simpleek

The start of October immediately calls to mind a number of fall related events and things—Halloween, pumpkin spice, Oktober Fest, fall foliage, and much more. But in New York City, especially for the comic book enthusiasts, it also means Comic Con is back in town at the Javits Center. I continue my annual tradition of attending New York Comic Con on a single Saturday pass. Here’s a recap of what I saw, did, and bought at the largest attraction in the Big Apple.

My day at New York Comic Con started like it always does—utterly overwhelmed by the spectacle of cosplayers and large signs emblazoning the companies in attendance that are vying for your attention to demo a highly anticipated video game or tempt you with wonderfully geeky merchandise. Once I recovered from the frozen awe I felt stepping into the Javits Center for another big con event, I picked a direction to walk in and proceeded to explore the booths on the showroom floor.

The usual big name video game companies, like Square Enix, Capcom, and Bandai Namco were there to demo their latest or upcoming games of the year. Conspicuously absent, unless I somehow missed them during my sweep of the showroom floor, were the dedicated booths of Nintendo, Xbox, and Playstation. Even developer The Behemoth, that always seem to have a booth at every Comic Con I’ve been to in the past, were not in attendance. This year’s showroom floor seemed a little video games lite this time around, which was surprising. I suppose none of these companies had much to present or market to the geeky masses and decided to skip this year’s convention. Not to mention that their platforms would be better suited for a convention specifically dedicated to games, like PAX.

I unfortunately didn’t demo any of the video games being showcased. The big game, Kingdom Hearts 3, was one of the demos at the Square Enix booth and one of the longest waits for a turn to play it. I always have a rule of thumb at these cons to skip going on the lines of these heavy weight titles. I don’t like wasting my time on an unnecessarily long line that may take hours before you finally have the controller in your hands, especially if you’re like me and only have one day at the convention. I also haven’t played the first or second Kingdom Hearts so I’m not as hyped for this game as other fans who have been waiting forever to hopefully see the end of Sora’s journey. Playstation is the one console I don’t own and I still have no intention of owning one. Even though I heard Kingdom Hearts 3 will also be available to play on an Xbox One, it doesn’t make sense for me to jump into the game without having played the main two, though I do have some of the side games that have been scattered on other platforms, like Nintendo DS or PSP. Despite being very indifferent to the magic that is Kingdom Hearts, the game looked beautiful and fun from where I stood watching other attendees play it.

There were some significant panels going on that day, such as Amazon Prime’s upcoming Good Omens starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen and Stranger Things’ David Harbour’s new Hellboy film. But similar to the most anticipated video games of all time, I didn’t want to line up and wait two or three hours to ensure I would get into one of these panels unless it’s something I really can’t miss like that time David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson had an X-Files panel one year. I’m all about maximizing my time as much as possible when I attend any convention. The other alternative to the bigger panels would be to attend a much smaller scale panel that had interesting topics of discussion related to geek/nerd culture. But looking at the schedule for that day, there wasn’t much in the way of panels I wanted to sit in for. Instead, I devoted a lot of my time walking the showroom floor, doing some shopping, grabbing any freebies I encountered, checking out the tables at Artist Alley, and getting a heaping dose of cosplay spotting in and around the Javits Center.

Despite not having too much I really wanted to see or do at this year’s Comic Con compared to previous years, one of my favorite things to do is watch attendees walk or pose in their awesome costumes. There were the common favorites—Batman, Joker, Harley Quinn, Wonder Woman—but there were also some new ones like The Handmaid’s Tale, the new female doctor from Doctor Who, and GLOW. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture these new ones on camera because I wasn’t quick enough to ask for their photo or I only spotted them from faraway. The ones I did capture on camera were still just as great to look at. Here are the ones I did take:

This concludes my Saturday at New York Comic Con! I look forward to geeking out next year.