I’ve been going to comic book conventions since I was old enough to latch onto someone who could drive. What I grew up calling a comic con, however, isn’t exactly what you think of today as a convention. The Wayne Comic Convention & Expo ran monthly in a nearby Sheraton off Route 46 in New Jersey, and it consisted mostly of scary looking comic dealers trying to pawn off overpriced copies of Robin #1 (with the fancy embossed cover). Every year, we made the pilgrimage to either Wizard World in Philly, which was a step up because Marvel would actually show up there, or the Manhattan Comic Con, which featured mostly wrestlers in the basement of St. Mark’s church.
So when it was announced that Reed was creating a comic book convention to rival San Diego’s legendary con, we were psyched. That was until we actually went in 2006 and realized that it encompassed only the basement of Javitz Center and there was barely room to breathe. That sucked. A year later, NYCC was back and a little bigger, but still not as impressive as it could be. Chuck Nasty and I decided to kill time and pretend we were journalists by interviewing the artists and crazies that attended the 2007 New York Comic Con. This was the result. Watch it in Vimeo if you are bummed out by the pixelation. HD was barely invented in 2007.
