Cocomonkey

Great set! I love Taschen's comic-related books. Well, most of their books, really, but these are the only ones I'm interested in. They just all look so nice and well-made. I have the 75 Years of Marvel and 75 Years of DC first print XXL editions, plus a small stack of their little books. If only they weren't so expensive, I'd probably have more, heh.

The Royal Mail is putting out a series of stamps and other assorted whatnots celebrating 60 years of the X-Men! Already put in my pre-orders, items are listed as being available from February 16th. Some good items there, a few of which are limited runs. https://shop.royalmail.com/special-stamp-issues/x-men

If only they'd put someone from The Five on the team, I'd love to see Proteus as an X-Man, haha. I threw my vote in for Dazzler. Honestly, the lineups for all three years have disappointed me. Isn't the point of Krakoa that there was total mutant amnesty and everyone's equal now, until you prove you can't get along? I want more former villains in these votes...and not already-reformed ones like Frenzy. Real former villains. 2021 had Tempo, who never really landed big and then went to obscurity for 20 years. 2022 had...what, Gorgon and Avalanche? Avalanche had already sort of reformed in the Utopia era. Sadly, they already took the best villains and made them Council members, so it's already hard to get them into the lineup...I can't even think of who to put on there now. Which I guess goes well towards how they've reformed a lot? Or just how many never made strong impacts, so the pool of "good" villains is smaller or non-mutant. Ah well. I guess what I mean to say is... Dazzler forever! (But especially if paired with Banshee or Siryn.)

Ahh, well then thanks so much, @Murphman13!

After a while away from home, I got back and was able to open my mystery box from @PeterPark, and it was filled with lots of great stuff! Thanks for the mix!

A bit late coming back to the thread, but I've been away for a while so I wasn't able to open my gift until earlier this week. I didn't see anything in it that indicated who Boardie name-wise sent it, so I can't direct a shout-out (though maybe I missed something somewhere on it?), but thanks to whoever it was!

Put in my form, especially as I won't be able to pick live. Had trouble ordering, there were so many great items on the list this year!

My item (#10) should specify US only for shipping. Sorry. Has the form been posted for absentee picking yet? Didn't want to miss it...

Stuff for my gift ordered, waiting for it all to arrive to wrap and send out...

Same, been getting it left and right this morning, along with a lot of slowness.

Argh, I got swept up in stuff all weekend and forgot about this...bah to me

I'm in! I need to take some pictures, but I have a (used/read) copy of the Planetary Omnibus hardcover to offer!

I'm in, if there's still space!

I totally got these reversed in my head, thought this was the raffle and not the gift exchange, was reading through the instructions, and was like, "They aren't even starting the gift exchange thread until late Nov/early Dec?! That's not nearly enough time to try to find stuff!"...then wondered why I needed to send in a PM for the raffle, and realized I'd mentally flipped them

My horribly wrong guesses are in!

Stopped at ToyCon in NJ this weekend…found another Bop Bag!

Can I echo this? I was in the line for a Jim Lee autograph Friday morning, and the entire line was kept waiting 45m after the scheduled start time, just because Lee was doing private signings/sketchings for other pros/exhibitors. Like, I get that you want to do that for some friends while you're in town together, and that's great...but don't do it during the scheduled time that other people have actually paid to get signatures. There were nearly a few fights in line and one person got ejected, because people had other paid, scheduled events that they were going to miss, all because Lee held up the line so long doing stuff for other pros/exhibitors. Meanwhile, even the staff were getting concerned, because people were already showing up and lining up for the next signing scheduled, which was only around 15m away by the time he got started with the first batch. Every time I went near Momoko's line...it was insane. I walked by the booth a few times when nothing was happening and nobody was there. But when she was...man. The alley went insane each time.

Congrats! As others have said, I can only imagine the burden that's lifted. Now someone start the timer for how long until you're back in the game...

