Wow, there was SO MUCH going on at New York Comic Con. Kevin Melrose has a great roundup of salient news points, and CBR had an insane number of panel reports. Newsarama has streaming video, and Comics Alliance has their own link roundup.
But if you can’t digest all that, here’s the Slimfast version, specially prepared just for you.
§ Brigid Alverson discovered that there never was a Kodansha panel; commentators had seen its supposed removal from the schedule as a bad sign.
And what happened was not a sudden cancellation, but rather a miscommunication, Middaugh explained. Kodansha had originally planned to do a panel at NYAF but decided to cancel it at the end of August. “We realized that we were a little off schedule,” he told Robot 6. “We really weren’t going to have any titles to announce, and without any titles to announce, we didn’t see any point in having the panel. I contacted the [New York] Comic Con folks and told them ‘We got nothing, please cancel the panel.’ And in their defense, I did say ‘What’s the latest we can get back to you if we decide we do want a panel?’ That day came and went, we had canceled the panel, they unfortunately took it as a yes and ran the panel information, and we were surprised the panel was listed.”
§ Beat crony Brian Heater attended but had a kinda crap time:
And as a wade through the video game crowd, it’s time again to practice my big con mantra, “this show isn’t for me.” And it’s not. I know that. I know the fact that I’m no longer particularly impressed by the spectacle of roving bands of stormtroopers puts me in the minority of showgoers—and the population at large. Still, is it too much to ask that they don’t all congregate in the aisle at the same time?
I snap some shots and say a few “hellos,” always apologizing for being in such a hurry to get back to work. I run into Comic Book Club’s Alex Zalben, who’s carrying cups of coffee up to the Newsarama booth.
“How’s it going?” he asks.
“Terrible,” I answer.
“Why terrible?”
“You know. New York Comic Con.”
We didn’t share Brian’s ennui, but it’s a reminder that one man’s nirvana is another’s gehenna.
§ Techland’s Hive Mind saw and heard things, some terrible, terrible things, like the Hulk’s mom helping him put on his pants. And also:
“22 people in audience for “Red” panel, including me and the AV guy. This movie is going to BOMB, I suspect.”
DCUO game panel is at & over capacity. DCUO character creation video looks freaking amazing. Every era of DC history is represented by the costume choices you make.
§ The Women of Marvel talked about the comics they liked:
Amanat noted that the X-Men cartoon did not talk down to kids, which was another part of its appeal, unlike, for example, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Sankovitch added, “Kimberly the Pink Ranger was always to reliant on her White Ranger to come save her.” Sankovitch did add, though, that, “I had a crush on Tommy; I still have a crush on Tommy.” Strain wrapped up by saying, “Storm wouldn’t live in anyone’s shadow,” pointing out a woman dressed as Storm in the front row.
§ Eccentric director M. Night Shyalaman made his first EVER convention appearance and said things.
“I just loved the tonality of the first ‘Iron Man,‘ that was just a slam dunk. In the press conference in the end, they caught something, and Tony Stark’s compassion as a human being and his reaction to society… the same character resonates with audiences a lot. Jack Sparrow, The Joker, Tony Stark, they’re all making fun of the way we conduct our lives right now cause it’s not real and that resonates with people, that this is not working – the way we’re doing things – and this is our voice right now. And Tony Stark was saying that this is a joke the way you think about things.”
The Speed Dating for Geeks program got TONS of mainstream attention, including a write-up from Brian Heater! at The Daily Beast:
Emcee and self-styled geek standup Ryan Glitch runs a fairly well-oiled machine in a conference room so steeped in sexual awkwardness one could cut it with a light-saber replica. “They call me ‘Giganakin,’” Glitch announces before the session kicks off, “because I’m overweight, and my costume is Anakin.”
The statement isn’t entirely accurate. He’s a big guy, certainly—a self-proclaimed stereotypical showgoer (heavy, white, nerdy)—but there’s no Jedi paraphernalia on his large frame. We are first introduced him outside, as he separates us into lines of male and female, forbidding pre-show inter-gender conversations, muttering the phrase “sausage-fest” several times, and generally lamenting the dearth of X chromosomes.
§ Venture Bros alert: Jackson Publish and Doc Hammer are high on life.
§ Tor.com’s Teresa Jusino has three charming days of reports.
** Met twin brothers Matt and Joey in the line for the James Marsters panel. Now, these two were stereotypical geeks in every way and weren’t exactly the best at conversation as their speech impediments often made it difficult to understand what they were saying. However, they were super-sweet guys, one of whom ended up lending me his camera when mine mysteriously died, and they got me thinking. A lot of times, guys like that are ignored. But I make it a point to talk to those guys all the time, because how can you expect people to interact better socially if you don’t interact with them? How are they supposed to get practice if they’re consistently ignored?
