While not as large as San Diego's con, the focus on comics at NYC is much more prevalent. Artist's Alley was jam packed, even on Sunday!
The highlight was definitely our acquisition of an Alex Ross original. Hell yes! Since we got it, a constant squee has been galloping through my head. Even writing about it, I have a silly grin on my face. Because not only is it an original Alex Ross painting, but it's from one of my favorite series, and one of my favorite covers from that series too.
I present to you, the cover of Astro City: Local Heroes #5!
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone flip past this puppy in a portfolio and as soon as they left, I hopped over. I knew we had to get it, when the guy behind the booth pointed it out to a prospective buyer and my heart skipped a fearful beat. So now we are in possession of this beautiful painting, and believe me, no photo or scan can do it justice. Ross is simply in a league of his own - I have never seen anything so precise and brilliantly rendered.
We also met Frank Beddor, who hosted a charismatic panel about his Through The Looking-Glass inspired world, that is, until the adjacent stage erupted in live song and drowned his voice. Vic and I needed to leave for another signing, but by signaling our departure, we kind of ended his panel too. We felt bad, but after showing at his booth to apologize, he was actually glad we stopped the panel early. He was a great guy, very funny, well spoken and utterly passionate about his characters and story. Oddly enough, he was the producer on There's Something About Mary - who would have thought he'd be such a fantasy geek!?
Get this: the guy who played the stormtrooper in Star Wars that repeats the "These are not the droids we're looking for" phrase was there. Yeah. He was old and needed money. But he was having a good time and took it all in stride, so we got his signature.
Cryptic was there and got us signed up for the Champions Online beta. There were demos and I really like the art direction of the game. The animations were super smooth and really how can anyone argue with using super powers to battle dinosaurs?
All in all, it was a fun weekend. Much more crowded than anticipated, but still a wonderful time. We met a lot of cool people and picked up lots of awesome artwork, which Vic should have up on gninjagnome eventually. I think the quality of art this year definitely surpassed last year's, and hopefully it continues that way!
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