Comic Con 2013

Captain America is smaller in person than I thought.

My friends and I started out this year at New York Comic Con the same way we always do, not being able to decide on costumes, so we just ended up slumming it in nerdy t-shirts. (One day I will cosplay.) As for the rest, this year was not, what I would call, a typical year for NYCC. It was still good, just different. Allow me to explain.

It all started near the end of the summer when I discovered (much to my chagrin) that Comic Con tickets had been sold out on the website. For the two prior years I had attended the con, I never had any problem getting my three-day passes online. All of a sudden they were sold out within a month of going up for sale. And so it was that my sister and I found ourselves waiting on a seven-hour line that seemed to stretch the length of lower Manhattan as we waited to buy the tickets in person, from Midtown Comics. The day proved to be rainy, cold, and lacking dumplings (which I had planned to eat for dinner.) Worst of all, by the time we reached the front of the line the three-day passes were sold out. I had to shell out an additional twenty dollars per ticket to get the four-day passes, (not cheap when you take into account that I was buying them for all my friends.)

This was my first indication of how incredibly mobbed NYCC was going to be this year. Even though I have written extensively on the rise of nerd culture, I have to admit I wasn't quite prepared for this. At some point I went to sleep and NYCC became a mainstream pop culture event. Even the panels and exhibits went from small potatoes to large fries overnight. Whereas last year I happily attended improv nerd comedy shows, trivia events, and panels by minor authors and YouTube stars, this year those quaint little events were replaced with talks by heavy-hitters such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, John Barrowman, Shatner, and other names that packed the halls with nerds and normies alike. Every year the con has been growing, but this year it was like it reached critical mass. I am not saying this is a bad thing, just surprising, and annoying at times.

Bumblebee... Bumblebee...

Personally, I attended the John Barrowman panel, (standing room only,) and the David Duchovny/Gillian Anderson panel (as X-Files was one of my first sci-fi loves.) Mostly, we walked the show floor, saw the sites, and played the games. I got to demo the new South Park game: The Stick of Truth, (and let me tell you, its quality.) I even got to watch the StarCraft II East Coast championship live on the Intel stage. Unfortunately I missed out on Tyson (my personal science god,) and I got tricked into going to a panel on the 75th anniversary of Superman, which admittedly, infuriated me a lot less than I expected. I also got a free Superman cape out of the deal. Going Thursday night was a new experience. I missed the documentary screening on the history of DC Super-villains, but we did get to see the opening night comedy show by some funny comedians, led by Brian "OMG is That a Wookiee," Posehn. Janeane Garofalo was there too, but (my mother always taught me that if I never had anything nice to say I shouldn't say anything at all, so) I will remain silent on the subject.

Then came Friday night, the night I really get to throw myself into Geekdom, the night of Rock Comic Con. My favorite NYCC after-party, where I get to hear all the coolest and latest nerd rock. I was excited, but I was even more excited for my friends to bear witness to its awesomeness. Last year was a thriller and this year's promised to be even better with the return of my favorite Nerd Rock group, Kirby Krackle. So naturally, I took my friends by the hand and led them through the streets of New York, escaping the crowded Jacob Javits Center for the quieter roads of 29th Street. We had dinner at small Chinese place and headed to the show at Pioneer's Bar. Now the location of the show changes every year and requires some research online to find it, but I had managed to dig it up, (and by that I mean I got it off Facebook.)

So we arrived at Pioneer's that Friday night raring to party. We paid the cover charge, and got ourselves some beer. Then we headed back to the stage, and a cold realization came over all of us. There was already someone on stage and he was making jokes we couldn't quite understand. We also started to notice that everyone around us was not dressed in the usual nerdy paraphernalia. In fact, they were clapping at the man on the stage by wiggling their hands in the air.

"Are we at a deaf comedy performance?" asked my friend, Doug.

"That would explain why the greeter signed at us when we walked in," said my friend Chris.

I checked again and it appeared that the night of Rock Comic Con had moved from its usual Friday night to Saturday night. So there I was, standing in the middle of a crowd of deaf people, feeling like an idiot, but afraid to say anything because I was keenly aware that we were smack-dab in the middle of a room of lip-readers. We promptly finished our drinks and headed to the train station. Thankfully, we salvaged the night by picking up a few six packs of beer and playing Killer Bunnies (the board game) well into the night.

We did eventually attend the concert the next night, though, in comparison to previous years it felt somewhat lackluster, as if they slapped it together at the last moment. The performances were great, especially Kirby Krackle and H2Awesome (who always gives every show their all,) but there were no artists painting for charity, no nerd magicians, not even the usual burlesque show (which admittedly, I can do without.) Yet the whole night seemed mellow as compared to the charged atmosphere of past years. Perhaps that had as much to do with the night change as anything. Whereas on Fridays most people are raring to go, excited for the weekend ahead, but after Saturday at NYCC, most people were drained and exhausted from the day. Still the night was still fun and it wasn't a bad excuse to hang out in a bar with people I cared about.

All in all NYCC offered its usual fun, festivities, and scantily-clad women. Yet, I still keep coming back to the crowds. It was busier than I had ever seen it, and I suppose I am at least partially to blame for some of it. As this year I brought a few new friends as well as both my sisters and their significant others to the con. I more than doubled the people I brought with me. Also I heard from many people about all sorts of others that were going to NYCC, and I'm talking about people I would have never expected, people who are staunchly (and boringly) normal. However, I prefer to look at the positive of all this. Nerd Culture is soaring higher than it ever has, and that's a good thing. Personally, I think the whole world should attend at least one comic con in their lifetimes. After all, we could all use a little nerd in us, (and that's what she said.)