What I Missed at NYCC While Doing Things at NYCC

This year I definitely spread myself too thin. Maybe I was still in SDCC mode, but I completely overbooked myself! Armed with a full schedule, I set out to queue up for the Vampire Academy panel…only to realize we had to interview Michael Dialynas at the Dark Horse booth at the same time!! Oh, well, I guess the school of Dhampirs and Moroi would just have to wait.

Michael was kind enough to talk his Superior Spider-Man story and his Dark Horse mini-series, Amala’s Blade, and we recorded it, but apparently we pressed SOMETHING and all that was recorded was static. We talked at length about his art, and if his Greek heritage had any sort of impact on projects he chose to undertake (it doesn’t!).

A quick glance at the Game of Thrones panel line caused me to exhale loudly (actually I think I proclaimed, WHY GOD, WHY?), and shuffle past in sadness. Instead, we spent an hour wandering the MASSIVE exhibition hall, and took lots of blurry photos of the magnificent cosplays, due to our other camera suddenly not working, including this cute fawn girl, before hurrying off to get in line for the Welcome to Nightvale panel.

This was where things got interesting. If you haven’t yet dove into the beautiful mythos of WTNV, allow me to link you. It’s a wonderful podcast full of strange, yet exciting things, all narrated by the enigmatic Cecil. It came out of nowhere and suddenly, EVERYONE was talking about it on Twitter and on Tumblr, which is odd for a podcast. Somehow this failed to occur to us, and we thought walking toward the panel 45 minutes prior to it beginning was sufficient enough to make it into the panel.

Not only did the line snake around the entire panel room hallway, but people were in line knowing they weren’t going to get in, but on the off chance that other people would leave. It was beautiful to be with people who felt such love for the underground series, and I spoke with many of them, recording their reasons for attending the panel, but yet again technology reared its ugly head, and I ended up with minutes upon minutes of pure static.

With heavy hearts, we all headed back to the exhibition hall and lined up to play/view top secret footage of the new South Park game: The Stick of Truth!

Saturday found us in line waiting for the Legend of Korra panel (surprise, we weren’t able to get in), and missing Christopher Lloyd by mere seconds, but we were able to successfully meet Felicia Day briefly as she  moved from a panel to her autograph table. Interviews included comic writer Brian Wood, Paul Pope, and a very brief few moments of Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s time during the Cosmos panel (check out Tushar’s full write-up on that here!), before settling in the Empire Room for our final three panels of Saturday.

First up was the Marvel  panel, where the upcoming comic events, live action arena show, and lots more was discussed, including a short Q&A with Dan Slott about his controversial Superior Spider-Man series, before the room cleared out for John Barrowman’s Q&A. I had never attended one of his panels, but I’d heard they were grossly entertaining, even for those unfamiliar with his work. Kaitlyn had never heard of the guy, and I was incredibly worried she would be bored while she sat waiting for the following panel (Batman: Arkham Origins). Luckily, all stories about Barrowman proved true, and we laughed the entire time.

Afterwards, we sat next to the very boisterous IGN press, and listened to a freaking AMAZING monologue from Troy Baker and were entranced by footage shown of the upcoming game. With happy hearts, we headed out to grab pizza and catch some z’s.

Unfortunately this is where our NYCC experience came to an end as the pizza gave us ALL an intense bout of food poisoning, so in addition to all the cool stuff we missed, we missed an entire day. What was your favorite thing about this year’s New York Comic Con?