Pictures from the 2016 New York Comic Con, part 1: Friday (The Tick, Rotten Tomatoes, and a whole lotta costumes)

As in years past, I was able to make it to a few days of the annual New York Comic Con. The show is getting bigger every year, and the displays are getting fuller, too. In previous years, many of the big booths would simply have holdover displays from Comic-Con in San Diego; that still exists, but more often you'll see brand new or new-ish displays from some of the biggest exhibitors, many of which are also offering NYCC exclusives when they hadn't in the past.

I was able to make it to Friday and Saturday this time around, and I was able to spend most of the time wandering around as a fan, unlike in San Diego. This show remains too crowded for its own good, but it's starting to take on its own identity and the enthusiasm surrounding it is high. Let's take a look at some of the pictures I was able to take, this time from the Friday of the show.

I waited in line to enter the building for a solid 20 minutes before realizing that I was able to skip it with a professional badge. Oh well. While in line, I saw an unlikely team-up of Rick Grimes, Son of Satan and Quailman (from "Doug").

Here's a pretty decent Trump Taco.

"Stranger Thing" costumes probably outnumbered the next most prolific outfit 2-to-1. Incredibly enough, this isn't the only "wall" costume I saw at the show.

This is a really nice classic Superman!

Psylocke here even remembered the sash.

The shield here was really impressive. It a nice Captain America Hydra outfit.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is Space Ghost's wrestling granddad, Grandpa Ghostal. Fantastic attention to detail.

These flyers were at a number of places around the convention hall. Poor Barb. I care, too!

Outside, near the DC lobby booth, there was a costume contest and what seemed like a foot race between similarly costumed characters going on. I didn't stick around too long.

For example, here are a group of Green Lantern-related characters.

This might be my choice for best costume at the show, at least among the ones I saw. Love the classic battle suit Luthor, complete with tattered Superman cape. Very nice job.

Here's a shot of the lobby, near the DC booth.

Is this a Bombshell version of Wonder Woman? I'm not sure.

I love this Martian Manhunter mask! It was really well done. Get outta the shot, Spider-Gwen!

Thundercats group shot! It's gotta be challenging getting enough friends who are willing to dress up in elaborate costumes. Good for this group.

Video game character, yes?

I'm not sure that I've ever seen a Spawn costume before. This one is pretty good.

It looks like the Black Panther is trying to hand out a business card or something. This guy put a lot of work into this outfit.

This is the main lobby.

A really nice Wasp! The wings looked great. I wonder how difficult it is to walk though the aisles with wings. They must get bent and ripped off pretty often.

This is artist alley, in what appears to be a repurposed airplane hangar.

I was very excited to see this episode specific version of The Tick! He made the shirt himself. There were more than a few Tick costumes on display this weekend, which was great to see. Amazon even held a panel for some of its upcoming shows, including The Tick, which will return in 2017!

I will never see enough Futurama costumes.

Dr. Strange, Luke Cage and Iron Fist.

I guess Rogue stole Gambit's staff for this picture.

This was an odd setup. Batman and Superman worked really hard on their costumes, and they looked great. But why is Superman holding a dead Robin? Did I miss something by not seeing Batman v Superman? In any case, people loved this.

I, in turn, loved this Tick/Big Lebowski mashup, with a clever use of spoons.

Adult Swim had a big Rick and Morty display near one of the inside entrances. Last season ended with Rick in extraterrestrial prison, and you were able to get your picture in an cell next to him. I'm pretty sure I sold it.

After the show ended, I made my way to my only panel for the day, the Rotten Tomatoes panel, which I pretty much have to do at this point.

It was good to see everyone again, and the panel continues to be lots of fun. If you get the chance to attend one at a convention, you should make the effort to go.

Scott Mantz from Access Hollywood is a panel regular and a fun guy to be around. Access Hollywood...where else has that been in the news lately? Interesting!

Matt Atchity and Grae Drake continue to acknowledge my existence at these things, which is pretty kind of them. They are both wonderful people who slum it every time they take a picture with me.

Grae recently hosted a program on the SyFy channel. This is a pretty good picture of me.

After the show, it was off to Twin's Irish Pub, which I highly recommend if you're ever near midtown Manhattan. This started off as a small dinner with Jeff McComsey and Dom Vivona, but after a little while, other friends started showing up, seemingly out of the blue. This is one of the best things about coming to NYCC. A lot of friends who I collaborate with on comics are from the east coast, and most of 'em don't make it out to SDCC, so this is the one weekend out of the year that I get to see many of these guys. If you look closely enough at the table, you can see this year's giveaway, some series 1 Garbage Pail Kids cards, which were a big hit.

