Mindless Queues: The Ultimate Supervillain

It’s always been weird that New York, home of the two biggest comic-book companies, didn’t have a big time industry convention.

Kedar Deshpande (all photos) Holy lines, Batman!

Not that we never have comic cons in NYC—come on, we have everything in New York. The people behind the Big Apple Comic Con do a pretty good job of hosting around five shows a year. Recently they've been held at the Penn Plaza Pavilion. They used to have them in the basement of a church near Columbus Circle, and even then nobody complained. These cons tend to be driven by dealers and pseudo-celebrities, with no official industry representation. Instead, from time to time you get a big-name artist contrasting with that girl from that one Star Trek episode. The panel discussions are mostly friendly chats and no one is too big for their britches.

The Big Apple Cons are a great place to pick up deals and mix with people, but they don't transcend the scene, unlike the biggest convention in the US, the annual San Diego Comic Convention. San Diego is the big one and has been running for over 35 years. Even people who aren’t comic aficionados have heard of San Diego—it even ended up in an episode of Entourage last year. What San Diego has, so does New York—except a big-time comic con.

So, we waited. And then this year, the New York Comic Con finally promised something of what we had longed for, a big-ticket industry showcase. We got, well ...

*****

We read the flyers over and over: Three days filled with panel discussions like, “Comics Writers on Comics Writing” and “Marvel: Civil War: Whose side are you on?”; signings by artists such as Jim Lee (DC Comics), Frank Miller (Sin City), and Todd McFarlane (Spawn); plus, stalls from all major publishers showing off their upcoming serials and new character lines. The publicity for the show reached all the major comic-related websites and stores.

After making the trek from the subway station to the Jacob Javits Center, we found no indication that a major event was taking place that day: Our first sign of the convention was what looked like a small line in front of the ticket booths. Trying to find the tail end of the line brought on a feeling of shock that was later reflected on the face of each person who came down after us.

The line pulled off something no supervillain in history has been able to do: It swallowed whole an army of anime girls and washed them down with a deluge of graphic-novel-guy angst as hot and stinging as black coffee. After that, it also had plenty of room for the sweaty epigones of The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy and a few clueless Gelf contributors, though the vanquished didn’t go down without a fight (if you consider loud bitching and moaning a fight).

Where's the restroom for heroes?

The line stretched from the ticket counter around the complete circumference of the center, many times snaking into adjacent rooms and sections. Our very conservative count of the people in line at 10:30 a.m.: three to four thousand. On top of that, the ticket holders' and ticket purchasers' lines were one and the same—rendering meaningless the act of online registering. There is nothing a geek hates more than being technically prepared for a situation, only to be stuck alongside the non-web-savvy suckers when judgment comes. Think of Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy of SNL fame, forced to sit through Introduction to Computers for seniors; or think of your high-school valedictorian forced to take Remedial Anything on a pass/fail basis.

The ticket counter was presided over by a life-size Batman made from Lego, like a distant Lady Liberty standing above and offering the pursuit of happiness to the lined masses. Anyone could see this Batman was painstakingly created with love, but by the time you could see him, you were ready to go all Riddler on his ass. We made sure to check under his cape and indeed he was wearing his trademark yellow Lego-fied underwear. It turns out there were only five ticket processors, and that each person who had not purchased their tickets online had to, while paying for the tickets, fill out a name-and-address form containing a small questionnaire. Obviously this information was later going to be sold to publishers to subsidize the convention costs and to give our email delete buttons a workout.

There was only one escalator leading from the ticket counter to the convention center, and that was open only to exhibitors. We mere mortals had to go another level downstairs, to stand in another line in order to be let onto the floor. The information regarding the entry procedure was all hearsay, and fans took it upon themselves to help others stand in proper lines and to provide their own insight into the chaos. We ended up waiting on the second line for 35 minutes, amid state troopers hovering near the entrances, nervously fingering their firearms. The anime girls walking around with three-foot-long paper-maché swords weren’t helping the situation any.

Just getting onto the convention floor was such an ordeal, it almost made us feel ready to go home and hang up our “Mission Accomplished” banners that have been collecting dust for a while. By 11:30, the center was going at full swing. Immediately noticeable was the narrowness of the aisles. They were just eight feet wide, making it hard to walk more than a couple of steps without having to apologize to fellow attendees for stepping on their feet, capes, tails, or psuedopods.

Some titles cheaper than the water.

