NYCC 2023 - October 12th - 15th - Javits Center - New York, NY. 3 3

[juniorMC]

On 10/13/2023 at 12:37 PM, AndyFish said:

It shouldn't have taken Covid to teach some people common sense hygiene but once again when I was at a show (this time Baltimore) I'm amazed at the number of people who walk past me and out while I'm washing my hands in a public restroom.   AND the large % who just squirt some water on their hands as if that's enough.

I've always been diligent about it and its no coincidence I rarely even get a cold during the year.

I had my mask on. But the problem was I also took the bus back and forth everyday.  While outside I had the mask off, but then forgot to put it back on immediately upon entering the bus and the con.  I would suddenly remember after I got inside and that was enough to time to get infected

[juniorMC]

On 10/13/2023 at 11:05 PM, Kevin76 said:

Covid isn't exactly the death sentence it used to be, take the mask off and live your life.  

Nah man, there's still long covid that could possibly affect u for life

[juniorMC]

On 10/16/2023 at 12:39 PM, dbcn said:

I went yesterday and had a decent time, prly 9.0 or 9.2 overall.

Getting a witness from the CGC booth was huge hassle tbh - I got in line when we arrived around 11 for a witness, went out with a group of people around 11:40, finally got to the first artists I was looking for sigs on around 12:15, made it to the 2nd around 12:45 to find out she was only in her booth 1-3. At that point the witness had to be somewhere else and checked out, so my options were: try to enjoy the con, or get back in line, which was longer at that point than when we had arrived, so we opted to punt on the remaining signatures, walk around & check out the other floors. 

I had about 7 or 8 other books I was hoping to be witnessed/signed, but the prospect of waiting another hour in line for a witness and then have the artist maybe be there and maybe not just didn't seem worth it.

Also there were people queued up 3 deep at the end of the day trying to get the paperwork submitted, so in the end I think I did ok just getting my one artist signatures. It was my first time getting books signed myself, so maybe I just did it wrong.

There seemed to be an inverse relationship between interacting with the CGC and enjoying being at the con. I thought it was absolutely jammed - and from what I heard, yesterday was the 'calm' day - so I can't imagine trying to get any sigs Fri/Sat. We only had a total of about 6 hours to spend, a third of which was spent getting those initial signatures.

I don't know if I'd go again - and if I do, I won't bother with getting books signed myself - I'll happily pay a facilitator fee rather than deal with that again.

Fwiw, the books I did get signed I was very happy with; I bought 2 exclusives on the floor, unfortunately one had significant damage that I didn't notice in the moment - it was cool to see Mack, Maleev, Miller, Artgerm (surprisingly tall!), Claremont & Momoko in person, and the cosplay (KenPool and Barbie Quinn were amazing) around the rest of the con was great. 

 

One thing i noticed was Artgerm gave priority to cgc, that makes sense to just knock out the cgc sigs then get back to the line, because cgc books r the money books and if it takes too long we might have to leave and maybe come back later if we can

[juniorMC]

On 10/16/2023 at 12:42 PM, jaybuck43 said:

I've been going since 2006.  I missed last year.  This is the worst year I've seen yet.  VERY few dealers.  The show is now broken up into multiple places.  Downstairs is autographing and artist alley and main hall.  Upstairs is the main floor, split into two sections.  and then the 4th floor is panels and the second main stage (Empire Stage).  The show floor was 3/4s displays (Bandai, Dragon Ball, Topps, etc.).  You didn't really get to dealers until you got to level 3600.  There were more "stuff seller" than comic sellers.  No Dale, No Motor City Comics, lots of the major sellers weren't there.  Most people were walking around with blind boxes than comics or art purchases.  The con was probably super successful for reed pop, but its become a pop culture party and not a comic show.  

