Now that this year’s New York Comic Con is over, I thought I’d do a summary of the floor itself (the parts of it I got to inbetween panels and snapping stock pics for IA). Why? It was incredibly different from previous NY Comic Cons and (to be honest) I took way more pictures than we used for our coverage and I’d like a place to put them! On that note:
Legend:
A Sense of Purpose/The ‘Get Me Off the Moon’ Campaign!
So, what was new about this year’s NYCC?
1 – Order
Having been to previous NYCC’s, I was immediately surprised by just how differently the convention show floor was. Last year, there had only been two sections to the convention: Artist’s Alley and Everything Else (oh, and Artist’s Alley was also where the Anime side of the Con was). The NYCC before that, Artist’s Alley had been to one side of a single, large room that amounted to a complete, utter clusterfuck; everything was everywhere. There were nice touches and a semblance of order (DC’s booth, for example, being near Marvel’s booth; toy vendors, publishers, and comic shops all [kind of] sticking together for warmth in the ice cold rage ocean of Convention-goers screaming, “Where are you!?… I’m on Aisle… 2600??… What!? No, 2600!!!” into their dying cell phones).
This year was a very welcome change; there was no semblance of order because things were just in order. Games? Mostly to your left, where Artist’s Alley and the Anime stuff was last year. Publishers? To the right of that. Comics? The next, large room to your right. Artist’s Alley? The next, large room, past the comics section. Of course, Artist’s Alley still housed a bunch of gaming stuff and comic vendors, but regardless, I can gladly say that I only had to scream my location into my cell phone a single time this year. What’s more, my brother’s friend mentioned a booth that sounded awesome, and when I asked where it was, he simply said, “Artist’s Alley,” and—miracle among miracles—I went to Artist’s Alley and found it after about only two minutes of searching.
That doesn’t mean everything was in order though; I never got to see the vague question-mark that was Javits Center North. According to Chaos Mechanica, it was where the Hasbro Stage and celebrity signings took place. The entrance to it was also tucked away on the far right side of the entrance strip, meaning I only noticed it Sunday night, while waiting for Chaos Mechanica to finish watching his Japanese novelas (anime screening). The question marks don’t end there though. There was an… Uncharted 3 demo somewhere? “Downstairs,” I heard it whispered on the wind. In the end, the order seemed to be a lie, but the mystery… <wistful sigh>. Well, let’s just say I’m really excited to explore next year.
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2 – The Game Room:
I wound up thinking of the huge, game-heavy room on the southern end of the Javits Center as “the Game Room.” The thing is, there was a lot more than just games here. It’s just that I had a really, really hard time caring what else was in the room because Capcom and Square Enix had the biggest booths I’ve ever seen.
I’ll be honest—the fan in me forced a complete halt to work / journalism at the Capcom booth, so anything over 10 feet away from Capcom is completely unknown to me. All of the booths around it were just as obnoxious and awesome though. Square Enix’s booth was a perimeter of screens running a bunch of trailers on loop, with a filling of many, many game demo set-ups and a small stage.
And, of course, the Marvel booth was a huge mock up of the Helicarrier, which immediately made me smile not because of how excited I am for The Avengers, but because it looked exactly like the kind of thing I’ve seen a bunch of times at San Diego Comic Con and wished we’d get here on the East Coast. In the end, the Game Room gave me hope for insanely elaborate, San Diego CC-caliber booths at next year’s NYCC.
3 – Epic Costumes:
It wasn’t just the exhibitors that stepped it up; I saw a lot of awesome costumes this year that went deep into the realm of functional technology or awe-inducing accuracy. I definitely didn’t get pictures of everyone (there was a really insanely elaborate Bumblebee that everyone just stared at in silence until he awkwardly walked away [because I know I at least was having a really hard time understanding that he was a person in a costume and not a Transformer {I'm not even kidding}], and I got a picture of an awesome, classic Bane, complete with a life-sized Batman doll he was breaking over his knee, but I didn’t get to interview him), but here are the few I managed to get pictures of:
4 – A Sense of Purpose / The “Get Me Off the Moon” Campaign
The rest of the booths on the floor and the fans who walked them fostered the “we care” vibe. I don’t mean that people were buying Pocky for each other and sharing hugs; I mean that everyone, not just the professionals, took this Con seriously. Even if people hadn’t spent months on their costumes, everyone else still looked awesome and we got very few topless idiots with red lightsabers and black pants pretending they were actual Star Wars characters.
Some people took it to the next level though; I saw a bunch of people petitioning for the return of Mega Man Legends 3. If you don’t know about the Get Me Off the Moon campaign, check out their facebook page or their blogspot page! I’m not sure if the petitioners gave me hope that Capcom would ever listen to its fans where Megaman is concerned (two months after our Mega Man R.I.P. Round Table, I felt certain Capcom’s determined to just let him die), but it was awesome to see people giving it such a serious shot at the petition and made me feel like I should try to do my part. The first step? Adding a like box for the campaign on the right sidebar. If you care about Megaman Legends 3 and don’t want it scrapped forever, doing something is as easy as hitting the Like button that’s on the right side of the page. Seriously, I in particular, have been waiting to get Mega Man Volnutt off of the moon for nearly eleven years now. If you have too, or even if you haven’t, please help out!
A Final Thought
I’ve been to a bunch of NY Comic Cons and they always wound up being the same event; I’d walk in, head to a few booths, then get bored, look at panels, and ultimately realized there were no interesting ones. That meant that most of the enjoyment came from who I went with and, usually, one booth I enjoyed enough to spend most of my time in. It just wasn’t so this year; the panels were really awesome for the most part. So much so that, even though I could’ve spent all of my time at the Capcom booth (like I did last year), I didn’t want to. I hope that means that next year is going to be even more organized (hopefully avoiding the insane experience that Chaos Mechanica and Ed Cambro went through with The Avengers panel (detailed in our coverage of Day Two at NYCC) and more fun. Will NYCC 2012 rival San Diego Comic Con? Not likely. But will it someday? One can hope.