Contributed by collector and Overstreet Advisor Art Cloos
Photos by Alice Cloos

New York Comic Con was held on Thursday through Sunday, October 12-15, 2023, at the Javits center in midtown Manhattan. Dealers and buyers came from across the US and as far as Australia, including Harley Yee, Metropolis Comics, Bullet Proof Comics Inc., Dave & Adam’s Card World, Gary Platt Comics, High Grade Comics, Reece’s Rare Comics, Royal Collectibles, St. Mark’s Comics, The Comic Mint, Toy & Comic Heaven, Zap Comics, East Side Comics, Kristina’s Comics, Nerdy Girl Comics, Royal Collectibles, Toy & Comic Heaven, Very Gary Comics, and many more.

Comic art dealers were well represented by Albert Moy Original Art, Animation Art Emporium, Anthony’s Comic Books, Original Art, and Collectibles, Dan Gallo, Scott Eder Gallery, Romitaman Original Art, and others. Also some comic dealers offered original art as well.

Toys both vintage and modern were supplied by Larger Than Life Toys and Comics, Legends Comics and Games, Diamond Select Toys, KnoWhere Toys Comic & Games, Lost 4 Toys, Martian Toys, Tenacious Collective, Absolute Comics & Statues, Toy Tokyo, and many more.

Now that the pandemic is over major publishers have returned to NYCC, including Harper Collins, IDW, and Simon and Schuster. Auction houses set up at NYCC included Hake’s Auctions, ComicConnect, and ComicLink.

There were a lot of celebrity guests at the show. However the SAG-AFTRA restricted their members from participating in the promotion of struck work. Media guests were not able to talk about past, current, or upcoming projects. Instead, they were able to discuss their backgrounds in film and TV, their personal hobbies, and their work outside of their film and TV careers. Actors were allowed to appear together for photo ops and on panels as a cast.

NYCC’s media guests of honor were Chris Evans, Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Tom Hiddleston. Featured guests were Celiacalle, A.S. King, and Aaron Dismuke. In addition, the guest list included Aaron Dismuke, Adam McArthur, Ashley Johnson, Chukwudi Iwuji, Ron Perlman, Susan Sarandon, Zachary Levi, and many others. Autograph and photo sessions were held by most of the celebrities but the best way to get one was to buy a session in advance. In addition many of both the media and creator guests participated in panels of their own so getting your panel fix was not a problem but attendees had to be prepared to wait in a long line for some of them.

There was a strong turnout of creators including Al Milgrom, Agnes Garbowska, Adriano Di Benedetto, Adriãn Gutiérrez, Alex Lins, Alex Sauviuk, Anthony Del Col, Anthony Marques, Ariel Diaz, Arthur Adams, Bernard Chang, Brad Meltzer, Cat Staggs, Chris Claremont, Cliff Chian, Dan Parent, Daniel Sampere, David Finch, Erik Larsen, Frank Cho, Frank Miller, Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, Jim Shooter, Klaus Janson, Walt Simonson, Yanick Paquett, Brian Azzarello, and a whole lot more.

If panels are what you go to a con for, NYCC had a lot of them in so many different categories. Despite the actors strike there was plenty of film and TV news showcased in panels and beyond those there were many other panels from scholarly ones to conversational ones to panels just for kids. 

For professionals and educators NYCC offered passes for free on the first day of the show. This year, eligible New York State educators were able to receive CTLE credit for attending specified panels during NYCC Professional Day on the Thursday. Participants had to complete an evaluation form after each session, following instructions from NYPL’s Center for Educators and Schools staff. Certificates were emailed within two weeks of attendance to the participants. On Friday professionals in the retailer, library, and educator fields gave talks about how manga can be used in all aspects of the professional’s field. On Thursday and Friday, the Pop Culture Classroom worked to inspire a love of learning, increase literacy, celebrate diversity, and build community through the tools of popular culture, and the power of self-expression. It provided educators, librarians, and parents with free resources to unlock the academic and social-emotional learning potential that lies within the media that kids, teens, and adults already love. ReedPop also partnered with DC and Marvel to provide portfolio reviews by editors in the industry.

