Starting with this giant bin full of dice I found at booth run by something called "Dude Games." It was a booth that ONLY sold dice. Traditional six sided dice, dice with odd numbered sides, really huge, expensive dice made from gems. And of course, your D20s. The centerpiece was that huge bin you see above. It was a hell of a deal: 50 cents per die, or $15 or $20 if you want a small or large scoopful. The few times I passed by it, it was swarming with people. Some were choosing which dice they wanted, others were pretty much going all Scrooge McDuck on it. And I would have as well, if I wasn't concerned with all the germs that thousands of dice in a bin touched by thousands of people held.
Still, I stuck my hand in and pulled out the first D20 I found, because for years I seriously wanted my own D20. It's a lame dream, I knowm but I finally have one. The other die was from a "just stick my hand in and buy whatever I pull out." I'll admit I'm not a fan of six-sided dice with the numbers actually written on them, but I like how it looks.
Only at NYCC can you find a TMNT arcade cabinet made out of wood. $425, but it looked really cool.
And speaking of TMNT, I went to the annual panel at the Hammerstein Ballroom. It was a great time, most of the cast was there and previewed some upcoming episodes (Super Shredder!) As you can see above, the wrestler Sting just happened to show up near the end. You see, they announced WWE crossover figures in the vein of the old Star Trek crossover figures from long ago.
Leo was John Cena (because they're the lame ones), Mikey was Macho Man (awesome), Donnie was Undertaker (strange, but my favorite turtle as one of my favorite wrestlers is an automatic love for me), and Raph's figure had him dressed as Sting. And naturally, they brought him in as a surprise, entrance music and all, to do his thing and express his love for the turtles.
Of course we all ate this up, but it made the panel end about 20 minutes later than scheduled, so I had to utter the phrase "Sorry I'm late, the Ninja Turtle panel ran long because Sting showed up" to multiple people. Worth it.
Here's a neat prayer candle I picked up from a booth selling all kinds of merch of various pop culture "Saints." The Dude of course was there, as were Scully & Mulder and Jules from Pulp Fiction.
Awesome.
It wouldn't be a convention without a guy in an inflatable T-Rex costume.
This was a poster I wish I picked up. There's not enough Food Fighter tributes in the world.
And of course since it was Comic-Con, Deadpool cosplayers were everywhere. But since there's so many Deadpools, the ones that stood out had to go in the mashup direction. You got Deadpope, Winnie the Pool, and Kawaii Deadpool there, plus this awesome Deadpool Galactus:
and even Left Shark Deadpool
But this year there was one cosplay that rivaled the Deadpools in popularity: Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. I didn't get a picture with any even though I should've, but this picture is a pretty accurate representation of NYCC this year:
I'm Homer. Harley Quinn has always been popular, but THIS version of Harley was just pervasive. And like the Deadpools, the Harleys came in all shapes, sizes, genders, ages. Harley was popular among the young and the old and the less said about all that, the better.
But of course there were lots of great cosplayers this year, and my favorite were the deep cuts.
Like Squilliam from Spongebob
A girl as the Comedy Bang Bang mascot.
Bob aka Baseball Lapis from Steven Universe. Steven Universe was VERY popular this year. Not the only Bob cosplayer I saw, either.
Dippy Fresh from Gravity Falls. I apologize for the blurriness.
Spider-Ham!
When you see a seven foot tall Reinhardt from Overwatch walking around, regular Halloween costumes just don't cut it for me anymore. Hell, Overwatch cosplay in general was insanely popular this year, hopefully it eliminated most of the League of Legends cosplayers.
This parade of Luigis was actually a roaming bachelor party. The bachelor in question was the one guy dressed as Mario.
Plus...this guy. I saw him at the tail end of the con, but he was pretty awesome. He was mostly covered in zip ties and kept saying things like "stop the humanoid! Reload! Reload!" through a vocorder or something. Apparently he goes to lots of conventions dressed like this, mostly to satirize the security standards.
I couldn't forget these guys. They're not just the Powerpuff Girls, they're dressed as a trio of criminals that dressed up as the Powerpuff Girls from one episode.
