NYCC Quick Recap Day 3 - A Comedy of Errors

@Getsuyobi here for our third and final recap of our day at New York Comic Con.  Sunday held a lot of special events at the con: Kid's Day, Movie Screenings, Special Panels and last but not least, our own personal Legends Day.  As you may have read in our Friday recap, we scored not one or two but three tickets to the Guardian Project Stan Lee signing this afternoon.  In addition to looking forward to that, it was also the day we planned on camping for signatures from the Romita family.  How did it all go?  Well... we had successes and frustrations, but in the end we escaped the day with our coveted autographs.


Before the drama, let's talk about what else was going on in Con-Land on Sunday.  As I mentioned it was Kid's Day at NYCC and the young nerds-to-be were out in full force.  Children under 12 got in free and there were plenty of activities planned to focus on this huge demographic of tiny people.  Animated Heroes had a big presence with the premiere of Cartoon Network's "Firebreather", a Ben 10 Celebration for 10/10/10, Marvel's Super Hero Squad, and many more presentations and panels.  There were also lots of constructive events like drawing lessons and lightsaber training.  The best part of it all was probably the adorable costumes the kids got to dress up in.  It looked like Party City's Halloween section exploded in the lobby.  We got to see little heroes, Jedis and even what appeared to be a lightsaber toting hobbit (for real).

There were also plenty of "adult" events going on (not like that, perv!).  With panels for AMC's The Walking Dead, the 10th anniversary of Unbreakable, a screening of the new full length Gundam 00 movie, and spotlights featuring the likes of John Romita Jr. & Sr. and the cult legend, Bruce Campbell.  Many of these were on our schedule for the day, but unfortunately most were missed.  As promised we have a tale of heartache and drama for the last day of Comic Con 2010.

It started as any other Con day would, masses of people of all ages walking to the Javits Center with their poster tubes and foam swords in hand.  Our first priority of the day, mine especially, was the last Autograph Alley session with the Romita family.  If you don't know who the Romitas are (shut your head in a door), they are a father and son duo who both have an amazing body of work in the comic industry.  Most notably each penciled for Amazing Spider-Man in their respective generations.  I was the first on line at the table at 10:30am for the noon signing.  I got to speak with some other die hard fans while waiting, and wait we did... well past noon.  Due to a scheduling snafu (yeah I said snafu) the Romitas were not aware that close to 100 fans were waiting on line to meet and greet them.  The staff at the Alley and the team at the Marvel booth were very sympathetic and did everything they could to get people to another scheduled signing at the Marvel booth.  The [insertgeekhere] team ran into a unique dilemma however; while we were promised places in line if we went to the Marvel booth, we now had only 15 minutes before the ticketed Stan Lee signing.  Luckily, a very helpful NYCC Hero was able to work with us and alert the booth that if we could make it they'd let us in.  So, dejected but still hopeful, we headed downstairs to meet Mr. Lee.

The Stan "The Man" Lee signing was a ticketed raffle event from the Guardian Project (more on that later, we promise) panel on Friday.  As we waited on line we got to chat with some other lucky winners.  One of whom was actually already a reader of IGH!  Before we knew it the line began to move and we were all very excited, that is until the line kept moving past the room and up the escalator... confused glances were exchanged and questions to the staff went unanswered.  Like lost sheep, we each followed the person in front of us hoping that our journey was not to a slaughterhouse.  The line quickly dissolved as we were led through the main lobby of the Javits Center and some courageous leadership by our own @Wysefyre kept most of us together.  We were led to a balcony meeting room and we all hastily formed a new line holding our tickets up so that others could find us in the crowd of the lobby.  A little annoyed, but happy to have gotten through, everyone started to get out their various prints and books out for the signing.  Then we were told by a staff member that Mr. "The Man" would only be signing the poster that was given out at the Guardian Project panel... the same one that many did not have on them because no such instruction was given at the panel.  Annoyance turned to anger as we felt more and more like we were being toyed with.  The angry fans who did not have a poster were able to negotiate a signature on their raffle ticket, but nothing more.  Once the signing started it was a cattle drive through as guards took the posters from the fans and handed them to Stan, who in turn signed them and put them on the table to be retrieved. The whole event was being videotaped and photographed for their own PR and the already disheartened fans were asked to step aside and not block their shots of Stan signing like a robot.

After the Stan Lee debacle we raced to the Marvel booth, where the staff from Autograph Alley was able to get us to the front of the line.  We all got our signatures from the Romitas as well as genuine apologies for the scheduling error that led to our morning drama.  After surviving all of that the team was pretty much shot.  We'd had a roller coaster ride of emotions and traveled the length of the jam-packed Con floor twice over. One last sweep of the floor to say hello to the Blind Ferret crew and the Tenacious Toys team and we decided that we'd take a lunch break and ended the day at Burgers & Cupcakes on 9th Ave.  On the way out we were met with some karmic fortune and actually ran into Mark Waid, lead writer for multiple Marvel titles and the creator and writer of Irredeemable from BOOM!  Expecting nothing more than to be able to gush a little and express our appreciation for his work we were all thrilled when he offered to sign something for us and even take a picture!

In much higher spirits we enjoyed a great lunch of custom burgers and gourmet cupcakes.  I had a burger with cheddar and double-thick bacon, then for dessert a marble cupcake with chocolate and peanut butter ganache.  With only an hour left of the Con we decided to lick our wounds (and cupcakes) and call it a early day.  As we all dozed on the train home, we reflected on all the ups and downs of the day.  It was by far the strangest close of a Con for any of us and we all will have lots more opinions and thoughts to share.  Over the next few days, we all plan to review our notes and come out with some more in-depth reviews and commentaries, so please stay tuned for more.  If you want to know when we do update, give us a follow @IGHInsider.

Bonsoir mes amis!