New York Comic-Con 2015: Bigyank’s Adventure!

This year’s New York Comic-Con felt largely the same as always; no real Earth-shattering announcements, just a ton of cool moments here and there at many of the panels. Sadly, I didn’t get to attend any panels due to a change in policy. Some panels were moved over to the Hammerstein Ballroom and for the Javits Center, one was now required to line up to get wristbands for the big panels which in turn made the smaller panels even harder to get into with the influx of people not being able to get to the main stage.

Because of an upcoming vacation I was not able to take the time off to go Thursday or Friday. Luckily, despite the absence of our fearless leader, I still managed to have a damned good time. I spent my day on Saturday just taking in the sites and walking the convention inside and out.

Of what I consider to be the big three comic companies, Marvel was the clear leader of the pack. Marvel had the biggest floor area, showcasing its properties and even having a stage set up for daily events and announcements. They even had a replica of Jessica Jones’ office from the upcoming Netflix series. Image comics was next, their booth is more of a huge store with areas at the end to accommodate for signings and products spread across in between. DC was not even on the floor but had a set up at the very end of the Jacob Javits area with one lone table, its only redeeming quality was having props from the Batman v. Superman movie and the free Wifi courtesy of the Lex Luthor Corp.

The cosplay was on point this year, people have definitely stepped their game for the big East coast show. You can see all of our favorite cosplay from the convention floor right here! The showstopper was, by far, the 9 foot tall Iron-man Hulkbuster armor, that thing was beautiful! As Jonathan predicted after he reviewed Netflix’s Daredevil, the con floor was littered with the black suit Matt Murdock. It was only rivaled by the 2nd laziest costume “Legends of the Hidden Temple” contestants. The irony being that none of the people that Isaw would have made it past the first temple guard let alone solve the shrine of the silver monkey.

One of the coolest thing at the con was the Jurassic World raptor that was there to promote the BluRay release. They also dressed the big convention doors to look like the Jurassic Park gate. With the iconic music playing on loop at both stations, the raptor was there to meet and con goers under the strict supervisions of its JP handler preventing you from becoming raptor pellets. It was a fun little show, and the synced sounds effects where a nice touch.

Jurassic World Raptor doing meet and greets #NYCC2015 pic.twitter.com/eYXhXnSvYy

— Geekscape! (@geekscapedotnet) October 10, 2015

Another cool area that was also not set up on the show floor was Ash vs. Evil Dead booth. This was a  cool looking spot which was a prop set of what Ash’s living situation will look like on the show. Once inside the squalor that is Ash’s haunted trailer home completely littered with empty booze bottles and demons. Earlier in the day the cast was on hand signing autographs for fans. I really can’t wait for the show to premiere this Halloween!

Surprisingly, one of the funnest moments that I had all weekend was kids day, when I took Little Yanks to the Nickelodeon Booth for some swag. We had arrived early so the super friendly staff chatted up with us and we got into to talking about The Splat. Those of you who grew up in the 90’s should most be interested in this; Nick has decided that after 10pm its sister channel Teen Nick will switch programming to The Splat where it will air 90’s Nick programming along with the classic commercials and bumpers from Stick Stickly. As soon as we got home I checked it out, and my only problem was that I had forgotten just how bad SD TV looks. Still, I didn’t let it deter me as I sat there watching Figure It Out for the next hour.  We also got take a spin and win some cool prizes and a had a chance at doing voice over work on our favorite Nickelodeon characters. I choose to voice Rocko while Little Yanks choose Chucky from Rugrats.

The highlight of the con was my daughter being able to finally meet Alex Hirsch, creator and voice actor of Disney’s Gravity Falls. After the disastrous Adventure Time Q&A panel last year, I made it my mission to not let her down. Thanks to my Press Pass, I was able to get a slight advantage at getting a wrist band and getting to the line faster than the normal convention peasants. The poor workers at the Disney publication booth did not know what they were getting themselves into, as the booth was completely mobbed an hour before his scheduled time. We decided it was best that she goes up to him alone because who would turn away a kid asking a question and a picture? Well his handler was cold enough to do such a thing. The time it took her to explain why he couldn’t, he could have just done it. Then the person behind us posed with him for a picture and it kinda crushed her. I told her to focus on the positive and its a good thing I took a pic of him signing her book.

This was a fun and different year, Little Yanks is older and seemed to feel comfortable at the con. She demanded to go to some booths and asked to take pictures with cosplayers. She told Alex Hirsch “me and my friends are just complete nerds over the show, thank you so much” to which he replied ” I love NERDS” to which she started to get teary.  If there’s one thing i can take away is that the convention has helped her find her people and break out of her shy shell! At the end of the day that’s what’s the heart of these conventions, bringing people together and celebrating there common interests. For that, I am truly grateful that we have a New York Comic-Con.