NY Comic Con (What a difference a year makes)

WOW! It felt like I was at an out of town convention. I’m from New York, and even though the NYC Comic Con was at the Javitz Center in Manhattan, I just felt like I was an out of towner! That’s how much fun I had!

That’s me paraphrasing a statement I made last year around this time after the first ever NYC Comic Con burst into NYC with the force of a level 5 hurricane! This year however that same monster was narrowed down to a tropical storm as the strong winds had calmed down to a warm breeze. Now don’t get me wrong, the show brought in top talent and even increased in size, and for the public it was something else. But for the independent creator who scraped up enough cash to pay for a spot, print out some POD books and make the trek into the city that never sleeps, this show didn’t quite live up to its predecessor. It left me thinking, man, it’s amazing what a difference a year makes!

I remember glorifying the show, saying how this is what New York needed, a show of this magnitude. I remember anticipating the much bigger show with bigger stars and the reality is that sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. See the show was BIGGER, it did have BIGGER stars (Stan the MAN Lee, Steven King, etc), but what I didn’t expect was to be shoved upstairs like a stepchild on an upper level few knew was there. Granted top talent was also ushered upstairs and that drove crowds our way, but (and maybe I’m being a bit too critical) last year’s show was different. It was a mini San Diego Comic Con in the sense that neither big nor small, everyone on the floor had an equal opportunity to display their product and sell!

I spoke to a few independent publishers who were disappointed with some of the promises that were made and then broken. For example, “the rate will remain the same for all those that had a table last year”. That was a 100-dollar lie, although the show does promise to increase the dollar amount for each table. In one instance one publisher was given a spot on the floor only to be moved to another spot two weeks before the show. Was he given notice? Sure, he was told two weeks in advance, but lets think about this. For us small guys, advertising is very, very important! Getting the word out so that in a huge show like this we can be found is what we spend a lot of our money on.

With that being said, how do you tell an independent publishing company they have to move their table two weeks in advance when they have been advertising for months by spending hard earned money on flyers and cards as well as any other cost effective (but still costly) way to let everyone know where to find them on the floor. The 23rd – 25th was just another weekend in February in my book. Most of us barely made our money back, but next April, most of us will be back.

I heard The Comic Con is getting 80% of the Javitz…how about giving us just 5% and an even playing field. We will see what happens from now till then. Lets see how strong those April showers are when the NYC Comic Con returns. I know what you’re thinking…if you can’t afford it, then don’t do the show! But hey, we can’t afford to print, advertise, or even distribute (Diamond is another issue) our books, but we still do it! So the little guys will continue to knock on the doors that are barely opened to us but left wide open for the big guys. And we will continue to sneak in right behind them just to get a shot to display what the industry is sorely lacking: originality.