A SHORT REPORT

So it's day 2 of the NY Comicon, and I survived the madness of the first day. The map provided to con-goers was not bad, but several of the people I wanted to see were not listed in its directory, a state of affairs that rather irked those people when we finally met up. The crowd was pretty dense, even for the first day, and today it will only be more concentrated. Many of the dealers in the huge exhibition area had apparently never heard of personal hygiene, and reeked like a blend of ass-crack and moldy old books dredged up from a dank basement. As for the expected costumed contingent, there were a couple of pretty good 300-style Spartans, and waaaaaaaaay too many STAR WARS-related characters, although black Princess Leia was very easy on the eyes.

The day's highlights: I found a bunch of hard-to-locate movies and old TV shows on DVD — the complete run of the Adam West BATMAN series on ten discs, from decent prints, for fifty bucks; Score! — and got to chat with Steve (NEXUS) Rude after his painting seminar (this will be covered in detail on Monday). My old pal Chris (THE TWELVE) Weston came in from England, and it was a blast to see him. I got to witness the utterly strange non-sequitor of former porn goddess Jenna Jameson on a panel with my dear friend/family member Amanda Conner (fear not, I got a photo of the two of them together). Later in the evening I ended up hanging out at a certain pub in the twenties with, among others, Garth (PREACHER, THE BOYS) Ennis and Glenn (SLAINE) Fabry, which explains the low-level hangover I'm currently experiencing, a condition I will shortly rectify with a big breakfast.

So I'm going back and diving once more into the fray, but we'll see how long I can take the crowd before I get claustrophobic.