Herein I Give You a History of New York Comic Con

Its the history as I see it. Its the history as you love it.

The first NYCC isn't really even comparable. The show was limited to a single hall, with exhibitors lining the central area and artist alley encircling them. You didn't even have the dignity of choosing not to dry-hump the cosplayers. It happened and there was nothing you could do about it. If you were talking with Colleen Doran while she was awesomely sketching a bust of Morpheus in your book, and you tried to get over to talk with Peter David, you were gonna get real personal with an Earth X Wolverine (who is not the best at what he does, and doesn't shampoo well).

'07 was for me the best so far. Crowd size had grown by almost 60%, but Reed suddenly had 2/3 of Javits. Loads of fun, tons of room, no con crud. I know Artist Alley was relegated to a sort of backwater that year, something which got repeated this year, but that is both good and bad. I like to talk to people about their work, about my work, about the need for free floating jello cups. Possibly free floating Jello shots!

Interveeners '08 and '09 were steadily sweatier, rotundier variations. '08 was a lovely spring con, but that meant it was hotter than many people reasonably plan for when packing for New York, and instead of bringing an extra t-shirt instead of the thermal they just bring an extra 100 count box of comics for Bendis to sign.

96K this year? Largest year over year (well, logistically speaking anyway it was 20 months) increase, quite possibly tipping 100k. I've vowed to stop the three day pedestrian excursions once it tips 100K. Next year I might be looking at a Friday only dash into Artist Alley, a single joint through Sensory Assault Land, and the Weepy World of Empty Party Dance-card.