NY Comic Con: Day 1

Awesome, awesome first day!!!

I must say things went much better then I was even expecting today. Things started off with Nasser, Kelsey, and I heading over to the IGN theater upon arrival for the Batman: Arkham City panel. It was an excellent panel, and even had Kevin Conroy (voice of Batman) to contribute to the fun. We got to see some fun and interesting questions asked by both the panelists and the fans, as well as some excellent live gameplay footage. Tuesday can't come soon enough for this game to come out. Very excited.

After the panel and getting lunch, we began to explore the booths and dealers areas themselves a little more, and WOW at the people we were able to meet and so easily too! First off, and most importantly in my opinion, I got to meet Joe Kelly. For those who don't know, this is basically the man that made Deadpool awesome, as well as crafted many other excellent stories for heroes like Spider-Man and Green Lantern. He was awesome to speak with, and he signed a copy of "I Kill Giants" for me as well. I might go back and see him tomorrow. I can't believe there wasn't a large line to see him or anything.

Walking around more, we got to see some decent cosplays, thought not many that I would call too memorable. That's not to say they were all bad, and I did still get some nice pictures; I was just expecting a bit more than what we got so far. I imagine we will see many better ones tomorrow, as Saturday is always the biggest turnout in general.

One more big surprise was walking over to the Marvel booth to see non other than Marvel's editor in chief, Joe Quesada. While I didn't have anything for the man to sign, the line for him was short enough so that within seconds I was shaking his hand. Just another one of those unexpected moments that's really cool to look back on. Again shocked at the short to near-nonexistent line.

After looking through lots of dealers booths, Kamen Rider and Sentai action figures, and a few graphic novels with great sale prices, we began to head near the artist section of the con. It was there at the Dark Horse booth that Kelsey and I got signed copies of Star Wars: Legacy War #5 for free by Jan Duursema. Once again, she was very nice and friendly; another person who very much loves their work, and it shows. I would read her stories just because of how great she was in person. Very happy we caught her.

After looking at Aspen comics variant covers (may get Haunted City #1 tomorrow, just because of how awesome the NYCC variant looked for that), we found the booth for Nintendo, who was featuring playable demos of some of their upcoming titles, like the new Kirby. Kelsey and I were fortunate to get to play a demo of the upcoming Zelda title, Zelda: Skyward Sword. There were three parts to the demo you could choose from: a flight stage, a dungeon, and a bossfight. I watched someone in front of me play the flight stage, which ended up being very interesting. While mounting a giant bird, you use the Wii remote to control the direction the bird flies in, while using other buttons to boost and attack. The boost was similar to that of controlling Epona, as instead of carrots on the bottom, you had small graphics of wings instead. The next person who was also in front of me to play, chose the dungeon stage. This portion of the demo showed off a very interesting new gadget that Link uses to solve puzzles with. With this device, you control a small, flying scarab, using the Wii remote to control the direction it flies in. In the demo, Link was trapped in a large room and had to use the device to hit a switch on the outside. It was a nice dynamic and I look forward to seeing how it is used in the rest of the game. But the best, most difficult, and most fascinating part of the demo was the bossfight with the "Demon Lord Ghirahim." I'd like to say I'm pretty well skilled at games such as this, so believe me when I say this fight was TOUGH, especially for a demo! He left little to no openings when coming at me. When the fight began and I tried to slash him with my sword, he immediately grabbed it between his fingers and threw me back. After figuring out the right way to attack him, he pulls out a sword of his own and this is where things got insane. He was capable of launching small red projectiles, which weren't really difficult to dodge, but he would then follow up by teleporting himself, usually right behind you. I later came to find that this was the only opportune moment to attack him. Otherwise, he would do this annoying dash attack that was surprisingly hard to dodge. I almost died at least two times while this character made me look like a novice, and even forced me to use a red potion (which was thankfully provided), as well as a fairy. According to Nasser, I was also drawing a large crowd that was going "UGH!" and "OOOH!" as they were watching. That made me feel a little better since I actually did come out the victor. I watched a few other people get very distraught by this battle and most around me did not win the fight. The Nintendo rep had said we were supposed to get tickets for free t-shirts after playing, but that they had run out for the day, so we were advised to come back tomorrow to get them. I will definitely do so, as the shirt looks bad-ass. That was one hell of an experience, and one hell of a bossfight for a demo. I came out very satisfied.

Finally, with a bit more time before we had to leave, we headed over to the Archie Comics booth. Here, I brought my copies of Sonic The Hedgehog #226-229 and Mega Man #1 to be signed by the writer, Ian Flynn. He seemed really appreciative of the compliments I gave him for rebooting the Sonic The Hedgehog series with the "Genesis" storyline. For those who don't know, the covers to these Sonic issues (with exception of the last) all represent the boxart images from Sonic, Sonic 2, and Sonic 3 for those who remember. The third issue even had the old Sega Genesis logo on the side like the game did. Really nice touches they made here, and Flynn was a blast to talk to.

The time just flew today and we had a lot of fun (and a LOT of pictures which I hope to get posted soon). If the rest of the weekend is half as awesome as today was, I see this being by far the best NY Comic Con yet! I'll be sure to keep you all posted!