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[Photo via Brian Heater.]

We have only a brief window between waking, coughing, and lunch, but here’s all you need to read. Discuss.

§ ICv2 highlights the fact that the show was an oasis of spending in the bleak economy:

Nearly 77,000 (unique) fans thronged the Jacob Javits Center in New York over the weekend for New York Comic Con, smashing last year’s record (see “NYCC Rocks”) with over 15% growth. Saturday tickets sold out despite a bigger space than last year’s, and Friday and Sunday were also both busy. As a harried Bob Chapman of Graphitti Designs told us while doing land office business on Saturday afternoon, “Inside these walls the ‘fantasy’ economy is perfect. Outside the doors of the convention the economy sucks.”

§ But Brian Heater laments the empty spot:

But while the temptation is certainly ever-present to spend the show lamenting the ways in which it’s unlike a MoCCA, SPX, Stumptown, or APE, there’s little point in waging such complaints. New York Comic Con knows its place in the universe, and, for the most part, it plays the role well. The show was put in place in attempts to bring some semblance of San Diego’s spectacle to east coast residents, and while its organizers insist that the focus is, to some degree, on the book industry—as evidenced by the presence of publishers like Penguin (obligatory, really, in a city like New York)—NYCC has grown pretty comfortably into its current place as a smaller, more tightly-packed version of San Diego, a bubble guarded by the Javits Center’s reality distorting walls, where donning a trenchcoat and draping a sharpie-blotted wash rag over your head makes you a bit of a celebrity for one extended weekend.


§ This was sad, too, but, from what we saw, a bit of an anomaly:

So as I’ve been patrolling the Comic Con, I happened to overhear a scene that really made me kind of sad. I saw a father, maybe in his late 30s, and his son walking into the Con. …And the kid didn’t want to go in. To make matters worse, the dad — wearing a Spider-Man button-down shirt — started really browbeating the kid, snatching away his Game Boy, telling him to pay attention. “Stop that! You need to follow me, we’re going to be late for the panel!” For me, it was just really jarring. It’s not to say that I didn’t get my own share of discipline when I was with my folks (hi, Mom!), but what really got me was that the New York Comic Con — an event that is as exhilirating as it is exhausting — was a chore for this kid. It was endurance, not fun.


§ Other parents, Jossip reports, were even more proactive:

Sitting down at the last panel on Saturday evening in a packed auditorium, waiting for the creators of Adult Swim’s Venture Brothers to take the stage, an older woman next to me turned and smiled. “How old are you?” she asked conspiratorially out of the side of her mouth. I told her, and she nudged the younger boy sitting next to her, “See! She is only a couple years older than you, Martin! You should ask her out!”


§ Finally, Kevin Melrose has the best of the news.

1 COMMENT

  1. I dunno… I wouldn’t bring my little kids to the Con. My oldest at 12 found it exhausting and she wanted to leave long before I did. We heard one kid screaming his frustration over being there; he must’ve been about 3 or 4 but was imprisoned in his stroller while his dad wheeled him around.

  2. is that the lady from Millionaire Matchmaker dressed like the Phoenix? I’m totally gonna watch that show now.

  3. “is that the lady from Millionaire Matchmaker dressed like the Phoenix? I’m totally gonna watch that show now”.

    Forget her, is that one of the Johnas Brothers leaning against the wall?

  4. Our twins have been going to cons all their lives (they’re 6 as of yesterday).

    The thing is…you have to put THEIR interests and well being FIRST.

    I’ve never seen them able to handle more than an hour at the con at a time.
    So while I’m usually exhibiting…I’ll take breaks and go walk around with them for 20 minutes. THen they go back with Mommy and go find a park to play in…or other activities. Depending on the city.

    I’ve seen some kids at panels before. But never seen them sit still for very long. The crowds and noises and smells…it’s just too much for them.

    Cons are great for kids…in small doses.