Further Tambourinery and the New York Comic Con

First, a fresh batch of the dailies. I'm not sure if I've explained these, but basically before bed every night I draw a moleskine page of comics. Originally, these were daily life type comics, but at some point I got fed up with that (not my daily life, but the drawing of my daily life) and just started making stuff up. This picks up from last week's batch about tambourines and maracas.

AND now, New York Comic Con, which was this weekend. I got into New York on Friday night (two and a half hours later than the scheduled arrival time)(Mega BUS!), and I immediately met up with my friend Stephanie from Peace Corps days (hadn't seen each other in five years!)(hadn't seen each other since Turkmenistan!) and her husband Rick, and we had many drinks.

And then Saturday morning was rough. Thankfully, Stephanie and Rick got me fed and on the subway and into Manhattan. I wasn't quite sure where I was going, but then I saw this and knew I was on the right track.

I then saw a Power Ranger whom I followed to the Javits Center, where I was completely overwhelmed. Seriously, my mind might have been a little frazzled from the night before, but that place would frazzle the most unfrazzled of minds.

In no particular order:

The yelling booth:

I'm not really sure what the point of this was, but people were getting into this booth and screaming their lungs out. There was a meter on the outside. This kid hit one hundred on his third try.

Speed Dating:

No way! And it's being taped for television? My sweet lord. Word on the street was that a lot more men were interested in this than women, about six to one. I'm shocked... and very curious.

Me and a Storm Trooper:

Notice the footwear, no way I'm running away from this guy with those kicks on! But seriously, Storm Troopers or anyone else in a costume that involves a helmet have no periphery vision, so if you want to attack them come from the side!

Voltron Panel:

My friend Jacob Chabot is working on the first of series of Voltron graphic novels. This was the room where he had his panel about it. This was one of the smaller rooms at the venue.

North Hall:

Oh my God! Look at how big that room is! AND this is just like a twentieth or thirtieth or fortieth part of the show. This is a giant room that I actually had trouble finding. In this area there is a costume contest, some gaming, some cars, some sort of spinning top final four competition, and way down at the end is the autographing area, where the awesome Colleen Venable was signing books.

Darkwing Duck:

Darth Vader doing well with the ladies (but remember, no periphery vision, so I'm not sure he even knows they're there):

A car painted matte white and drawn on:

The Ghostbusters:

I actually saw this guy early Sunday morning in Jersey City out the window of the diner where I was eating the lumberjack pancakes and then again at the show:

The Batmobile with a Delorean in the background:

Boba Fett:

A Boba Fett lunchbox:

Chewbacca, Mini-Mario, and Princess Peach:

And Chris Giarusso drawing pictures and signing autographs (he's awesome):

Whew! And I don't think I even got the one percent of it. There was the giant new Black Eyed Peas video game which had groups of ten people or so on stage dancing to My Humps (heaven!), Lego sculptures, a bajillion toys, a Jedi club, video games, video games, video games, MTV was there (who knew they still existed?), video games, anime characters, silly hats, people who I thought might be in costume but maybe that's just the way they dress... and there were definitely some funky smells. I don't think those Storm Trooper costumes breathe well.

Thanks to Colleen, Tara, Joey, Candida, Shel, Chris, Jacob, Julia, Stephanie, Stephanie, Rick and Erich for making it an awesome weekend!