This was a busy trip. I made my way back into the city on Saturday, and I'll post those pictures soon. See you then! I guess.

Pictures from the 2013 Comic-Con International, part 8: The Epilogue (Pop Culture Paradise in Tempe, Phoenix Art Museum and more!)

Comic-Con International closed on July 21st at 5:00 pm, and what a sad time it was.  I feel that the event is, save for a couple hours on Sunday, as long as it can be.  I mean, Comic-Con could last an entire week, from Sunday through Sunday, and it'd be just lovely, but most people do have jobs and other commitments that would probably keep them from spending eight days at the event.  Such is life.  At any rate, I am already looking forward to next year and what is certain to be an even greater event.  I left San Diego on Sunday tired but filled with the satisfaction of a convention well traversed.

As wonderful as Comic-Con is, it seems that every second spend there revolved around the show; there isn't time for anything beyond what's connected to the convention.  Just as I did last year, I took a few days afterwards and did some sightseeing in a nearby city.  Last year took me to San Francisco with stopovers in Los Angeles and Oakland, and this year I drove east out to Yuma and Phoenix, Arizona.  There were some pretty cool things to see there, and I thought that I'd wrap up these Comic-Con pictures by posting some of the post-convention photos, most of which have at least something to do with comics.  Oh, and cactuses, too.

Did someone say cactuses?  The word that is just as acceptable as "cacti"?  Well, it is well known that I have a great love for the spiny desert plants.  And boy, were there some specimens to see as we drove east.  The above picture is from Yuma, right across the border from California.  It was amazing to see the scenery change so quickly after we left San Diego - it wasn't an hour before the climate changed from breezy and temperate to hot and arid.

Hey, it's another, absolutely gigantic cactus!  I'm in this picture to give it some scale, and because I like to have my picture taken.

In between Yuma and Scottsdale was the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site.  There were a lot of prehistoric paintings just out in the open.  I thought that the one of the left of the above picture looks quite a bit like Dr. Zoidberg...

Once in Scottsdale, I stopped at the much-cooler-than-it-sounds Musical Instrument Museum, where I found this tribute to "Weird Al" Yankovic (I'm assuming, anyway)...

...and Elvis Presley.

You might have thought that coming right from Comic-Con, I might have been able to skip a trip to a local comic shop, but no, once Wednesday rolled around, I drove to Pop Culture Paradise in Tempe.  I took a couple copies of Teddy and the Yeti and the Tick to leave with them.  It was over 110 degrees Fahrenheit this day.

The shop was pretty big with lots of different displays.  There were more than a few people walking around when I showed up.  They had all of their new comics lined up on a wall, and had a small back issue section as well.  I picked up a few comics and browsed.

I find that I've taken pictures of a number of comic shops for the blog in the past, and I always feel like at one point someone's going to catch me doing it and think I'm some corporate spy or something.  Not this time, I guess.

The shop had a really nice action figure section with both new and vintage toys.

There were even some video games and snacks!  This is a great store for events and killing time.  It's not just a place to buy comics and leave.  A large section of the store is devoted to gaming, too.

This was the most...interesting?...piece in the store.  "Hey, kid, you want a terrifying bust of Harrison Ford as Han Solo?"

There were a number of high-end items as well, such as this super Thundercats statue.  It was a fun store!  I'm glad that I got to stop in to pick up my weekly comics.

On the way to my hotel, I saw this Dukes of Hazzard-themed saloon, which I'm sure made Larry extra jealous.

On one of the last nights I spent in the area before flying back to Pittsburgh, I went to the Phoenix Art Museum, which coincidentally, had a gallery on video game art!  The whole museum was very cool, but one of the really neat things was the arcade they set up in the museum, with working games that you could play for free.

The video games all came in custom-painted cabinets, pained by local artists and re-imagining the original cabinet design.  There were all kinds of classic games, from Mario Bros. to Pac Man to Gunsmoke to Rampage to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to this X-Men game, which seemed especially popular.

Hey, there's Colossus doing that weird thing that he does in the video game that has no basis on his actual powers at all!

And, for some reason, here's original Cyclops.  He and Professor X look like they are taken from some John Byrne artwork, though I couldn't say exactly where.

The TMNT cabinet looks pretty cool, until you get down to April O'Neal, who is apparently...being molested?

Here's a high-angle shot of the exhibit floor with video game systems from all over, old and new.

There are always some great pictures to be had at Comic-Con, and I hope that you've enjoyed all of the ones I've posted from this year's trip.  Here's some good news - I've already been approved for a professional badge for the 2014 show, so as long as I manage to claim one in time, I'll be going back for another round next July.  And, yes...I'll take pictures.  Lots and lots of pictures.