New York Comic-Con 2024 Recap

Hey there, gang! I hope everyone’s doing well.

So, another year, another New York Comic-Con. NYCC 2024 was, as expected, a blast. Four full days of nerdy nonsense. In fairness, I don’t know if it was a great as the previous couple years, but even still, the weekend served as a much-needed respite from the recent tedium of the weekly 9-5. No doubt, this was an immensely enjoyable mini vacation that gave me a great recharge. And thus, it’s my job to recap everything I did and saw at the convention.

So, as has been the standard for my blog posts lately, let’s not waste any more time on the intro and dive right in!

Thursday

I had a bright and early start to NYCC 2024. For Thursday, I had one objective: meet the cast members of Baldur’s Gate 3—which included Neil Newbon, Jennifer English, Devora Wilde, and Aliona Baranova—and get them to sign some stuff. I knew I wanted to get this all done early on Thursday, thus freeing up the rest of the weekend. To do that, I figured I needed to be at the convention center as soon as possible so I could get a good spot on the line.

Fortunately, my strategy paid off. Unfortunately, the cast wound up being quite late to the convention (by about an hour and a half). From what we fans in line could gather from social media, they had trouble getting there from their hotel with traffic and all. Luckily, I made some new friends during the wait (if you’re reading this, hi, new friends), which really helped pass the time, as we all shared nerdy stories and got to know each other.

Eventually, though, the group of stars arrived, and the wait was truly worth it. Meeting them all was a real treat. Neil Newbon even seemed to recognize me from our chance encounter at Gen Con earlier this year, which was also pretty neat. And, of course, they signed my stuff! This included their character cards from Magic: The Gathering’s set for Baldur’s Gate, along with my little mind flayer tadpole friend. His name is Tadpole Steve, and he came courtesy of my good friend, @ar.tbyliv.

Tadpole Steve and a few Magic: The Gathering cards, all signed.

Thursday otherwise consisted of loads of exploring the show floor and Artist Alley. My brother and I spotted plenty of booths with tons of great things to buy (as is always the case at Con), though I was thankfully able to hold off on any major purchases for the time being (there would be plenty of time for that on Sunday). After a fun day, we returned home to relax and unwind before another busy day on Friday.

Friday

Day one of cosplaying for the weekend! I brought back Last Stand Spider-Man on Friday, mainly because I knew there would be a big Spider-Verse meetup toward the end of the day. Before that, though, I had plenty of other opportunities to take Spidey photos with other cosplayers around the convention center. I also attended a very informative publishing panel, hosted by The Book Doctors, who offered some great insights and tips for moving forward with my novel (still in the works, don’t worry). I also attempted to catch Marvel’s Magic: The Gathering panel, but I was unfortunately too late for that one.

So, after killing some time, it was off to the Spider-Verse meetup! The goal here was to gather as many Spider-People as possible so we could break the record for the largest gathering of Spideys. I’m not sure if we broke that record, and I sadly don’t have any big group pics from the meetup, but from what I understand, we had 307 Spiders, which seems like plenty to me.

It was unreal. It was also a bit unruly, if I’m being honest. I mean, with that many people and one person hosting (shoutout to @thatshadyhaze) and trying to corral everyone for pictures and stuff, it got out of hand real quick. I suppose it’s to be expected; as I’ve now attended several Spidey meetups between two Cons, I’ve come to learn that Spider-Man fans and cosplayers can get a bit rowdy. Still, it was a fun time, even if there were some loud personalities to deal with.

While I couldn’t score any large group shots from the Spidey meetup, I was able to score plenty of pictures from this year’s Critical Role cosplay meetup. @katethegreatcosplays hosted yet another phenomenal gathering of Critters (Critical Role fanbase name). What a community this is. So many beautiful cosplays. So many friendly faces. Stuff like this—interacting with communities and meeting new people—is why I’m always so hyped for NYCC.

And already, NYCC and Critical Role themselves that the entire CR cast will be at NYCC 2025. I’ll get another shot at meeting the cast, and, more importantly, I think I’m finally going to put together a CR cosplay for next year. We’ll see what happens.

