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Things That Piqued My Interest at New York Comic Con 2013

Everyone seemed to think that this year's New York Comic Con was smaller and less spectacular than last year's main event. Although I agreed with this sentiment, I still had a great time.

It seems like everybody loves being in giant masses of people all of a sudden. Maybe the internet makes people so disconnected from each other, they decide to go to conventions to combat their loneliness, but who knows?

This past weekend I attended the New York Comic Con. Everyone seemed to think that this year's installment was smaller and less spectacular than last year's con, and although I agreed, I still had a great time. As usual I went into the con with little planning or ideas about what it would be. I took photos of things I thought were interesting and let the convention show me what it wanted to. Here's how that went.

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As I entered the Javitz Center, this recreation of South Park's main street was the first thing that bowled me over. Inside the buildings, they showed previews of the new South Park game.

These people made their chest armor out of straw hats that they spraypainted gold and wore as armor so they could look like poorly researched Egyptians. They were trying to promote a game they had invented called Mythix. Also, the guy on the left had mummy breath

This guy dressed as a different flamboyantly gay version of a videogame character every day. Here, he's dressed as a very sexy Sora from Kingdom Hearts.

I liked this Super Family.

These two were really excited that I recognized that the girl in the wheelchair was supposed to be Oracle, the role Batgirl took on after the Joker shot her in the spine. I asked her if she actually needed to be in the chair, and she said she was “broken,” which made me sad.

This guy came as Bag Man. (Bag Man was a character that Spiderman became after he lost his costume. He just grabbed stuff he could use as a costume.) I was really interested in the lazy costumes this year.

The best thing at the convention was seeing Arik Roper paint this giant piece of plywood for the Roebling wall. That's him the middle. He designed a cover for VICE several years back. To his right was Skinner, and the person on his left was Dima, or at least I think that was what he said. This was happening because of Sean from Cotton Candy Factory.

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Here's what the finished pieces looked like.

When I met these guys, I said, “So you're Steampunk Bane and you're regular Bane.” I resisted referring to the guy on the right as Black Bane, but then I noticed he was wearing a gold charm and a gold necklace. So he either dressed as Black Bane or was a black guy dressed as Italian Bane.

One vendor sold very realistic plastic BB guns. I asked if I could buy an orange plastic tip so I would be able to bring my gun into the club, but he told me I wasn't supposed to bring guns into nightclubs.

If a thing exists, at some point a lady will dress as a sexy version of it. This woman dressed as a sexy lady version of Khan from Star Trek II. She even brought a case full of mind control bugs.

These two came as the Belcher sisters from Bob's Burgers. A few Louises ran around, but I spotted fewer Tinas. The best part was that this Tina made her own book of “EROTIC FRIEND FICTION.” Inside the book she wrote fantasy stories about butt touching.

I headed over to the Mishka booth where the Sucklord made custom bootleg art toys.

I tried to photograph this former reality TV star and magazine cover model, but he didn't go for it.

Jerry Only signed autographs. The guy in the photo came up to me and demanded that I take his photo with “this guy.” I don't think he knew who Jerry was. When I asked him for his phone or camera, he told me to use mine. Then he asked me to type my email into his phone. Then he got mad and deleted it and made me do it again.

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Somebody bought this rare bootleg Ghost Rider toy that Mishka ripped off its toyline logo from.

Check out this incredible Skinner toy that Healeymade produced. I wanted it badly, but they were selling for $200 which was justified since they only produced ten.

Secret Walls also did great stuff at NYCC. (Secret Walls is a project created by two English guys who present art battles in which two or more artists have to do a giant painting with black paint or ink within a short time frame.) They got Frank Kozik to take part, which was a major get for them, but before the time was up, he painted his entire piece black. Frank Kozik is an awesome dick.

There were a handful of women dressed as Tank Girl, but this was the best and sexiest costume. She did a really good job on the missile bra costume that Tank Girl wore on the cover of “Tank Girl #1.” Here's a picture of me getting way too close and staring at them, because I thought I was invisible.

I looked through old horror movie posters, and I saw this one, which I took as an omen that my first day at Comic Con was done.

The next day, on the walk from the subway to the Javitz Center, I ran across this guy selling paintings he'd made of the Hulk on the toilet.

There was also this accordion playing street performer who wore a Boba Fett helmet.