Marvel, DC Comics, and Dark Horse occupied the largest stalls. After that came the smaller publications and independent artists promoting their work. There were a couple of Japanese toy stalls; other stalls sold action figures of various heights. Clothing stalls were selling T-shirts catering to all superheroes and villains, without discrimination; one provided a medieval-corset-fitting service. Numerous companies had set up an artist-critique booth that allowed people to show their art work. Artists’ galleries dotted both sides of the floor. On the right side, fans lined up at tables to get their issues signed by famous artists like John Romita Jr. Despite the lack of airflow and the fans' generic aroma—a cross between a circus and stale wine—these artists still were able to draw personal sketches. The prices—ranging from $15 to $60 per sketch—must have helped.

Independent (read: starving) artists sat to the left side of the floor. Some had done minor work for major publications and were selling original art and also drawing sketches, for lower prices.

The publication companies' stalls featured artists signing in shifts. Among those we spotted were Jim Lee and Paul Pope. We had the opportunity to chat with cartoonist Ted Rall, and were happy to find out he was an affable chap, regardless of what everyone else says.

For a comic-book convention, this one had a surprisingly small number of stalls that actually sold old comics. A major draw at these events is rummaging through rows and rows of dollar bins to find old comic issues. Most people come armed with lists so as to complete missing sets or a series.

Throughout the convention, we came across many well-known characters: Star Wars storm troopers, Mr. DragonBall Z, Shazam, and a complete trio of Ghostbusters (proton-packs charged). Certainly the most entertaining one was Banana Man. Wearing a foam banana suit that for some reason included as accessories underwear pinned to the front and prescription glasses, this banana claimed that his main purpose in life was to talk loudly and annoy people. Sporting a native New York accent and a scent familiar to those in the giant-walking-costume industry, the banana man walked up to people, talked to people, and generally lived up his claim. We also saw a person dressed in tight black clothing and black knee-and-elbow pads, with an American flag completely covering his head, sunglasses on top, adopting a very threatening pose. We called him "angry Captain America." But Power Girl—wearing a white leotard that had apparently shrunk in the wash since it was barely covering her torso and had a split in the middle—was running around and spreading joy, so it all balanced out.

His kryptonite is if you peel him.

Our thirst was quenched by the $2.75 bottles of water. We peered inside to see if, for that price, there was something special at the bottom. Hunger and the need for fresh air finally drove us outside the floor and into the food court. The independently run food courts' selection can't be blamed on the organizers, though we think that the prices were surely a tribute to the fantasy-land nature of the convention. After enjoying a small pasta dish pretty much tasted like the box it comes in and cost more than a restaurant-grade Costco bag of pasta, imagine our dismay to find out that there was yet another line to get in. State troopers had shut down entry to the floor because of the size of the crowds. We tried to regain entry by showing our green entry bracelets and arguing that we just came out to get some food.

Then we split up: One of us stood in line again, while the other ducked into the main seminar hall to listen to the audience Q&A starring Kevin Smith. Wearing a calf-length jersey and calf-length, super-baggy jeans, Kevin Smith walked around the stage candidly answering questions regarding his movies and the work he does writing for comics. Mr. Smith somehow has managed to become a highly sought-after writer in the comic world, merely because he went from owning a comic-book store to making movies and becoming a millionaire.

While standing in this new line for an hour and a half, we saw that even exhibitors and artists were made to queue up. The police had enforced a strict one-to-one entry/exit policy, no exceptions.

Having had our fill, we did not venture to the fair on Sunday. If we had, we would have been turned away. Due to the massive crowds and police lockdowns that occurred on Saturday, only people that had purchased tickets online earlier were allowed in.

The general attitude of Saturday's attendees was one of anger, which melted away once on the floor, then crept back. A bigger hall and more volunteers to manage the crowds, a better online ticketing system, maps of events, and wider aisles would have helped. Still, many people we talked to were willing to give New York Comic Con 2.0 a chance next year. Being the perpetual bridesmaids, to say we are accustomed to adversity is to say that Charlie Brown is accustomed to being tricked by his sister, Lucy, and her kick-the-football trick. We will try to love you NYCC, and a lifetime of not getting the ones we want has given us patience, patience, and hope. We’re going to be lining up next year like nothing ever happened, ready to run at your football one more time, Lucy.

Related on the Web

• Comic Book Resources' coverage of Comic Con

• Newsarama’s complete panel coverage

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