Yes, it was hell everyday, upstairs was better than downstairs though.  It was good exercise but make sure u have water and food unless u wanna pay big bucks.  Stay hydrated

[juniorMC]

On 10/16/2023 at 2:21 PM, jaybuck43 said:

Yup, the money was definitely more on cash grab exclusives and autographs than vintage comics and art.  It's a shame, I truly miss the old days.  Basically now it's HA/CL/and CC, no longer shows.  SDCC has been this way for a while and NYCC is there now too.   I was talking to Kevin Eastman and he didn't even bring his art rep or binder of art to sell.  All he was doing was sigs with remarks for $60 and sigs for $30.  Sold out all four days...

Guess that means in the future we should probably contact the artists in advance if we want artwork

[juniorMC]

On 10/17/2023 at 9:59 AM, alexgross.com said:

thanks for the report! my joke that the show probably didnt take place because no one posted pics is certainly not bad mouthing. its a facetious attempt at encouraging more pics and reports from attendees and dealers. i hope you made some nice purchases there and made some coin too bob.

It worked.  I posted a few pgo

[juniorMC]

I'd like to know how may people caught covid this weekend

[1Cool]

I’m glad Bob had a better show than Baltimore but people typically want to talk about shows they enjoyed.  They want to show off books they got (especially for cheap).  People want to talk about board members they saw or hung out with.  What food was good around the show.  Silence is telling in terms of a big show.  The boards in general are very slow so maybe it’s not as big an indicator as it use to be.

[alexgreece]

We had a great show, the room was completely full from about 10:30am-6:00pm Thurs-Sat and absolutely packed from open to close on Sunday. Sales were strong, as prices continue to dip people seem more and more willing to shell out for a book that may have seemed unobtainable only 1-2 years ago. Bronze and Silver keys that had been almost impossible to sell over the last 6 months were flying off the wall. Buying was very strong, we picked up about 3 short boxes of new material, most of which got listed on this site yesterday and earlier this morning (New Arrivals). As Bob mentioned, load in was easy and load out was the fastest it's ever been. The comic area was absolutely smaller this year, but most of the dealers I talked to that were there seemed to have a solid show. We will certainly be back in 2024.

[Antman’s shorter brother]

I had low expectations for this year’s comic con, but I thought it was really good from a buying perspective. I was able to get three golden age books at near their GPA (Batman 50, Weird Fantasy 22, and Phantom Stranger 2).

An added bonus was that more dealers brought foreign editions to sell (a friend of mine was totally psyched - he left the con wishing he had more cash).

I heard artist alley maintained it crowded reputation. I got there early Thursday morning when it wasn’t bad and was able to get an Adam Hughes head sketch.

I was really happy with the books I was able to purchase. I don’t think I would have been able to even have the opportunity to buy them during the recent boom.

On the entertainment side, there were no “must see” exhibits on the showroom floor. The panels involving  actors were lame as they couldn’t discuss anything they worked on.

I was happy to get the free variants from the Marvel Panels.

the lack of Wi-Fi in the showroom made buying comics a challenge. Luckily I found a couple of pockets in Javitz where I could search the GPA values of books on my phone.

overall , not the best NYCC, but I’m definitely glad I went.

[Cocomonkey]

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but I had a pretty good time. Show floor was packed pretty much every day, even Thursday felt more crowded than it usually does. You can definitely feel the decline of the older classes of vendors...I think I saw only one board/card game booth, the number of comic dealers is dropping, the number of vintage toy dealers is dropping (toy dealers overall seem fewer, even the ones just sticking to Legends/Multiverse/Black and other current toys)...and yeah, more mystery boxes, more random "stuff" that tangentially fits (everything that used to be in the "Block" area when they still called it that). The show floor is still fun to crawl through, but it does make me a little more sad each year to see the changes. I agree with other posters that I saw more people walking around with mystery boxes than anything else, but it still looked like the model kits/busts/statutes/etc. were selling well also.

The cell service and wifi just seems to get worse every year. The new building (the panel rooms and Empire Stage bldg) are basically a complete dead zone to me in terms of just basic cell service, I get nothing while I'm in there. Almost every booth I stopped at, I heard the dealers complaining about the wifi while trying to make sales, or just straight up complaining about it.