The first thing I saw inside the convention center was this woman wearing a scary and uncomfortable looking robotic dog costume. She was there when I left at the end of the day too. How did she manage walking around like this for even a minute?

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Yes. This is a picture of Whoopi Goldberg and Joe Quesada casually having a chat. Whoopi is rad. I wondered what they were talking about. It looked important. I like her a lot. She was great in Star Trek and 30 Rock. I'm sure she was great in other stuff too. Joe was always really nice to me at conventions when I was a pre-teen.

Secret Walls ended up having me host one of their art battles, and it went so well that I hosted the rest of their art battles. I just made up a bunch of bullshit about how the artists were residents of a halfway house and that having them do art competitions in public was part of their art therapy, which would wean them back into civilized society. I also reminded people to wash their hands.

Here are the end results of the first Secret Walls battle I hosted. The guy on the left was my brother, Lamour Supreme, and the guy on the right was MAD. Lamour won by combining the three most popular things in comics into one painting: Zombie Batverine.

Here's a good BMO I saw.

Here's another good BMO.

I ran into a guy dressed as Walter White and called after him, “Mr. White! Mr. White!” He said, “Say my name.” I responded properly, so he gave me this bag of blue meth! I met two other Heisenbergs who also gave me blue meth, but their drugs were not in self-contained bags. One was a minty rock candy, and the other was Halls cough drops. I probably shouldn't have been eating candy from strangers who were dressed as murderous drug dealers.

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Check out She-Roofeeo.

The woman on the right was the most scantily clad lady I saw at the convention. There were a lot of half-naked women wandering around. There were some naked dudes, but that was less common.

Here's the most naked guy I ran into at the con. This naked computer science major was dressed as an anime character. I couldn't remember the long Japanese name of the anime character he dressed up as. He told me that the sandals were not part of the costume.

Here's another pretty girl in a masterfully constructed fantasy costume. I kept thinking of this line Remy Banks freestyled at SXSW this year: “Bitches throw roses like I'm Vega.

Here's Bob Camp, one of the main guys behind Ren & Stimpy, holding up one of the drawings he sold. Bob is a really nice guy. I went to his house for a vegan brunch a couple years back.

I also ran into my pal, Scott C., who drew us having a showdown in my copy of Famous Showdowns.

This Batman didn't work out the nose on his mask too well. He looks like Batgimp.

I met a Shredder who accomplished his mission of killing the Turtles.  Think about this guy sitting up late at night sculpting these things. I loved this.

These girls were all strangers who were dressed as characters from a web comic I had never heard about. They felt such an immediate closeness that they transformed into a cute human centipede.

Deadpool was surprised to see you.

While pretending to chop this guy, I yelled, “EAT KNIFE, PIG.

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I spent much of the final day of Comic Con doing custom sketch cards for people at the Mishka table. For ten dollars I drew whatever they wanted on a blank trading card.

Most of my customers were 14-year-old kids from the School of the Future in Murray Hill. They were sweet, skinny kids who just wanted me to draw them.

On the backs I drew their shadow selves.

I drew this guy as Beetlejuice.

I drew Pikachu with a beard.

This guy was the first person I saw cosplay as Jim Carrey's Riddler. He told me Carey was his favorite incarnation of the Riddler.

This guy made a Kingdom Hearts costume out of White Castle packaging. I love his creativity.

The final Secret Walls contest I hosted was between Jon Burgerman and Ron English. Jon wore the cardboard costume. Ron stood on the right. Jon wore that costume the entire time he painted.

Here was what the painting looked like. Halfway through the competition, Ron decided that he and Jon should switch canvases, turning it into a fully collaborative piece. I wasn't really sure how we were going to judge who won. Luckily, we didn't have to judge the contest, because right as I started the final countdown, Ron announced that he decided to throw in the towel because Jon was too good of an artist. What a nice guy. Kid Robot, the fancy toy company, gave me a whole mess of really pricy art toys as a gift for hosting these events.

Secret Walls put up one final canvas and invited their established art aquaintences to paint it. Here's what I did. New York Comic Con was a great time, but it was over, and I summed up my feelings in this very fast painting.

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This final photo I took sums up what New York Comic Con was like: a dinosaur attacking a hot Japanese girl dressed as a future cop. New York Comic Con was a beautiful thing. I hope to see it again next year.

@NicholasGazin

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