Daily Thoughts 10/8/2010
I did get to New York Comic Con at 10:00 a.m. this morning. It was very different than I expected. There were a lot of computer gaming companies there. Playstation, Wii, Nintendo, and others. Because it was a combined show with Anime East, there were a lot of people in cosplay costumes. Many of the costumes were of computer game characters or manga characters. Costumes of Mario and Naruto characters were very popular. I even took a little break and played a few turns of the computer game Civilization V by Sid Meier. There were a lot more big screens than last year showing films or live shots of multiplayer games. This included the new Final Fantasy XIV online game.
Another thing which I saw was an exhibit for the new Intel computer chip as a chip for computer gamers. They were giving out an Intel button with a picture from the new film from Dreamworks called Megamind. Ford was also selling their Ford Fiesta in a comic book show. I found the product placement to be a bit odd. There was also a Green Hornet mobile with missiles and guns which was a little odd looking. They are coming out with a Green Hornet film in January of 2011. http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thegreenhornet/
I looked through the copy of the latest Diamond Comic Previews magazine which I got at the show and they have a multi-page spread with a new Green Hornet. It looks completely different than the Green Hornet I have read.
Booth #434 was where the American Library Association was. They had some material on graphic novels in libraries plus a whole bunch of material on gaming in libraries. I picked up an http://www.ilovelibraries.org/ button to wear. I missed the group photograph, I was off looking at things. I met one person who regularly attends the board of trustees meetings at the library and I met another gentleman who is a patron at our library who was shopping around the comic book he was creating. He talks a lot about comics when I talk to him. He suggested that we might want to get the anime Black Lagoon which is a little like Cowboy Bebop.
I walked a lot and looked at the booths and the artists. There were a lot less booths than last year. You could see the economies toll on the comics industry. You could also see changes in the industry. I saw a few people with Ipads. There were also a number of displays for digital comics. On the cover of Thor First Thunder being given at the Marvel booth, there was advertising for a free comics app http://www.marvel.com/marvelcomicsapp whch is an application for the Iphone.
I also saw a few local organizations. Brooklyn has a yearly animation blockparty. http://www.animationblockparty.com/ I have not gone to it, but it looks very interesting.
There were a decent amount of free comics. IDW gave away a free Dungeons and Dragons comic. I especially liked the Darkhorse giveaway of Falling Skies which is based on a television series on TNT network. Orbit Books gave away a copy of Gail Carriger's Blameless. I am going to add it to my libraries collection. I also picked up a button with the words Parasol Protectorate and a pink octopuss. The Parasol Protectorate is the name of Gail Carriger's series.
While I was looking at science fiction books, I noticed that Avon Eos was using Netgalley http://www.netgalley.com/ to create a book with free samples of their work online.
I also saw the Museuem of Comic and Cartoon Art New York booth. The museum is doing an Al Jaffe Art Exhibit from Oct 5, 2010 through January 30,2011. Another organization which caught my attention was the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
One comic that caught my attention was an anthology called Reading With Pictures. It is from a nonprofit organization that uses comics as a tool for literacy. There was no separate booth for them, but a lot of booths were selling the book. http://www.readingwithpictures.org/
I picked up two things while I was at the Abrams Comic Arts Booth; A poster for the book by Audrey Niffenegger for her graphic novel, The Night Bookmobile which I had a chance to look at the New York Comic Con booth. It is about a lady who finds her way to a bookmobile at night and chooses to work there. I have it up in my room.
I also picked up an Advanced Reading Copy of Empire State A Love Story (Or Not) by Jason Shiga. I read this on the train home and enjoyed it very much. It is about a very close friendship between a man and a woman. The man travels to New York from Oakland California to visit New York to see her and find a job. It is a slice of life comic about relationships.
I wandered around looking at booths. There were were some other interesting books which I saw. I had gotten an invitation from For Beginner Books to look at their books. I liked their new graphic novel, Poetry For Beginners. Beginner Books does nonfiction graphic novels.
There were a few other booths which caught my attention, http://www.shilongpang.com/ which is about a wandering shaolin monk. It won the Xeric Award. Midtown Comics was handing out 25% off cards. There was a postcard for the film, Will Eisner Portrait of a Sequential Artist which is a full length documentary from Montilla Pictures.
Net Comics which featured Manhwa or Korean comics had a very nicely done booth. I liked the style of their comic the Great Catsby. They were also giving away very nicely designed cloth bags. http://www.netcomics.com/
If I had had a little more time, I would have spent some time looking at the Hermes Press books http://www.hermespress.com/ . They had several Buck Rogers oversize full color books.
I originally planned on staying for the three hours of the professional only session, but ended up staying an extra hour and a half from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The show seemed geared towards a more general audience. There were a lot of vendors selling comic books and graphic novels. I saw vendors selling long bins of graphic novels instead of comics for 3 for $20. It was an interesting show.
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