The panels I went to, I enjoyed. It definitely suffered from the SAG strike a bit, but not nearly as badly as SDCC did. They still had several spotlight/conversation panels with celebrities, they just couldn't directly talk about struck work. I didn't go to the David Tennant one, but from what I overheard, it sounds like he had a Q&A portion and most of the questions, he couldn't answer. The GOTG conversation panel and the Chris Evans spotlights that I went to both didn't have any kind of Q&A, it was just a moderator and chatting, so they may've adjusted to avoid that by taking out the question portion. They were still there, though, which is more than SDCC had.

As others have noted, the dealers that were there still had good selections. There were a decent number of $1/2/3/5/7 boxes, which was nice to see. Wall books had some nice diversity, good pricings, lots of golden age which was nice to see. It wasn't the worst con experience I've had...it may not compare to NYCC 10 years ago, and I agree that at this point, it fits a rebranding as Entertainment Expo or Fan Expo more than a Comic Convention, but it was good. I had a good time, and I had newbies join me on Friday and Sunday and both had a blast and will be returning.

[Eclipse]

On 10/17/2023 at 11:01 AM, juniorMC said:

I'd like to know how may people caught covid this weekend

i know of 2 non-board people that got it from the show

[speedcake]

I went Thursday through Saturday this year. The only reason I didn't go Sunday was that I wasn't able to get a four day pass before they sold out and wasn't going to pay scalper prices to go a fourth day.  I had fun, but not quite as much as I usually do. I didn't get into any of the main or empire stage panels I wanted for the second year in a row and only managed to get into two Marvel panels as they ran them in a much smaller room the first two days and they capped fast. That was a pretty big bummer as I both wanted to see the panelists and I wanted the panel exclusives. It was also poor planning of the Marvel block, but I'm not in charge so oh well.

There were noticeably fewer comic book vendors this year, which is worrisome, but the ones that were there had pretty good selection and prices seemed overall ok. There was some decent dumpster diving available, too. I picked up a House of Secrets 139 in around VF/NM for ten bucks out of a box of mostly lower grade unpriced bronze horror. Pretty sweet!  Dealers were quick to offer good deals on decent stacks of books from the $3/5/10 boxes, and wall selections looked solid.  It would be nice if Reed Pop would recognize that they are pushing comic book dealers out of the show, but money talks I guess. 

Artists alley at NYCC though is still premier.  All the big guns show up, you can get autos and OA from creators you don't see any other time of the year or rarely, and while yes the current scourge of autograph pricing and CGC middlemen is a PITA, the fact remains that those artists are there, available, and its pretty neat.  The talent under the Javits Center roof over NYCC weekend is just nuts.

I grabbed a bunch of exclusives mostly to flip, but did like one here and there to hang on to longer term. Mostly I stayed away from con variants this year as they were just everywhere and mostly pretty boring. But there were gems as always.

I got a very cool Black Cat 9x12 inked sketch on commission from Mirka Andolfo and that was easily the highlight of my pickups this year

I bought a Frank Cho mystery box and won a set of Batman #50 connecting covers CGC 9.8 signed and remarked, so that was fun.  It would have been a little less fun if I had not won and I wouldn't have recommended the boxes to anyone despite winning. I very rarely buy mystery boxes, but the Cho boxes were a 50/50 to win a bigger prize so what the heck.

Two years in a row now I've been shut out of the main stage and empire stage events. Last year I was able to at least get into a couple via the standby line, but that eats so much of your day that if you try and still don't get in when you could be doing something else, its a waste. I do not like the current queue system at all. It's idiotic. At least give fans some agency in whether or not they want to show up early on game day to get in line for whichever main stage or empire stage panel they want and get a wrist band like the old days.  Having your fortunes taken completely out of your hands and left up to chance alone is dumb, and rewards everyone who is lucky enough to get through the virtual queue early as, while even though they cap how much you can reserve each day, people obviously just reserve the max so the big stuff sells out asap. its dumb as heck.

I will probably go again next year despite it being extremely expensive, exhausting, and the dwindling comic book dealers being a concern.  I still like going to panels, checking out the artists, chasing after a handful of con exclusives I either like or know will likely help cover some expenditures, and if I get into main or empire stage panels/events its icing on the cake.

