I’ve been meaning to give y’all a little recap of my New York Comic Con experience that occured a couple weeks back. Well, better late than never, right? That’s right, I was on hand at this year’s New York Comic Con. More precisely, I was part of the anime fest artist alley. The anime fest artist alley was in a smaller room away from the main exhibitor hall, and going into the show I was pretty apprehensive about this, fearing it would be too easy for people to miss it. As it turns out, there was an enormous sign pointing in our direction, so I was feeling a lot more at ease from the get-go.
Again, I signed up for the anime room because the main comic con room was already booked. It seemed like a lesser fit, but the weekend turned out pretty alright! I’m thinking the fact that I was the only non anime entity in that room probably worked in my favor, especially in a building teeming with regular comics fans. So let that be a lesson to all you kids out there– If you’re stuck in a less than ideal situation, kick it in the face and see what happens. (Have I mentioned yet that I was stuck in the back corner of the room?)
So yeah, I guess it went pretty well. The building was, after all, a ridiculous pulsating sea of humanity– by far the biggest spectacle I’ve ever been a part of. A little elbow grease in a room packed with that many patrons can go a long way. And what a peculiar bunch of patrons it was (I mean that in a nice way, of course). The anime room didn’t get a lot of the gung-ho fanboys that typically populate a big time convention (though I’m sure there were plenty of them upstairs in the main hall). So the crowd that I was left with was primarily a bunch of sweetheart young women as well as some of the most genuine dudes I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with at a convention. What is up with that? They were all so nice that I ultimately started giving each person who purchased a book some one-on-one Neil Jam time behind the table while I personalized the books for them. This particular table layout in the room allowed for such a practice, so I figured “why not?” It was pretty fun to get to talk to everyone like that– A Neil Jam convention first!
Thanks to everyone who stopped by and humored me. And shout out to my brother for being the ultimate facilitator (and for taking the pictures). The rest of the pics are up on the newly minted Neil Jam facebook page, so give that a look if you’re so inclined. Thanks again, y’all.
