New York Comic Con
9- 12 October 2014, New York Can the East Coast con topple San Diego?
In eight short years, New York Comic Con has gone from a show attracting 10,000 people to one that rivals – perhaps now dwarfs – its West Coast equivalent, San Diego Comic Con. This year’s NYCC was no exception: all the major comic companies were represented. DC featured a raft of big creators including their hot Batman team of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, the company’s Co- Publisher Jim Lee and their Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, as well as the head of the Vertigo imprint Shelly Bond. The company’s biggest announcement at the show was the unveiling of Wonder Woman ’ 77, a digital- first comic based on the Lynda Carter TV series from the same period. It also celebrated 75 years of Batman with a display that showed off the Dark Knight’s costumes from the past eight decades.
DC’s rival Marvel was also in attendance, with creator Brian Bendis, the company’s Chief Creative Officer Chris Claremont and many more celebrating the 75th anniversary of the House of Ideas. The company also announced the launch of new Star Wars book Star Wars Kanan, written by Greg Weisman and drawn by Pepe Larraz, set between The Clone Wars and Rebels.
Other publishers like IDW, Image and Dark Horse were very prominent, with IDW launching their Manhunter Artists Edition with artist Walt Simonson and Image continuing to enjoy the cross- media success of The Walking Dead. The show’s Artists Alley also featured a host of big names including Adam Hughes ( Wonder Woman), Rafael Albuquerque ( American Vampire), Andrew Robinson ( The Fifth Beatle) and Declan Shalvey ( Moon Knight).
NYCC tends to be more TV- centric than its San Diego cousin, so genre television was well represented with the cast and crew of Warner Bros’ Gotham and Constantine in attendance, as well as Syfy launching its new 12 Monkeys series based on the movie of the same name. Arrow’s Stephen Amell was at the show as were some of the cast of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. Film wasn’t left out: Weta Workshop was in attendance, bringing a giant Smaug as well as workshop head Richard Taylor.
This four- day show has grown from a small acorn to an oak with numbers that reportedly exceeded those of SDCC this year. If you love comics and genre, whether that’s TV, film, print or games, then New York Comic Con has something that will appeal to you. And you never know who’s going to be hiding under that Spider- Man mask… www.newyorkcomiccon.com