This went on way too long, sorry.




 

[Cocomonkey]

On 10/18/2023 at 10:16 PM, speedcake said:

Two years in a row now I've been shut out of the main stage and empire stage events. Last year I was able to at least get into a couple via the standby line, but that eats so much of your day that if you try and still don't get in when you could be doing something else, its a waste. I do not like the current queue system at all. It's idiotic. At least give fans some agency in whether or not they want to show up early on game day to get in line for whichever main stage or empire stage panel they want and get a wrist band like the old days.  Having your fortunes taken completely out of your hands and left up to chance alone is dumb, and rewards everyone who is lucky enough to get through the virtual queue early as, while even though they cap how much you can reserve each day, people obviously just reserve the max so the big stuff sells out asap. its dumb as heck.

I kind of agree, I miss the older system of standing in the chutes on the morning of for Main Stage panels...although that made it a little tougher to do multiples, and that doesn't allow for the Empire Stage if they want any kind of reservations there. I managed to get all of my reservations, but two of the people I went with got shut out because they couldn't be around their computers at the time they needed to be for online reservations. I'm not sure there's any good system that would appease everyone, though.

[speedcake]

There is definitely no perfect system, but IMO a system that takes all control away from the fans and leaves it entirely to chance is possibly the worst option.  like if I want to get up early enough to be down there to get in the correct chute for this or that main stage panel then thats a choice I can make.  

At the very least they could set a lower cap on how much each fan can reserve per day in the virtual queue.  

"Fans can reserve up to four (4) for Thursday, five (5) for Friday, five (5) for Saturday and three (3) for Sunday."

Thats way too much.  Maybe a mixed system of virtual queue and lottery, or a first come first serve on the actual day of in addition to the virtual queue seats. Give away half through the virtual queue, then the other half via arm bands on the morning of before doors open.  Just anything that gives a little power back to the fans interested in attending any given panel.  

[juniorMC]

On 10/18/2023 at 10:20 AM, Cocomonkey said:

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but I had a pretty good time. Show floor was packed pretty much every day, even Thursday felt more crowded than it usually does. You can definitely feel the decline of the older classes of vendors...I think I saw only one board/card game booth, the number of comic dealers is dropping, the number of vintage toy dealers is dropping (toy dealers overall seem fewer, even the ones just sticking to Legends/Multiverse/Black and other current toys)...and yeah, more mystery boxes, more random "stuff" that tangentially fits (everything that used to be in the "Block" area when they still called it that). The show floor is still fun to crawl through, but it does make me a little more sad each year to see the changes. I agree with other posters that I saw more people walking around with mystery boxes than anything else, but it still looked like the model kits/busts/statutes/etc. were selling well also.

The cell service and wifi just seems to get worse every year. The new building (the panel rooms and Empire Stage bldg) are basically a complete dead zone to me in terms of just basic cell service, I get nothing while I'm in there. Almost every booth I stopped at, I heard the dealers complaining about the wifi while trying to make sales, or just straight up complaining about it.

The panels I went to, I enjoyed. It definitely suffered from the SAG strike a bit, but not nearly as badly as SDCC did. They still had several spotlight/conversation panels with celebrities, they just couldn't directly talk about struck work. I didn't go to the David Tennant one, but from what I overheard, it sounds like he had a Q&A portion and most of the questions, he couldn't answer. The GOTG conversation panel and the Chris Evans spotlights that I went to both didn't have any kind of Q&A, it was just a moderator and chatting, so they may've adjusted to avoid that by taking out the question portion. They were still there, though, which is more than SDCC had.

As others have noted, the dealers that were there still had good selections. There were a decent number of $1/2/3/5/7 boxes, which was nice to see. Wall books had some nice diversity, good pricings, lots of golden age which was nice to see. It wasn't the worst con experience I've had...it may not compare to NYCC 10 years ago, and I agree that at this point, it fits a rebranding as Entertainment Expo or Fan Expo more than a Comic Convention, but it was good. I had a good time, and I had newbies join me on Friday and Sunday and both had a blast and will be returning.

