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.

Remembering C. Martin Croker

I met C. Martin Croker in 2010 at, of all places, a small comic convention in Myrtle Beach. He was one of the guests at an early iteration of X-Con World and, as at the time I lived about 15 minutes away from the convention hall, I bought a table at the show. The convention itself was okay - I didn't sell very much, but my costs were low and it was nice for what it was - but the highlight of the weekend was getting to meet and trade stories with Clay.

Of course, I knew Clay from his work on Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, which remains one of the great tv spoofs and is a precursor in tone to many of today's late night talk shows. At the time I knew that Clay had voiced both Zorak and Moltar, which is in itself an impressive feat, but soon learned that he was also art director and one of the main animators on the series. Over the weekend, I learned that we shared a love of the Thing, comics and other pop culture items. I even worked up the courage to ask him to draw in my Thing sketchbook!

Between then and now, he and I kept in touch and met up on occasion, trading stories and mailing each other items. Whenever I'd travel to Comic-Con in San Diego, Clay would talk about one item or another that he had his eye on, and I would usually end up grabbing it for him. A few years ago, he sent me a message on the very last day of the show - with only a few hours before it closed - and asked me if I could locate an exclusive shirt that the Jack Kirby Museum had for sale. I was able to track it down at nearly the last minute, but at that time they only had size XXXL available. As you can see in the picture at the very top, Clay was an XL at best, but as I was kind of on the spot, I went ahead and purchased it anyway.

A few months later, I saw Clay in New York, and he was wearing the shirt. He was swimming in the thing. I'm not even sure if he remembered that I was the one who got it for him, but it was just so funny seeing him wearing the shirt that was obviously much too big for him. But I guess he liked it, because I saw a number of pictures of him wearing it over the next few years. Maybe it was really comfortable?

Last month, I was getting ready to leave for a concert when I got a package from Clay at the post office. I was racing against the clock but I couldn't leave without opening it. This thing was taped so well that it took me probably ten minutes to get it opened properly. But when I did, I saw the above mash-up between Marvel's The Thing and John Carpenter's The Thing in all its glory. Clay had been talking about this (without giving away the subject) for at least four years, saying that he had something to send to me as a thank you for some of the items I had been able to find for him. At this point, I assumed that it was just never going to happen, and that was okay. The joke was almost as good as the product itself (I was telling myself that, anyway). So suffice it to say that I was a little taken back to see this show up at my door in 2016.

Larry drove to the concert that night, and on the way there I sent Clay a message thanking him for the artwork. He responded pretty quickly, and we were able to catch up and talk for a few minutes.

The next evening, Clay passed away pretty suddenly. It was a shock to everyone he knew. The timing really threw me for a loop as I had a conversation with him just 24 hours earlier. Everything seemed normal, but he was gone soon after. I'm so glad that not only did I decide to open the package before I left the evening before, but that I took a few minutes to get in touch with him.

One of the things that Clay brought up with me nearly every time we spoke was his proposed comic book series, "Tales to Admonish". It was supposed to be a sendup of 1950s Kirby monster comics, with farcical and facetious stories about monsters like the Jersey Devil and El Chupacabra. This was always something that Clay had in the back of his mind, but his animation and voice work always got in the way of seeing it through. When he first told me about it, I went home and immediately started planning my story submission with artist Paul Tucker (in may ways it was my way of saying "please notice me!"). After I sat on it for a few years and realized that the book wasn't really going anywhere, I published it as part of the 2015 "Imaginary Drugs" title from IDW:

Just last year, Clay sent me a message saying that he was still working on the title, though I haven't seen much more than a few covers. This is kind of how he was - always full of ideas, always thinking, always creating, and always running out of time to see all of them through. His body of work is incredibly impressive - from TV to comics - but there's always things left undone, and it's a shame that Clay didn't get to finish all of his projects.



During our second-to-last conversation, Clay mentioned to me that he hadn't yet gotten one of the new Funko Pop! Zorak figures that had been released in July as a Comic-Con exclusive. Neither Cartoon Network nor Funko had sent him any, which is, of course, awful. So, naturally, I made up some story about how I "might" be able to grab one at the upcoming New York Comic Con, and immediately went to eBay to purchase two - one for me and one for him. Clay passed away on a Saturday, and the figures were delivered to me a few days later on Tuesday. Opening the box was rather haunting, and now I've got an extra Zorak figure that sits on my shelf as a reminder that my friend has gone.

