Imy the Comic

Well.. THAT was a whirlwind. A WONDERFUL whirlwind! But… wait… stop… can we rewind a little.. that went too fast!!!!

I’ll start by saying the best part about the whole weekend was meeting all these wonderful webcomic people who’ve I’ve had contact with for a while on twitter and through our websites. I got to meet two Tall Tale Features brothers, Tom Racine and Mike Witmer. I got the meet the super-talented Marc LaPierre and super-fun Dawn Griffin. I got to meet John McCarthy who’s been a huge help in putting together my book and Tyler Durden (aka Brad Joyce), who you’ll see comment on almost every comic here, and his comic partner in crime Brad Snyder! And I met so many more and everyone was SO GREAT.

Friday started out good. Coming out onto the NY city streets from Penn station is always such a wonderful feeling. I met up with Tom first and we met up with Marc for a pre-con breakfast. (Diner breakfast! WOO!). From there we hooked up with John and headed to the convention center where I got my pass and immediately got lost finding my table. After a few “help!” phonecalls I got there and got set up and was ready to go!

I can start out by saying that I was completely overwhelmed by the entire weekend. Not at all in a bad way at all. But there was just SO MANY PEOPLE. I think the final numbers from the entire weekend was somewhere around 100,000. That’s around 30,000-40,000 people each day. And boy could you feel it. I had a schedule at my table during the quieter portions of the day, so I spent the rest of the time walking around. Actually, walking is the wrong word, more like being herded wherever the crowd took me. It was difficult to go and look around because of the sheer amount of people. It gets aggravating pretty quickly.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt that. The alley where the Th3rd World table was was a bit too small for traffic. Visitors were packed into the ailses, that they couldn’t really stop where they wanted to take a look. As a result I think my book got overlooked a lot (that, and the fact that there were books at my table that were miles more popular than mine).

Now, that all sounds bad, but still, I had a great time. I met some of you for the first time which was VERY cool. I did sell some books and I handed out a TON of bookmarks, business cards and buttons. So hopeuflly those of you who got those found your way here later on (HELLO & WECOME!) 😉

Since I had a schedule at the table, I was able to take time to walk around and do some other things.

On Friday I roamed around the Javitz and just took some pictures of the con, and just allowed it to sort of wash over me. I walked around wide eyed and not at all being able to take in everything I was seeing. I enjoyed seeing a guy in full Halo gear up on stage for a contest playing (dancing) the new Michael Jackson dance game for Wii…

And the crowds were already crazy so I just sort of walked around and snapped pics dazedly…

After much weaving through the aisles I ran into Brookes Eggleston of Also Bagles who had a VERY cool setup for his booth! And who was also a very cool guy 🙂

I also got to do some other really fun things. On Friday night I went to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in Radio City Music Hall! The movie was accompanied by a live orchestra and choir playing the score. It was AMAZING and they were so good that it was easy to forget a live orchestra was there at all. It was an unexpected treat to be able to go and I think it’s one of my favorite parts of the entire weekend.

On Saturday I went to the only panel I saw the whole weekend: a panel for Industrial Light & Magic. They played a documentary about how the company got started all the way up to its current projects. That was a ton of fun to watch. A bunch of us went and ended up watching it standing against the wall in the back because the room held only 127 people (really??? for something George Lucas related??). But I’m happy we were lucky enough to get in!

Sunday was a bit of a downer because as the day went on more people were heading home (I had decided to stay in the city until Monday), and I found myself seeing everyone off before I headed back to my hotel room to let it all sink in. But I still had time to hang out with people and get in some last fun memories before it was all over.

Anyway, I’ll just post some pictures of all the great people I met!!!

And here’s a couple of bonus things. First, Tom Racine of Tall Tale Radio did this great little video from the con which includes an interview with me! You’ll want to watch it, especially to see Marc Lapierre eat some seriously gross candy I brought with me from Sweden just to force other people to eat it 🙂

The second bonus thing is a super fun round table interview on Tall Tale Radio. About a week after the con, Tom gathered us all on Skype for a recap of NYCC. Besides being full of information, it’s probably one of the funniest things you’ll listen to. I still laugh to tears when I hear it!

Tall Tale Radio – Episode 102 – New York Comic Con Recap

*PHEW* Is that it? I guess so. I’m sure there’s a lot I’m missing, but those are the main bits.

In closing? BEST. TIME. EVER. Will I do it again? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT. The plans are already in the works for NYCC 2011! This time I’ll be a little wiser and a little more organized. So expect to see sporadic posts about that especially as we get closer. Heck, one month is already gone, 11 more to go! The countdown has begun! 😉