I had the same reaction Thursday morning when I started walking the floor and saw Carbo was not only back but had a booth...I was like, "Wait, wasn't he banned?" I had a blast, but some of that was aided by the fact that I managed to get through the online reservation queue early, so I was signed up for all the panels I wanted (though only a few truly filled up anyway; pretty sure the entire standby line got into most panels). Saw the Smallville reunion, the BTTF reunion, the Batman/Superman: Battle of the Super Sons screening (was great), Violent Night (hilariously hyperviolent), the full Star Trek: TNG reunion at the Picard panel, and the Weird Al panel, among others. Crossed maybe 6 more books off my Uncanny X-Men vol. 1 run (down to <60 total left) and like another 60-80 or so books from discount boxes over the 4 days I went. The show floor...that's where it got a bit disappointing to me. On the one hand, some of the big exhibitors were back that skipped last year (like Marvel), which was great. On the other hand...I feel like they're still suffering a bit from the one-two punch of the construction being completed--adding a whole lot of additional space to Javits--and covid, combined with what I have to assume are ever-increasing booth rental prices. It felt like there were fewer comic vendors, I don't think I saw some of the ones that I usually see there every year, and many that were there had higher prices and fewer $1/$2 boxes to be found ($3/$5 seems to be the new $1/$2). I saw maybe 2-3 vintage toy booths instead of the usually 5-8+ scattered around, I don't think I saw any booths really selling board games (like, the full-booth board game sellers), and nobody was selling unpainted D&D figures (much to my friend's dismay; she buys some every year to paint, and there was nothing this year). I think I only saw maybe 1-2 vendors that were dedicated to used video games, too, instead of at least a half-dozen (there were video games at some mixed-goods booths, but not as many of the dedicated vendors). There were so many vendors that had like 4-6 booths scattered around--mystery boxes and dice sellers, mainly. Biggest impact for me...the PC gaming lounge area, plus having the entirety of Hall 1A dedicated to tabletop gaming, felt like ReedPop was scrounging to fill space because they couldn't get the exhibitors/vendors to fill it. Don't get me wrong, that's a pivot that makes some sense with the crowd that attends...but it still felt like something added just to fill space (which it was, last year, when a lot of exhibitors didn't come back right away). I never even saw either gaming lounge area more than like a third full (pretty sure on Saturday, I saw the PC gaming lounge just being used by people as tables to eat lunch off of, without really even playing anything). Still...there was a good lineup in the Artist's Alley this year. I'd bought a Jim Lee autograph in the first session on Friday (10:30), got there early to be towards the front of the line, and then Jim Lee...decided to do some private signings and sketches for other guests/artists/exhibitors that were there, and didn't start the signing until 11:15. There were a lot of angry people in the line, because we all knew he was there in the curtained-off booth (NYCC staff was telling us that, and I saw him go in just after 10am anyway), they'd paid for their signing(s), and they had other scheduled photo ops/autographings that they were going to be late for or miss entirely if they kept waiting in line for Lee to bother starting. One person got ejected from the line (for not putting on a mask when asked, but he was already getting antagonistic with the NYCC Staff guy that came over before being asked to mask up), others were demanding refunds...good times. I have photos of some of the panels I went to, but nothing really of the show floor, unfortunately.

I'm in!

Rassumfrassum...found the giveaway info, and the only one of the four I actually want for my collection is from Saturday's Marvel: Next Big Thing panel, and I have a conflict. Argh! Marvel Panel Giveaways In addition to variant comics at the merch booth, be sure to attend the MARVEL COMICS: MARVEL FANFARE panel on Friday, October 7, where attendees will receive a stunning color-focus sketch variant cover of Miracleman #0. See the heroic primary colors of the title character’s costume pop on this one-of-a-kind one-shot cover! On Saturday, October 8, attendees at the MARVEL’S VOICES: World Outside Your Window panel will get a reprint of FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: MARVEL’S VOICES #1 with all-new exclusive cover art by Luciano Vecchio! Also on Saturday, attendees at the MARVEL COMICS: Next Big Thing panel will walk away with an exclusive X-Men Red #7 variant by Stefano Caselli. The Sins of Sinister loom large on this amazing homage to the classic Uncanny X-Men #239! Finally, on Sunday, October 9, attendees at the WOMEN OF MARVEL panel will receive a color-focus variant cover by Ryan Stegman & Romulo Fajardo Jr. of Jane Foster & The Mighty Thor #5, spotlighting Valkyrie and her All-Weapon!

Woo! Can't wait!

Anyone seen any specific info on what comics Marvel will be giving away at their panels? In 2019, they announced what comics were being given out at which panels as giveaways. This year, they've said they're giving out comics again but "more info to come," and since then (2ish weeks ago), I haven't seen any other info.

That Bop Bag is...surprisingly heavy, haha! My Pressman games collection is coming along nicely now. Got a complete Under Siege and another that's like 99% complete (missing just the instructions, I think). My Alert needs a new Havok figure and it's missing 2 cards (one from each set), but I don't know which 2 cards are even missing yet. This Crisis in the Danger Room is complete, thankfully. Still on the lookout for a Deck the Mutants...

Some more items for my X-Men non-comics collection…and crossed another book off my “weird 70s educational DC/Marvel books” list for my bookshelf! Superdictionary and Strength and Fitness down, just the Marvel Cookbook to go (as I only know about those three…)