Clay was such a fun guy to be around, with his exaggerated expressions and self deprecating humor. He's someone I admired and wish I could have known him better. I'm thankful for getting the chance to speak with him so soon before he passed. I think about him often.

Pictures from the 2016 Comic-Con International, part 6: Sunday (Thing sketchbook, Adult Swim...and the aftermath!)

Hey! It's the last batch of Comic-Con pictures...until I go to the New York Comic Con in less than two weeks! Here are pictures from the final day of Comic-Con 2016 in San Diego.

My Thing sketchbook had two empty pages in it before this convention. Chris Burnham filled up the very last page on Sunday. There are a few little things I'd like to do with the book before I officially lock it up in a vault somewhere, but this is, I feel, some kind of milestone in my life (right?). You'll notice that Batman and X-Men artist Burnham has a Pac Man lanyard on...we also had a nice chat about old video games. It turns out that Burnham once owned a arcade cabinet himself.

I'm extra excited to bring these two things home with me - signed and sketched comics from both Matt Groening and Sergio Aragones! 

I never take enough pictures of the floor. It's hard to get an idea of the scope of this convention even when you're there, let along from an image. But here's this, stretching out as far as the eye can see.

Todd Nauck is a great guy who is kind enough to acknowledge my presence every year when I walk up and bother him at a show. Todd has worked on pretty much every major mainstream character. It's pretty impressive.

The Sideshow booth is always mind-alteringly awesome. Check out this TMNT statue set based on the original movies.

Wanna grab a Star Trek uniform? It's possible.

Due to my foolishly-acquired sunburn (and other reasons), I didn't do much outside of the convention center this year. But on Sunday I decided that I would finally give the Adult Swim on the Green offsite a try. The lines were incredibly long - you'd have to wait a few hours to get one of their screen-printed shirts (I passed).

But I did stop at Meatwad's Dome, which had a new, and very trippy, show this year.

The costumes were impressive every day of the show. It didn't slow down on Sunday.

I ran into Ally Cat, a great artist and a cool gal, at her booth which was situated right by one of the snack bars. They're trying to fit as many booths into the convention center. I guess some of them eventually have to be next to the nachos.

And here's Eric Esquivel, a writer who's comin' up in the world. He just announced that he'll be writing a story in this year's DC Christmas special.

There were a lot of Star Trek costumes at the show this year. These Borg looked great!

I managed to grab a quick picture with Griffin Newman, Arthur on the (greenlit!) Amazon "Tick" series, before he went back behind the New England Comics booth to do another round of signings.

DC's New Super-Man title had only just launched at this point, but here's a really great costume from the last day of the show.

The NEC booth was pretty busy on the last three days of the show. Ben and Griffin signed for hours. It was great to see the enthusiasm fans had for the character. It's funny to see copies of the SDCC exclusive comic pop up on eBay every so often with their signatures on it.

Our last cosplay for the show is a fun one - the Guardians of the Galaxy family, complete with a potted Groot!

One more before the show ends.

I'm always surprised at how quickly the convention clears out when 5:00 rolls around. People are ready to go, I guess. I have to believe that someday soon, they'll extend the hours until 6:00, or at least have panels that go on after the convention closes. It's a taxing show, but everyone seems to have a good time.

This is about the time that I scour around for empty boxes to send stuff home in.

Might as well wrap up some creators for the offseason. It keeps 'em fresh.

Riding a bike on the show floor? There are no rules!!

And thus ends my Comic-Con adventure for 2016. Planning has already begun for next year's show! But thankfully, I had a least a few days to rest up. I stayed in the area for a few days and made a trip to San Diego's Cat Cafe once again.

I then hit up a local state park, where I activated my lobster powers.

And then, at the top of the mountain...

After San Diego, I went out to Los Angeles for a few days, where I was pretty blown away by the exhibits at The Getty Museum. This is absolutely a must see if you're in the area.

It's really impressive.

I ended the trip by stopping by the Santa Monica pier.

There. I went in the ocean.

Until next time, Comic-Con.