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Nerdwatch 2012

I attended the New York Comic Con this year, and it was such a beautiful experience that it dragged me out of a depression that didn't seem to have a foreseeable end. I hung out with friends, met some of my heroes, sold some art, and bought some art...

I attended the New York Comic Con this year, and it was such a beautiful experience that it pulled me out of a depression that didn't seem to have a foreseeable end. I hung out with friends, met some of my heroes, took some photos, sold some art, bought some art, and went to the Designer Toy Awards. All the while, I was surrounded by people wearing costumes of fictional characters and some of the prettiest girls I've ever seen. The girls were also in costumes.

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Since I started covering this yearly event for VICE I’ve titled my dispatches "Nerdwatch." But that name doesn't totally apply anymore since nerd culture is now mainstream. This year the NYCC sold out months in advance. It was one of the best times I've ever had. I can't wait for next year.

Here's how I spent my time from Friday until Sunday.

FRIDAY

This was the only furry I saw. The girl staring at it hugged it twice.

Original Frank Frazetta art is so beautiful. I love it so much.

Cat Woman's dogs are barking.

Someone's Voltron costume discarded outside the bathroom. I bet when the owner put the costume back on he made the noises that the robots make while forming into Voltron before kicking some villain's in the head.

These two are just helping each other out. I really liked lurking outside the bathrooms to take photos.

When I was seven, a kid named Nectar convinced me that he owned a hover board that he had bought in Chinatown. I believed this lie for a year, and my younger brother still brings it up. I'm glad that Mattel finally produced one.

Sailors Moons.

This woman was part of some awful new franchise attempt where someone made a series of cute characters based on genitals. I really, really, really, really hated it and thought it was dumb and ugly. It's called Vagicons. There's also Scroticons. I don't know. I think genitals look kinda gross and I don't really like thinking about giant ones that can talk to me and have faces..

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I spent a lot of the New York Comic Con at the Mishka NYC booth. I drew this on the back of a fan's jacket.

This is my friend the Suck Lord. He was on some TV shows and he makes art about bootleg toys. Check out his fat wad.

This pretty lady played a theme song for some game or show or something over and over again on her see-through plastic violin. It was a very pretty song.

This is me and a woman dressed as the Little Mermaid. My confused look is because I was trying to guess where she kept her money and keys and whether she had shown up the con dressed like this. Also, most women who dress as cartoon characters have bodies that don't quite match the impossible proportions of fictional characters, but she definitely is way more built than the cartoon character. Ariel had a teeny waist, and her boobs matched her slight frame. This woman's body is ridiculous.

Any time a half naked girl was around all sorts of photographers would form a half circle around her with ther iPhones and 5Ds and iPads. I've never seen so many people taking photos with iPads as I have at NYCC. So fucking lame. The guy pointing at me thinks I am taking a picture of Ariel's butt. I'm taking a picture of you, asshole.

I met this lady Ewok. She didn't seem to know the name of the character she was dressed as. The ewok she is dressed as is Wicket Wystri Warrick.

I saw Neil Gaiman's Sandman surrounded by cuddly toys.

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I thought this woman's face was sort of unreal.

I like when redheads wear bright green. I have no idea what character she is, and when I asked her she told me the name of some character I'd never heard of it. I think she might have been there dressed as something her boyfriend made up.

Then me and the Mishka guys all went to the Mishka store to throw a party for a hat.

SATURDAY

This King Hippo costume is amazing. This guy is so fucking cool. This took a lot of balls to do, and he did it great.

I think she looks amazing. Her costume kind of looks like a female J'onn J'onzz, but I am guessing she's one of the Teen Titans or something. She looks so great though. The green skin with the blue gloves and the red hair and lips. I am more turned on by colors than anything else about girls I think.

Great Porco Rosso costume based on one of Miyazaki's greatest films.

This is the first person I've ever seen cosplay as Calvin. I noticed that there was a lot of cross-gender and cross-race costuming It was pretty cool. I know I sound like an asshole even pointing it out, but I've never seen so many black guys dressed as traditionally white characters. or girls dressed as non-sexualized versions of male characters. I don't think this was as common a few years back.

While strolling through Artist's Alley I met Toshio Maeda, the sixty-year old manga artist who is credited as the father of modern hentai and tentacle porn. He did the La Blue Girl and Legend of the Overfiend comics that the popular anime cartoons were based on. I was just blown away by how beautiful his lines and technique were. Yeah, these are sexy images, but the linework is sexier. I became fixated on the original of the girl eating a banana. I racked my brain for where I was going to get the money to buy it.

