented artist, bought a book from us before I realized it was her! I tried to act like it was nothing. She was real chill about it too. (cue the gangster nod)

Speaking of things to buy (other than our entire back and front list, of course), everyone ought to get their caleidescope camera from Noted Co. and I have FINALLY gotten on the Scott Pilgrim wagon, which lives up to every word of praise I’d heard for the past year. Thanks to Beardo The Hippie (aka James L. Jones) at Oni Press for hooking me up with the preview.

Last shout out: Librarians! Oh how you made my weekend a blissful experience. You came out in droves and took everything I said back with you to that place you all come from. Y’all should go to Regina at Baker&Taylor now! The lady knows her manga and library market.

Speaking of people and manga, I was supposed to talk about Vertical’s future of manga on Sunday at our scheduled panel, but after a Saturday night that ended at 5am screaming Pat Benetar’s Heartbreaker at the top of my lungs, I wasn’t able to say much more than that blogs are the herpes of the internet and manga imprints are the herpes of trade publishing (everyone has it but is embarassed to admit it). Let me just say for the record, that my thoughts on manga can be summed up in two ways:

1. What is the future of manga?

More expensive editions.
2. Manga v. comics. Whatever to do?

Make Love Hina, not Civil War.