The deepest cut I saw, I just love it.
Oh...I have to mention this. I found some guy dressed as Arthur, and had him act out the "clenched fist" meme,
We both had a good laugh out of it and he told me that I wasn't the only person to have him do that. So, I do what I do when I see great cosplayers and tweet about it and thought a few people would find it funny.
"A few people" turned out to be over 16,000 people. For a solid week my phone simply blew up every time someone RT or liked it. For the first time in seven years, I had to turn off the notifications on my phone to get it to stop. At first I was excited, this wasn't the first time one of my tweets had gotten some attention. Then scared, because it just wouldn't stop. The likes kept coming in waves. They would slow down for a few hours then blow up again. At first a few people liked it. Then, looking through my feed, it turns out Black Twitter found it first. Then Spanish Twitter. Then Gamer Twitter (gah). Then tv critic Alan Sepinwall RT'd it. Then a few other people with the checkmark next to their name RT'd it. You get where I'm going with this.
It's slowed down since then, but now I have newfound respect for the famous tweeters. How the hell do they handle all the attention? Well, they ignore it. But now I guess I will, too. But I'm not famous enough to ignore attention yet. But after a while, I started feeling regret. This guy became quasi-Twitter famous for a few days and I never asked him for his name.
It turns out, thanks to the magic of the internet, he started a twitter feed of his own and tracked me down. His name is Brandon and can be found here.
Onto other things, this is one of those "If I Won The Lottery" things. Those are actual cels of title cards from Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and Pixie & Dixie. They even have Hanna & Barbera's signatures on them as a kicker. It's totaly worth $900, if only I had that kind of money...
Speaking of stuff I wish I got, here's a funky movie poster from the 60s. Looks like Vincent Price in his campy phase, and it only cost $85. Sadly, I didn't have the money nor do I have the space for it. Also, it turns out you can just find a print online for around $15, but the authentic poster is RIGHT THERE.
And here's something I DID get. This is a sweet print of a poster for the classic Year Without A Santa Claus special, drawn by the great Tom Whalen. He and another great artist named Dave Perillo share table space every year and I urge you all to check them out. Be warned: Tom Whalen's stuff isn't cheap, that poster set me back $65 but worth it.
I finally got Stan The Man's autograph! This was his last NYCC appearance because, well, he's getting old and this was the first time he actually sat at a table. Usually some booth hosted him and you had to pay an outrageous amount of money in order to meet him, but this was the first time his line was open to the public so of course that line was really long every day of the convention. Seriously, it took me three hours to get to the front because he took half hour breaks but I was okay with it because he's 94 so he can do whatever the hell he wants. I gotta admit, he's looking kinda frail these days, I'm almost sure that the good people at Marvel will never tell us that he's died, they'll just do a "Weekend at Bernie's" thing with him so he could keep making cameos in movies.
But I was excited to get his signature on this pic I got with him at 2013's NYCC. That Funko Pop Stan Lee I'm holding in my hand was the one they sold at that year's convention for $25. He goes for about $80 now,
And speaking of photo ops, I finally got to meet Matt Smith aka the 11th Doctor! MY Doctor, and I finally got to meet him! He was rad, as were Jenna Coleman (Clara) and Alex Kingston (River Song, who I already met). Peter Capaldi (the 12th Doctor) was also at the convention, but he was was only attending a panel at MSG and I didn't think I'd ever encounter him.
Well, it turns out, I was walking around the show floor on Friday looking for one booth selling old toys, when I run into this:
Eep. Turns out he was trying to find the live stage that's on the show floor and was on his way there. I just stood there like an idiot and trying my best to not attract any unwanted attention to the guy. He probably would've signed something for me (which would've made 7 Doctors I had signatures from), but I just froze and forgot I had something for him to sign, Next time, I guess.
It took me two hours to come down from that high of a random celebrity encounter. I said above that Matt Smith was MY Doctor, and he is, but I didn't feel much of anything whe I met him and got his picture. Maybe because I knew I was meeting him?
Anything can happen at Comic Con, folks.
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