Ray Park ( Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.)
Daniel Logan (Young Boba Fett inStar Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones )
Gary Coleman ( Arnold Jackson in Diff'rent Strokes)
The Second Annual New York Comic Con , the largest show on the east coast.
Being held for 3 straight days February 23 – 25
at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City.
New York City Comic Con 2007 boasted some of the most spectacular events. The convention space featured over 4 floors of action, activities, panels & events making itit the ultimate event experience. When the convention first took off on Friday I explored the massive exhibition hall where vendors from across the country where there.
While admission lines were long, the event did not suffer the same problems of last year's show such as over population & space,as the convention staff was noticeably better prepared and had more than twice the space available.
. When first entering the scene I gazed upon the massive space of the Javits Center , a colossus structure with 675,000 square feet of semingly endless space.
Major exhibitors from the world of comics, publishing, and film ,thousands of industry insiders and fans looking for what’s hip, what’s hot and what’s next in pop culture attended.
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Among the first booths that caught my eye one of them was a sneak peak preview of the new Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer videogame based on the new movie to be released June 15, 2007. During the demonstration the developers who worked on the game explained how the game is developing & showed us a first glimpse of how the game will work on multi platform consoles.
The Wii demonstration was fun to see because the developers showed how you can interact with the controls , and as you move you basically have a sense of free control & how you get a feel for each of the 4 characters.
After the Nintendo Wii demonstration the developers unveiled the Xbox 360 showing of the gam. The 360 version graphically wise looked 100 times better than the Wii version ,in all the game was very impressive with good controls & lots of pulse pounding action.
(Above) Video gaming & fans taking the challenge at Dance Dance Revolution.
After a exciting yet interesting first hand look at the new Fantastic Four game ,I whent on to explore the various events taking place, I walked throughout out the many dealer booths where you could find just about anything under the sun. From comics, limited edition issues, collectibles, shirts, toys ,rare items ,memorabilia to DVD's.
The Pokemon center, where die hard fans could play trading card games & do just about anything Pokemon.
Hip Artist & Creators
While browsing through the hundreds of dealer booths we came across Mrs.Lindze Merritt a very talented artist & the creator of Genki hats.This unique creation could be seen being worn by con goers around the convention and for the first time we get to meet the person behind the magic.
Yet what is a Genki Hat?
Genki Hats are fun and distinctive, and connotes energy and life. They are handmade locally their home base of Atlanta, GA, with a sense of humor in every hand-stitched detail. As is the character of handmade goods, each hat is unique in its own way.
For more cool stuff & go to www.genkihats.com
City of Walls
The 2 gentlemen were writer Shaun Noel and writer/artist Abede Lovelace and their new comic City of walls.
The story is about the main characters living inside a self-contained city that is largely setup.
Similar to the projects,the art & illustrations are impressive indeed & when you look & read the story you get deeper into the characters and depth of the concept and plotline .
As we were going about we came across average comic fans & dealers and asked them their opinion on the convention & what they like in comics.
As our voyage continued , we walked upon Artist Alley where over 140 artists and creators appeared ,featuring some of the top creative talents working in the comic book world today.
The artists were featured in the Galleria which overlooks the show
floor at the Jacob K. Javits Center open to everyone to do signings, sketches and talk to the fans about their past and future collaborations.
Some of the many artists who appeared in
Artist Alley included:
Bob Almond * Murphy Anderson * Terry Austin * Michael Bair * Chris Batista * Alison Bechtel * Richard Birdsall * Jon Bogdanove * Brian Bolland * June Brigman * Mark Brooks * Buzz * Eric Canete * Bernard Chang * Sean Chen * Frank Cho * Ian Churchill* Henry Clayton * Olivier Coipel * Gene Colan * Kevin Conrad * Danny Fingeroth * Frank Darmatta * Tom DeFalco * Todd DeZago * Colleen Doran * Guy Dorian * Ian Dorian * Dale Eaglesham * Tommy Lee Edwards * David Finch * Ramona Fradon * Jose-Luis Garcia-Lopez * Ron Garney * Keith Giffen * Michael Golden * Trevor Goring * Yvel Guichet * Gene Ha * Scott Hanna * Tony Harris * Greg Horn * Jamal Igle * Carmine Infantino * Phil Jimenez * Geoff Johns * Andy Lanning * Bob Larkin * John Paul Leon * Livesay * David Mack * Kevin Maguire * Alex Maleev * Ron Marz * Peter Mayhew * Frank McLaughlin * Steve McNiven * Rags Morales * Mark Morales * Dustin Nguyen * Michael Avon Oeming * Dan Parent * Andrew Pepoy * Joe Quesada *
Rodney Ramos * Tom Raney * Esad Ribic * Roy Richardson * Andrew Robinson * Craig Rousseau * Stephane Roux * Josef Rubenstein * Damion Scott * StephenSadowski * Alex Saviuk * Walter Simonson * Kevin Smith * Tom Smith * Joe Staton * Jim Steranko * Arthur Suydam * Art Thibert * Ethen Van Sciver * Jhonen Vasquez * Dexter Vines * Bob Wiacek
Guests of Honor including Jeff Smith, Michael
Straczynski, and Marc Silvestri, Kyle Baker, Brian Bolland,Drew Bowling, David Finch,Greg Horn, Carmine Infantino, China Mieville, Steve McNiven, Joshua Ortega, Greg Pak, Joe Quesada, Jim Steranko, Ethan VanSciver, and Timothy Zahn.
