A Convention With Heart and Soul: My New York Comic-Con Experience
When most people think of New York Comic-Con they will automatically associate it with the sales floor. Those guilty of doing this are doing themselves a huge disservice. The sales floor is the foundation for the convention, sure, but it is hardly the heart and soul of the convention. I don’t say this in attempt to devalue the importance of the sales floor. The New York Comic-Con sales floor allows you a glimpse at what a lot of companies have in the works (I myself was particularly fond of the display figures for Mezco Toyz upcoming Ax Cop line). The sales floor also allows attendees the opportunity to familiarize themselves with smaller independent publishers who they wouldn’t have normally encountered otherwise.
Attendees, however, are the heart of New York Comic-Con. It’s an obvious concept when you think about it. Without the fans the convention wouldn’t exist, but its more than the people just showing up that makes them the heart of the convention. It’s in the cosplayers that slaved over their costumes for a month in order to make a living breathing love letter to their fandom of choice. It’s the fact that these same people have delved so far into their character that they pull off each subtle character nuance with precision accuracy (I still maintain that Chris Tucker had to have been cosplaying as Ruby Rhod because otherwise that cosplay was just spooky accurate). These people don’t devote their time and energy into their cosplay for the fame. They do it for the love of the genre, and to make the people around them smile when they see their favorite character torn from the panels of their favorite book and fleshed into existence.
Artist Alley is the soul of the convention (Geekscapist Jonathan previously wrote an article about how Artist Alley is the heart of New York Comic-Con, but for me soul feels more fitting). Unlike other conventions like San Diego that doesn’t find it necessary to make a designated space for artists, New York makes it a point to allot them a space in which to operate during the convention. New York understands the importance of these artists, after all, without these people we wouldn’t have the comic books the convention is celebrating. These are the people who have tirelessly worked to bring the characters we love to life for us.
At first glance some people may have been disillusioned into thinking that the convention itself didn’t favor having the artists at the convention, which is why they were placed in an adjacent room separated from the main convention through a tunneled hallway. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Putting artist alley where they did was a calculated move which allowed for the artist to not have to compete with commotion of the sales floor. Away from that noise and congestion of the sales floor the artist are given a better opportunity to engage with the attendees at their table.
NYCC has more then just these few things going for it, but these are the things that keep me and countless other people flocking to New York City for one weekend each year.