Anywho, to close out Friday, my brother and I decided to sit down and finally watch the last episode of The Grand Tour. If you haven’t watched that yet (or any of the show), please do yourself a favor and go check it out. Laughs were had. Tears were shed. The end of an era.

Saturday

Moving onto Saturday for cosplay day two. For the first time at NYCC, I did two different cosplays in a weekend. What a great choice that turned out to be.

For Saturday, two of my friends and I united for a group Fallout cosplay, specifically Fallout: New Vegas. Similar to the day prior with the Spider-Verse, we knew there would be a big Fallout cosplay meetup on Saturday, and with the incredible Fallout show having released earlier this year, it seemed only appropriate. I had also been dying to do a group cosplay with my friends, so this was a perfect opportunity.

My friends, Rob and Elena, and myself in our Fallout: New Vegas cosplays.

This one paid off in spades. I’m not afraid to say we were quite popular throughout the day. We largely spent Saturday walking around, exploring the floor, finding more cool stuff, and stopping every so often to let people take pictures because goddamn, we looked good. And the meetup only elevated the day even further.

Similar to the other meetups I attended over the weekend, this was a great chance to meet new friends and admire their amazing cosplays. Again, if you’re reading this, hello, new friends! @pros_and_cons_industries hosted this meetup, and they did a terrific job bringing us all together. You can find plenty more pictures from the event here on their website.

Aside from that, Saturday went off without a hitch. It was assuredly the best day of the weekend. Except for the part where my friends and I then went back home and watched Morbius. Big mistake in hindsight. We thought it’d be funny, but man oh man, that movie straight up sucks. It’s not even so bad that it’s good. It’s just bad. Oh well. Maybe Madame Web will make up for it, whenever we get around to watching that stinker.

Sunday

While Sunday is usually pretty tame in terms of things going on, we managed to keep ourselves entertained pretty much throughout the day. Between my brother and four of my friends, we had a solid group, and I was glad to see my pals having fun with their final day cosplays.

My Sunday highlight, without a doubt, was stumbling upon Stuart Sayger’s table in Artist Alley. If you don’t know who he is, I wouldn’t blame you. Back when the Bionicle comic was a thing, he was the artist for the Ignition arcs. I had no idea he would be there; the only reason his table stood out to me was because he had a giant banner featuring his Bionicle art.

Some of Stuart Sayger’s artwork from the Bionicle comic book.

So, of course, I stopped by, said hi, and purchased some prints. And thus, my task to not buy more artwork had failed. No regrets on this one, though. Meeting Stuart was a privilege; he was super friendly and seemed so invested in chatting about Bionicle and his work on the comics. He even had some copies of the comics for sale (not any of the ones I’m missing, sadly). Overall, though, this was a huge win for the day and the weekend as a whole.

Other than that, Sunday quickly fell victim to an overwhelming sense of melancholy. The end of a Con weekend is never a fun thing. But alas, all good things come to a close, as did NYCC 2024. With all said and done, I made it back to my brother’s place, packed up my stuff, and headed home. Sadly, I had to go back to work the next day, which I normally try to avoid, but I couldn’t make it happen this time. At the very least, I was happy to sleep in my own bed again. Silver linings, right?

The Post-Con Depression Quickly Followed

The post-Con depression hit hard the next day, but it was helped along thanks to all the wonderful memories I made over the weekend. I had plenty of photos to look through, which surprisingly ate up most of the day for me, between that and interacting with people on socials.

Speaking of socials, if you want to see more tidbits from my weekend at NYCC 2024, be sure to go check out my posts on Instagram! Otherwise, I think that about covers my Comic-Con weekend. As always, good times were had by all. Now, all that’s left to do is wait for the next one.

In the meantime, I need to keep prepping for NaNoWriMo next month, among other things. Also, is it not crazy that 2024 is almost over? Sheesh. Anyway, thank you all for reading! See you in the next one!