While browsing through Artist Alley we came across a few cool dealers selling numerous trinkets including lightsabers & rare cool Bruce Lee posters.
A fans opinion.
Tribute to Arnold Drake
(March 1, 1924 - March 12, 2007)
Mr Drake , One of the most renowed comic creators in the industry , this was Drakes last public apperance before his death on March 12 at age 83
Best known for his work on the DC Comics feature "Deadman', for which he was given the Bill Finger Award, and on the DC series Doom Patrol. He also wrote issues of Marvel Comics'X-Men in the 1960s, and created "The Guardians of the Galaxy" with artist Gene Colan. Drake is also notable for co-creating It Rhymes with Lust, perhaps the first American graphic novel ever published , Drake's creditds also writing the Star Trek and Twilight Zone comics for the latter.
Drake recently came back on the radar for many comics fans and modern industry members through his convention appearances and his support of and activism for forgotten and unappreciated writers. Drake himself was the first recipient of the Bill Finger award designed to bring attention to just that group of people. No stranger to industry activism, Drake had been among those creators no longer employed by DC in 1968 after demands for health insurance fell on deaf ears.
He received several awards for his comics work, including the 1967 Alley Award for Best Full-Length Story ("Who's Been Lying in My Grave?" in Strange Adventures #205 with Carmine Infantino), and the 1967 Alley Award for Best New Strip ("Deadman" with Carmine Infantino in Strange Adventures).
While at his table I talked to him for a few moments , he was a very nice gentleman and full of life.
It was an honor to meet him.
May he rest in peace.
Meet Mr.Stan Lee
Celebrated by millions of fans worldwide for building Marvel into a comics and motion picture empire, Stan Lee is revered for co-creating Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Silver Surfer, and the Incredible Hulk, among other original and wildly popular characters.
The inimitable Stan Lee, whose creative genius propelled Marvel to its preeminent position in today’s market place, is doing it all over again with his newly founded company POW!
Entertainment Inc., (POWN). Under the umbrella of POW!, Stan is creating at an unprecedented rate and a whole new cast of contemporary Stan Lee Originals are just beginning their premieres.
POW!’s current new and exciting projects include Forever-man with Paramount Pictures, Condor and Mosaic with IDT Entertainment, Lightspeed with NBC Universal SCI FI and more, lots
more, and yes, Stan Lee in keeping with the times even has a new reality series “Who Wants to
Be a Superhero?”
Stan Lee commented on his up and coming New York Comic Con appearance:
“What a kick to be returning to New York, the great city where I was born and lived most of my life-- as well as
the city where I made sure most of the Marvel superheroes lived!”
“For the past two decades I’ve kept so busy in Los Angeles that I haven’t had time to return to the
Big Apple as often as I’d like, so you can imagine what a thrill this will be for me to have a chance to renew a million old acquaintances with artists, writers, editors and the mainstays of the
comic book world-- namely the fabulous, fantastic fans!”
“Looking forward to seeing Comicdom Assembled next February—don’tcha dare be late!”
“Excelsior! “
When we checked out the crowd downstairs fans lined up to meet their icon ,the autographing session was a special indeed yet for many fans did not know they required a special ticket to get an autograph or to meet him , which caused some confusion among fans who were egger to meet him.
Ticketed events were available on the day of the event to the first advance ticket holders in line at 9am.
All tickets were given away on a first come, first serve basis.
In order to receive a ticket for a ticketed event, you will need to have your 2007 badge or your confirmation print out with barcode.
Limit is one ticket, per person per event ,
people had to either pre -register or wait in line early in the morning to get the special ticket.
During the session while Stan was meeting & posing for pictures with numerous die hard fans one guy had a limited edition Spider Man electric guitar to have Stan autograph.
Video
AFRO SAMURAI Creator Takashi Okazaki "LIVE! "
At Booth #745 aka the FUNimation Booth: Fans came by to get an autograph from a multitude of different Voice Actors, Directors, and Creators of some of the hottest anime titles this year.
Coming all the way from Tokyo Japan were the Creator Takashi Okazaki,and Director Fuminori Kizaki of Afro Samurai.
