Cocomonkey

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…)

A few more items for my X-Men non-comics collection!

The three bagged figures...I'm not really sure what they're from. Pulling the triggers makes them swing left and right...they're kind of like hand-held Rock'em, Sock'em Robots, except without the heads popping off. The case was a nice find...no trays, but not surprised--I had the Transformers collector's case up until a few years ago, and the trays were such thin plastic that they were crumbling to the touch. These are likely the same way. As for the board game, if you mean the abridged Survival's Guide, yep, that was with it. I think it's complete, but need to find what should've been inside--nothing's punched out, but it has cards and dice loose, so just need to make sure there are the right amounts. It also had no instruction booklet, assuming it was supposed to. Heck yeah! I had three others of these sheets, so this got added to those. I have a bunch of duplicates now, and still some missing, in case anyone's got some of these unpunched beauties for trade! I *believe* these came from Hardee's, but I'd need to check my list.

Recent pickups from a trip down south and then out to a bunch of stores on Long Island...any tips for cleaning the dirt off the Wolverine Combat Center and Under Siege boxes?

Thanks all...sounds like I just need to get a bigger box or two and store them in there. Wasn't sure if there was a better way, but guess not. The eventual plan is a peg wall display, but that's likely a few years down the line. I wasn't planning to start collecting them now, but there've just been some opportunities/prices I found too hard to pass up

I have a question for this thread, assuming that's appropriate...for those that collect on-card figures and don't have anywhere to display them, how do you store them? I've started picking up 90s Toy Biz X-Mens, and now that I'm at like 20 or so...I don't have a ton of space for them and am not sure how best to get them into, like, a closet space.

It's definitely nowhere near as good as it was 10-12 years ago. That being said, I still find it pretty enjoyable. Last year, I don't think Marvel or DC were there; DC has barely had a presence outside of some panels for a few years pre-Covid (just doing a small installation at the south end of the lobby, not a kind of booth), but they were still doing the FanDome thing last year, and Marvel was among the big names that backed out of having a floor presence. I also thought last year felt like it had more dealers than previous, which was great. This year's content...still hasn't really been totally announced I think, which is different and annoying compared to previous years (usually by Labor Day, at least 80-90% of the stuff is announced and panel schedules have started going online, but right now, not much of anything). Still can't do any kind of planning or anything yet...sigh.

Was there any mention of when Vol 5 would go up for presale? I don't see it yet on CGN (or didn't when I checked before). I'm curious what would be in Vol. 6 and 7 also...can't tell which would be worse/weirder, capturing only 20-25% of each of the giant crossovers by just doing the UXM issues, or skipping around wildly to avoid them entirely...

Thanks, yeah, I've only rarely found them in the wild before now, and usually just one or two and not ones I wanted. The store had a few dozen more, most of which were still in their boxes, but they were Spider-Man/Fantastic Four-related, so not what I was interested in. Sadly, most of the X-Men ones were boxless, and the White Queen is actually cracked mid-torso, but otherwise they're in good shape. Just gotta remember to, you know, not try to lick or ingest them...

I'm in!

Not quite this week, but finally got around to snapping pics of my pickups from Terrificon a few weeks back. Got 8 more books to scratch off my list to complete my full UXM v1 run (only 66 left to go...), plus a bunch of great X-related 80s mini-series (I love the covers of those Nightcrawlers, always have), some one-shots, and some X-related Amazing Heroes issues. The printer's proof sheet of the X-Men Series 1 cards looks amazing, and now aside from getting it framed to hang, I have a goal of trying to catch Jim Lee at an NYC-area con to get it signed by him as well...

Got these from a store in NH while driving back from a vacation/road trip in Maine...

Royal is my LCS, I'd recommend them (for whatever my opinion's worth). Good store and good people. They're located in Queens (Forest Hills, though I think they recently opened another location in Astoria).

This is great! I wish I'd written a message like this to myself in the 90s...tell myself, when I have to cut my collection in half, not to get rid of some of those random one-off books..."That weird squirrel character? Keep that book around for a bit..."

Hi all, I'll be heading to Nashville in a bit to see family, and I've been told that my niece (5) has been showing an interest in comics and superheroes recently, so I wanted to bring her to a store to pick out her first comic(s). I haven't actually been to any of the Nashville LCS's in my previous visits, so I don't really have a good sense of what they have to offer, but I know some stores tend to have better selections of kids/all-ages books than others. Anyone have any recommendations for any stores with good selections for that age?

My quest for the highest score is going well! ...wait, what, we want low scores?

Yeah, apparently they still had Covid protocols in effect (which we knew coming into the weekend, I'd been checking regularly all summer). The pools were for guests only, and no pool day passes were being sold at this time (which pre-Covid would have been an option). We stayed at an Airbnb, not the hotel, so that meant the pool was out. My wife thought about just paying for a pass and coming in with me, decided against it, ended up just wandering around the hotel in circles while I was in the show (so ~4 hours), and basically regretted just not coming in with me, lol. So, for my first experience with this show...I enjoyed it. The aisles were definitely a bit tight and very packed, especially up in like the front third. There were groups of people who were just standing in the aisles between vendors talking--not looking at the vendors, not commenting on cosplay of other people they saw, just groups that came together, clogging the aisles. Heard others complaining about it as well while I was digging through boxes. Lots of good selections at the vendors, definitely a better proportion of comic vendors to others than I've seen at other cons. Personally, I felt a lot of the wall books were pretty overpriced (like, they were reflecting prices of a few months ago, and not how some have been dropping quite a bit lately...and some just seem oddly higher than I'd seen/been tracking recently). For me, that just meant nixing my hopes of picking up one or both of the last two X-Men keys I needed and instead, I just focused on random X-related stuff I saw and knocked another 8 books off my list for completing my UXM v1 run (will post my pickups in a bit once I take some pictures).

Great report! This show's been on my bucket list forever...one year I'll finally take the plunge and go (or at least, make the attempt to get tickets). Did anyone else see the sand sculptures (which were great!) and expect a Sandman marketing thing? Missed opportunity!

I'll be going, gonna be my first time there as well. Looking forward to it! Talked the wife into making a little weekend getaway out of it...though she wasn't able to find anything to do while I'm at the con on Saturday (we aren't staying at Mohegan Sun, so she can't use the pool there; it's still restricted to guests only from covid), so maybe she'll end up joining me at the show, who knows.