The wifi is good in the morning, but gets worse as the day goes on.  I paid for a Jae Lee sig with paypal.  Took a few minutes, bit when I came back the next morning it went right through

[juniorMC]

On 10/18/2023 at 10:16 PM, speedcake said:

I went Thursday through Saturday this year. The only reason I didn't go Sunday was that I wasn't able to get a four day pass before they sold out and wasn't going to pay scalper prices to go a fourth day.  I had fun, but not quite as much as I usually do. I didn't get into any of the main or empire stage panels I wanted for the second year in a row and only managed to get into two Marvel panels as they ran them in a much smaller room the first two days and they capped fast. That was a pretty big bummer as I both wanted to see the panelists and I wanted the panel exclusives. It was also poor planning of the Marvel block, but I'm not in charge so oh well.

There were noticeably fewer comic book vendors this year, which is worrisome, but the ones that were there had pretty good selection and prices seemed overall ok. There was some decent dumpster diving available, too. I picked up a House of Secrets 139 in around VF/NM for ten bucks out of a box of mostly lower grade unpriced bronze horror. Pretty sweet!  Dealers were quick to offer good deals on decent stacks of books from the $3/5/10 boxes, and wall selections looked solid.  It would be nice if Reed Pop would recognize that they are pushing comic book dealers out of the show, but money talks I guess. 

Artists alley at NYCC though is still premier.  All the big guns show up, you can get autos and OA from creators you don't see any other time of the year or rarely, and while yes the current scourge of autograph pricing and CGC middlemen is a PITA, the fact remains that those artists are there, available, and its pretty neat.  The talent under the Javits Center roof over NYCC weekend is just nuts.

I grabbed a bunch of exclusives mostly to flip, but did like one here and there to hang on to longer term. Mostly I stayed away from con variants this year as they were just everywhere and mostly pretty boring. But there were gems as always.

I got a very cool Black Cat 9x12 inked sketch on commission from Mirka Andolfo and that was easily the highlight of my pickups this year

I bought a Frank Cho mystery box and won a set of Batman #50 connecting covers CGC 9.8 signed and remarked, so that was fun.  It would have been a little less fun if I had not won and I wouldn't have recommended the boxes to anyone despite winning. I very rarely buy mystery boxes, but the Cho boxes were a 50/50 to win a bigger prize so what the heck.

Two years in a row now I've been shut out of the main stage and empire stage events. Last year I was able to at least get into a couple via the standby line, but that eats so much of your day that if you try and still don't get in when you could be doing something else, its a waste. I do not like the current queue system at all. It's idiotic. At least give fans some agency in whether or not they want to show up early on game day to get in line for whichever main stage or empire stage panel they want and get a wrist band like the old days.  Having your fortunes taken completely out of your hands and left up to chance alone is dumb, and rewards everyone who is lucky enough to get through the virtual queue early as, while even though they cap how much you can reserve each day, people obviously just reserve the max so the big stuff sells out asap. its dumb as heck.

I will probably go again next year despite it being extremely expensive, exhausting, and the dwindling comic book dealers being a concern.  I still like going to panels, checking out the artists, chasing after a handful of con exclusives I either like or know will likely help cover some expenditures, and if I get into main or empire stage panels/events its icing on the cake.

This went on way too long, sorry.




 

Ouside Scalpers r cheaper than lyte Scalpers.  And that's exactly what lyte is.

[speedcake]

True. I was good and broke by the end of Saturday anyway, so it is probably a good thing. 

[jjonahjameson11]

So in terms of comic buys, was this show actually worthwhile given the high cost/hassle associated with getting into the show?

from what I’ve read, it sounds very frustrating and disappointing 

[Kevin76]

It's unfortune nowadays that a lot of people just go to the show to simply get their books they bought online, to the show to get signed. They get some autographs, a print and/or toys, a t-shirt, food and then they are out of money. Its how it is now for a majority of those that attend.