New York Comic Con – Day 1 February 25, 2006 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy

Blade Runner Italian Movie PosterIt started innocently enough. A thousand eager faced young people in the huge lobby of the Javitts center waiting their turn to enter the First Annual New York Comic Con. I was there with Evil David (aka Mercurio D. Rivera) and we waited like the eager fans we were to enter the show. The lines were so long that they began hand writing people’s badges instead of using the thermal printers. But the Evil One and I decided we’d rather have a “real” badge and so stayed the course. It was a good thing we did. Denis Wong, an editor from Tor we know, happened to be waiting on line.

The show took up about a third of the center, which if you’ve never been there, is quite large. Our first memorable stop was at the movie poster store where I happened to buy an original Italian movie poster for Blade Runner (shown here) for $35. The poster is HUGE! 39″ by 50″! No standard frame will hold this thing. I may have to build my own. (Needless to say, however, I am drooling. Does anyone speak Italian?)

Next, Evil D. bought the Star Trek Animated series DVD (a bootleg version of all the 22 episodes). The salesman played it for us and the quality was great. Seeing that the real Star Trek DVDs go for about $30 for 2 episodes, his purchase of 22 episodes for $50 was a steal.

There was this table that sold lots of Cthulhu paraphernalia, like Lovecraft books and plush toys and bumper stickers. I almost bought a novel called the Lost City just for its cover. And I saw the Modern Library Classics edition of “At the Mountains of Madness.” It’s hard to believe that the supernal horror stories I read as a teenager are now considered part of the American Canon. Evil D., living up to his name, bought a gift at this table for Kris Dikeman. I will not tell you what it is until we give it to her, lest she read this blog and find out!

We passed this trailer with these amazing video games, and Evil D. and I had a brief discussion about game violence. “Cool games,” we said, “but if I had a kid I wouldn’t let him play that game.” On the other side of the truck, hidden from obvious view, was an Air Force poster. The games were “recruitment tools.”

We saw a few costumes of note. A PVC girl in all black and another in see-through chain-mail. There was a Star Wars Endor Storm Trooper and her companion who was a rebel Air Traffic Controller (you know, the ones with the big white hats). Today there is a CosPlay show, where we get to see the freakier side of the convention as everyone dresses up as their favorite characters.

Die Cast - Battlestar Galactica But the highlight of the night was the early and free screening of Sci-Fi fridays. On the way in we received a cool toy, a die cast metal Battlestar Galactica. Then we suffered through two mostly cheesy & terrible episodes of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. What we were really there for was Battlestar Galactica. I won’t spoil the episode here, but it was fun to hear the crowd whoop and cheer when you know who appeared at the beginning and everyone though s/he was a cylon.

I’m heading back today to see a few panels and possibly meet up with JJ Adams. This time I’m bringing my camera. You never know who might show up today.