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I like pictures of people sitting on the floor in their costumes. I think it's funny. I guess she might be casual-teenage-girl Aquaman.

This guy is a male Poison Ivy.

When I got to Mishka's booth on Saturday, there was a crowd of people orbiting around it. They were having a lottery where people could win the right to buy a limited amount of NagNagNag dolls made by my friend Shigeru. Each doll cost $850. Can you imagine waiting in line to win the chance to pay $850 for a doll that might not even be your first choice of doll? Shigerus' Nag dolls are amazing and beautiful but it was kind of mind blowing.

Here's Shigeru with a lucky fan. Shigeru is the Asian guy grabbing the dick of a guy who just paid $850 for a fancy toy.

In order to make money to buy that painting of a lady eating a banana I drew custom sketchcards and sold them. i would draw any character that people requested but they would be miserable. I managed to make enough money pretty quickly and bought that painting. Hooray!

This is like some mixture of Elektra and Snooki.

This kinda blew my mind. Cute little high school girls dressed as Toki and Skwissgar from Metalocalype. Total mind blower.

Super7 bought the unproduced prototypes of action figres based on the Alien film from the 70s. They are finally mass-producing them for collectors. I am hoping that talking about it on VICE will make them want to give one to me. Here I am pretending to be an action figure. I would be so happy if I were an action figure.

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I thought maybe she was supposed to be Polaris from X Factor. When I tried to ask, I just started drooling and stamping my foot.

Captain America is thirsty. I spent an awful lot of time at this con outside the bathroom. What's wrong with me?

I met a lady Galactus.

There are a lot of Nazi-ish characters in anime but this guy is one of the zombie Nazis from Dead Snow. I asked him if he'd heard any negative responses to his costume, and when he answered I realized he was a black guy under the make up which made it way more layered.

Here's a Galactus who is down on his luck.

These guys actually dress like this all the time. They're just your average vampire club kids. I did the PLUR handshake with the girl on the left. I've been doing it a lot lately.

This kid had surgery on his leg last week but he didn't let it keep him from coming to NYCC shirtless and dressed like Darth Maul's brother. Imagine if the actual Savage Opress got around on a little cripple scooter.

This girl has giant, giant balls. She came dressed as a character from One Piece who drags around a humongous sack. The con was so crowded that at times you couldn't even move, and this girl is carrying around a giant sack that could fit like five of her inside it.

Look at how cute this lone Velma is, sitting amongst the garbage.

That's my friend Lamour Supreme on the left and his mentor, Pushead, on the right. Getting to meet Pushead was kind of a mind blower for me.

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Later that night Lamour Supreme won "Breakthrough Artist" at the Designer Toy Awards.  Hooray for Lamour!

SUNDAY 

I saw these nice goths picnicking on the lawn.

I met a man dressed as Mystique. "Manstique" would be a good deodorant for this guy to endorse and also try using.

This genius made a dress from her boyfriend's Magic cards. She also made a purse, earrings, and a necklace. This is like a really good Project Runway project. If she were on that show the judges might have made a comment on how the dress doesn't flatter her body or hang beautifully or something. I was impressed though.

Every year someone tries to make the giantest costume. This year it was probably this thing.

It's that muppet that goes "Yipyipyip Ahhuhhhhh!" People were in love with this.

Misty from Pokemon is one of the cutest and easiest costumes a girl can do. It combines red hair, little shorts, and suspenders, all of which I like. Being a dude pikachu is one of the most humiliating costumes ever.

Some super fan asked me to draw in his sketchbook. So I drew him with a bloody nose, and I spat all over it as I handed it back to him.

These are some $40 dinosaur toys that I did the package art for.

As we left on Sunday I ran into Black Link and thought, "This reality is pretty great."

A monster played Words With Friends.

This was my final photo at New York Comic Con. I thought it was a pretty good picture of comic culture as an emerging modern traditional. The picture is like a more fun, but possibly less dignified American Gothic. Devo said that it's time to give the past a slip and try new traditions, and I like how things are headed.

And that was my experience at the New York Comic Con this year. It was totally perfect. It made me happy when nothing else could. Thanks to everyone who bought my art or said nice things about my work.