New York ComicCon
Last weekend, I was able to take the kids to their first convention - New York ComicCon at the Jacob Javits Center. While we were only able to attend for a few hours on Sunday, we really packed in the activities, and all came home tired, but happy.
First off, Sunday was Kids Day at the con. So, there were a lot of activities for the kids to check out. There's a partial list here, but I'll focus on only the ones in which we participated.
After stopping by my company's booth (First Second Books) and dropping off our coats, we headed for the autographing area, where Christina wanted to get her copy of Misako Rocks' DETECTIVE JERMAINE signed. Misako was very cool, and Christina went away with two signed books, and a big smile.
We stopped briefly at Lou Ferrigno's signing booth because Austin wanted to meet him. Unfortunately, though Austin had brought his own autograph book, Ferrigno would not sign anything except a poster or photo purchased from him at the event (at $25-30 each), and he was fairly rude about it. We walked away, and I was annoyed that a D-List celebrity would treat a little kid like that. As we left his booth, Austin said, at reasonable volume: "It's OK, Dad. Everyone knows Eric Bana is the real Hulk." I didn't look back to see if Ferrigno was turning green with anger or just greed, I love my son. :)
Off to one side, we noticed a poster of Chewbacca, and discovered that Peter Mayhew was doing an unannounced autographing a few tables away. We went over, and Austin came home not only with an autographed picture of Chewie, but a photo of him and Peter Mayhew for which the actor graciously offered to pose. The photo has since been duly framed, and shown off to all Austin's buddies at school.
Our next stop, beside some spur-of-the-moment stops to take pictures with various costumed characters, was the Kid's Day section. We just missed the beginning of a class on how to create your own cartoons (one of Austin's classmates was there, but we only found out the next day at school). Then, one of the New York Jedi offered to give Austin a one-on-one lesson in lightsabre techniques, with a "real" lightsabre.
The kids decided not to stay for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stageshow. On the way back to the main convention area, they spotted a table that intrigued them. The sign made mention that "Autographed Donut Magnets" were for sale there. Wandering over, we found that the table was the con table for Fat Momma, runner up in season one of Stan Lee's WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO reality show, which we had watched. Fat Momma, aka Nell Wilson, turned out to be a lovely woman, who seemed thrilled to be there and attracting an audience of kids.
As we left Fat Momma, Christina spied a table with Archie posters. She loves Archie comics, so we scooted over to get a poster. We discovered that two of the artists was at the table, and they autographed the poster for her. One young female artist even sketched Jughead in Christina's autograph book, then told Christina that a number of Archie artists would be taking turns at the Archie Comics' booth, and would all be happy to do sketches for her. Thus began THE GREAT ARCHIE BOOTH QUEST!
While heading for the area we believed the Archie Booth to be in, we stopped for more autographs. We met Tom Wilson II, of Ziggy fame, who was very gracious to the kids, and gave each a copy of his book about Ziggy, with an original personalized sketch on the title page. We have an autographed print signed by Tom Wilson Sr. in our house. It's a tribute he did to the rescue workers on 9/11. My brother was one of those rescue workers, and when I had my print autographed at BEA in 2002, Tom Wilson Sr. not only personalized it to my brother, but also gave me one. My brother truly appreciated that poster, and I had the pleasure of telling Tom II how much it meant to him. Tom said that this was the first time anyone directly involved in 9/11 had expressed appreciation for those prints, and that he appreciated being told.
Next, we met Anthony Forrer, whose great claim to fame is that he played the Stormtrooper whom Obi-Wan bamboozled with "These are not the 'droids you are looking for." Though he was also only signing pictures that he sold that day, he was gentleman enough to have available a number of trading cards with his character on them, that he autographed for the kids for free. He told us a few stories of being on the set of Episode IV, and about the scene that was cut from the film where his face is visible (trivia fans: he played Fixer in the deleted scene at Toshi Station shown below). Austin was, again, a very happy con-goer.
Click to viewOver the course of the rest of the afternoon, Christina managed to obtain autographs on her poster by nearly every current Archie Comics artist (including one from Jon D'Agostino, who has been working on Archie since I was a kid). She obtained original autographed sketches of Jughead, Archie, Betty and Veronica. We were about to head home when we realized she hadn't gotten Reggie. We hurried back to the booth as they were closing up, and Christina asked Jon D'Agostino if he would please do a Reggie sketch to complete her set. He said, "No one asks for sketches of Reggie because no one likes Reggie. Even I don't like Reggie. But you are going to get a Reggie." He then produced, not a sketch, but an actual detailed Reggie drawing for her. The man is quite a gentleman. The poster is awaiting framing, and the sketches have been shown to Christina's classmates and art teacher.
All in all, it was a very successful day. The kids met people who really excited them, and I got to introduce them briefly to a convention atmosphere. I hope to be able to bring them up to Lunacon or some other local con next year. I think they'd find it as much fun as I always have.
My thanks to my friend Gina Gagliano of First Second Books for arranging a professional pass for me, and letting me know about Kids' Day.