Creatures Corner: NYCC Recap: Thursday, October 4th, 2018

Articles | Oct 23rd, 2018

Following up last year as a New York Comic Con press rookie, this year shaped up to be an even busier schedule full of interviews, panels and movie screenings.

First off I wanted to vent in regards to the new policy that New York Comic Con came up with for convention exclusives. Those with press passes were not allowed to enter into any of the lotteries for booth exclusives, autograph sessions or certain panels. Last year I was able to pick up some Funko Pops as well as a Lego convention exclusive while working the floor. This year because apparently I’m not considered a paying “fan” all of the exclusives were unavailable. Meanwhile those with vendor passes were free to purchase these items and immediately drop them off at their booths to sell for three times the price or more. Convention policy is cracking down on the wrong people as usual. Because of this policy, I decided to not to buy from any of the vendor booths and spent my money in artist alley instead. I guess I just wasn’t “fan” enough.

While I did have some things to do from the panel lotteries, these usually coincided with preordained interviews or press activities. First up was the “Lego DC Supervillains” game panel which I had to skip out on due to needing to be at the press lounge for prescreening tickets for the “Constantine: City of Demons” movie later in the evening.

At 3PM was the panel for “Constantine: City of Demons” immediately followed by roundtable interviews with the cast and crew. The panel was interesting and talked about exactly where this version of Constantine falls in the extended DC universe and how much fun it was for the cast to let loose with a movie that has a hard R rating. Unfortunately, there was no Matt Ryan present for the panel or the interview but I did get to talk to noted comic book and movie scribe J.M. DeMatteis as well as production designers and cast members.

After roaming back and forth most of the morning, I managed to walk the floor a little bit and make my way to artist alley. I wasn’t looking for autographs and posters as I was last year…this time I was in search of the CGC in order to get a couple of comic books graded. With Terry Moore attending the convention this year, it was the perfect opportunity to get CGC to witness a signing of my first printing of “Strangers in Paradise” #1 to be graded and sealed as well as send out my original copy of the Mirage “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” #4 comic. Much to my dismay, I had to go to two different booths separately for each book and wait in line for both, but I did manage to accomplish my task and get both books sent out for grading. The ETA on arrival is sometime in December so we’ll see how that goes.

The show floor was packed on Thursday more than I remember last year but this also brought about a lot more cool costumes on the cosplayers. I saw a sweet Swamp Thing with lots of shrubbery, a decent Daredevil and Elektra pairing, lots of Spider-Man costumes with a majority of them being the new Spider-Man suit from the PS4 game that was released shortly before the convention as well as a ton of Hela and MCU style costumes. Also, I was either completely oblivious to them or just didn’t happen by any Deadpool costumes for the entirety of Thursday. Friday made up for it though.

One of the areas that I always try to take a peek at is down in the lower level from the main press entrance or “Blue Crystal Palace” (?) entrance as it was called this year. DC usually has costumes, props and upcoming collectibles on display in large glass cases in this area. This year they were featuring “Aquaman” costumes as there was a Black Manta suit, an Atlantean soldier outfit as well as Mera’s costume. There was also a life-sized Lego Aquaman on display. Off to the side of the costumes DC and Funko were promoting the upcoming Amazon exclusive DC Primal Age figures which throw DC stallworths such as Batman, Wonder Woman and King Shark back to the past in a line that harkens back to the Masters of the Universe action figures but in a prehistoric setting. I have no idea why, but at least they look cool.

With my time at the con at a close for the day, my friends and I made our way to the AMC theater in Times Square to not only catch the pre-release screening of “Constantine: City of Demons” but to also check out the “Venom” movie on opening day.

Check out the Blu-ray review of “Constantine: City of Demons” here.

That’s a wrap for day 1.

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