Adventures at the 2008 NYC Comic Con From Two Jersey Girls

Once upon a time (well, actually this past Saturday) in a galaxy far, far away (Jacob Javits Center on West 34^thStreet in NYC) two princess of the galactic empire (Christine and Katie of New Jersey) invaded the Imperial Fleet (Comic Con 2008) in search of distant planets (Free books and other swag) and other life forms (author signings)…. The question is, were they both successful?

It really all started with a question from Christine. “Do you want to go to Comic Con this Saturday?” I thought, sure why not? I am not a big comic book fan but I am always open to new things and the fact that YA author Melissa Marr was speaking on a panel and the possibility to finally meet Sherrilyn Kenyon was just too good to pass up. And as an extra bonus, there may be some hot guys walking around in tights, capes and codpieces.

We hopped on a bus into Manhattan and followed the people who wore costumes and other various articles of clothing I wouldn’t be caught dead in. And it is very telling when most of the men you see have swords a few feet long and didn’t mind showing everyone with glee. As we made our way to the convention, we were among the 11,000 people who showed up. There were all types of “life forms” there from regular people like Christine and myself who wore t-shirt and jeans to people who went all out like it was Halloween and they were walking in a parade.

Our real goal for going was to hear Melissa speak because Christine had just finished Wicked Lovely and I also was a huge fan of the book. Melissa was coming straight from RT and was a last minute replacement. We made it our mission to find out when and where she would be. We had our passes and maps by 2pm and quickly asked anyone who looked like they worked there what panel and what room Melissa would be in. Guess what? No one had a clue!! All we knew was that Melissa was speaking at 4pm. So we had two hours to kill and hoped to find out the answers we needed by then.

We sat down and made a plan. Christine really wanted to see Sherrilyn Kenyon, which would be Christine’s third time meeting her. I was interested also because I have heard a lot of rumors about Sherrilyn and I loved reading her historical romances under her other pen name, Kinley MacGregor. As we both looked through our brochures, we noticed that almost every major publishing house was in attendance! *INSERT A MAJOR WOOT HERE* With no other urging, we quickly went to the main floor where all the booths and tables were set up. You can only imagine what a madhouse it was! As we both walked around dazed by everything we saw, we found our way to Penguin’s table. They had a nice step up with fantasy and sci-fi books, especially Grimspace by Ann Aguirre. As Christine and I grabbed some postcards to put in our swag bag, there was a “Penguin” volunteer there. Christine noticed one of the postcards was of new author Anton Strout’s book- Dead To Me. And the Penguin guy was actually Anton! We chatted with him for a while and he is such a sweet and humble guy who has a contract for three books with Penguin. I was actually the first person to ever ask him for his autograph and so he signed my postcard and Christine’s. We had met out first author of the day! I even hit him up for a possible interview. *G*

Slowly but surely we made our way around till we ended up at the Harper Collins table. They would surely know about Melissa, right? WRONG. They had no clue if she would be there. But we didn’t give up hope, so instead we found Sherrilyn’s booth. Her helpers were some of the nicest people and even gave away a free copy of her 2005 book- Seize the Night for her to sign. We had to wait for Sherrilyn to come back to lunch, but when she did, we waited on line for her autograph. Sherrilyn took the time to talk to every single person who went up to her. And when the time came to meet her, she was all smiles and so sweet! She chatted with both of us and was simply a doll. And I do know, as well as some of you, the drama last year with the whole swan hat fiasco. Well, let me tell you, Sherrilyn is one author and a person in general I have great respect for and after meeting her I can say she deserves all the praise she can get. She is s very classy woman indeed.

It was almost four o’clock and Christine and I were still on our mission to find Melissa Marr. What if she didn’t show? Maybe RT was so good that she stayed in Pittsburgh? How could she leave all that booze, free books and major mantitty?? Never the less, we made our way to where the next panels were being held. We both attacked one of the volunteers to help us, and he scampered off to find any information he could about Melissa. Christine decided to take a look in some of the rooms; maybe she could locate Melissa herself. I stood there still waiting for our little friend to come back when suddenly I felt a presence on my right. I glanced over and see this guy in a suit. And I did a double take. It was Milo Ventimiglia who plays the role of Peter on the NBC show Heroes. We stood side by side watching the crowds and before I could say a word to him he slowly made his way back into a side room and that was that. Christine, who of course missed the whole exchange, came back. No Melissa. We came to the conclusion that Melissa did not come. I was ready to go to the panel on Zombie Survival 101 when our little helper came back. Melissa was there and told us what room we could find her in. We went off to the panel she was on and after the hour we both made our way up to her. Christine had her copy of Wicked Lovely for Melissa to sign, which she did. We all made some small talk when Melissa so kindly tells us to go back to the Harper Collins table and ask for a copy of Wicked Lovely in paperback and Ink Exchange in HC, which doesn’t come out for another 2 weeks! And back we went to Harper Collins and grabbed our books. We were very happy women.

Again we walked around and took some pictures of various people in their costumes, I told Christine a story I had with a friend a few days ago. I mentioned that I may find my own Superman at the convention and my friend told me to forget about Superman and go for Batman. Christine recommended I get a picture of myself with both. After she took the picture of me trying to decide which superhero to pick, we made a list of pros and cons about each superhero.

But I even went one step further. I glanced at both Superman and Batman’s… packages… their good old crotches to help me decide.

And I don’t know if you can see from the pictures, but Batman has a bigger one.

And we couldn’t leave out poor little Yoda. And you know what they say about the size of an alien’s… what the heck is Yoda… ears??

The funny thing is after those pictures were taken, a guy took a picture of the same thing we did! Umm... hello, dude? These pictures we took are for a reason!

Can you believe it was almost 7pm and we had one more panel to go to? The final panel of the night was just with one person by the name of Gail Simone. Gail Simone became the first female ongoing writer for the Wonder Woman comics after 60 years! And she is a redhead *G*. She talked about the future of Wonder Woman and fielded some questions from her fans, which were mainly men. I even had an interesting conversation with a guy wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt and metal bracelets that looked like to ones Wonder Woman use to wear.

And as Christine and I left, the former princesses now Queens of Comic Con, I have a new found respect for all those who support and work in the Comic Book/Magna industry. I came to the conclusion that everyone there is just like myself because of my love for the romance genre. And I may possibly know that feeling again if I decide to go to a certain convention come July.

Now if I can just get the Wonder Woman theme song out of my head!

So which superhero should I choose?

Katiebabs (KB)

Maybe I should become a Mrs. Ugly Doll? Isn't he a cutie?