NYCC always has a tremendous turnout of cosplayers, and this year hosted guest cosplayers Hawkeye.Cosplay, Alicia Vela-Bailey, Babs Butcher, Frankly Built, J9 Lives, Laney Feni, Lauren Mary Kim, and many others. The con hosted a table in the River Pavilion for cosplayer meet and greets where fans of cosplay and pop culture could connect with their favorite cosplayers in person. In addition, NYCC created Cosplay Central with multiple cosplay groups selling material and offering a chance to join them and there was a changing room for them to use. There even was a Nathan’s hot dog stand there. One of the booths that was set up was run by Geeknasiom, offering virtual workouts, and promoting their podcasts. I spent some time in Cosplay Central and it was very cool to see a major show hosting cosplayers in this way.

NYCC and The EuroCosplay Championships and the Crown Championships of Cosplay Geico teamed up to run The Cosplay Central Crown Championships. It was held on the main stage on Saturday night, with the winner receiving a cash prize and a trip to C2E2 in 2024 where they will compete against winners selected at Florida Supercon, ECCC, and C2E2. The winner was Sarcasm Hime dressed as Queen from Snow Glass Apples.

NYCC offered a variety of exclusives from DC to Marvel to Funkos and LEGOs to the New York Yankees (Gerrit Cole anyone?). Some were free, others were not and many were limited in number. Crocs teamed up with Footlocker to sell Demon Slayer Crocs exclusive to the show.

Once again NYCC offered the Family HQ where free craft activities included pirate hat making, comic creation, and superhero masks. There was also a large number of panels for family fun and learning.

The Harvey Awards, named for writer and artist Harvey Kurtzman, named Chris Claremont, Walt Simonson, Louise Simonson, Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, and Bill Griffith to the Hall of Fame in the 35th annual awards ceremony which was held on Friday.

As we entered the show, we immediately noticed that the crowd was much bigger than it was in 2022, something dealers and I talked about. Walking the aisles took time but eventually I got to talking to longtime comic book dealer friends and most told me how pleased they were with sales. It is to be expected that there would be a good range on dealer’s walls of comics from the mid-1930s to the current hot books of today. With the rising interest in vintage DC there was a noticeable increase of those books on dealer walls. There was an especially large amount of original comic book art on display with some amazing pieces. But Allie and were looking for vintage comics this time and we both found them. There was pop culture inspired clothing, jewelry, posters, make up, candy, toys, games and more for sale and it was not easy to keep track of all of it.

As with every show, I met up with friends, like two former students Luis Guzman and Nurul Khuka. I nearly walked into Manny Maris whose roots in comic fandom go back to the earliest Phil Seuling shows in the early 1970s and who is a big time fanzine expert. Jesse Simon, grandson of Joe Simon, and I got to talk for a bit. At the Metropolis booth, Micah Spivik showed me the Doctor Strange Eye of Agamotto crafted by the official Marvel licensee East Continental Gems. On Friday the noted collector Dale Cendali and I met up at Harley Yee’s table, and my good buddy Frank Giella, the son of artist Joe Giella, was there. Dealer and friend Lauren Becker had an amazing framed Superman emblem from a George Reeves TV show costume with an autographed thank you card by Reeves.

In Artist Alley, Allie was very excited to meet Yanick Paquette who told her he was a big Wonder Woman fan. She bought his Wonder Woman Year One book, and he surprised her with a Wonder Woman sketch on the inside front cover. He said that in doing the book he wanted to include many details that were originated by George Pérez. She also met one of her favorite modern artists Lynne Yoshii whose art work Allie has followed since the start of Yoshi’s career. 

It’s hard to overstate the importance of this show both to the fans attending and the city of New York as a whole. According to Simpleview the con pre-pandemic annually brought in more than $100 million to the city in 2019 and CNBC reported the same for 2018. While the figures for 2023 are not yet available, it’s a sure bet that they will be at least that high and probably higher. There are many reasons for this. Beyond the show itself attendees paying for hotel accommodations, eating out at restaurants, going to a Broadway show, going to one of the many museums the city has, paying for transportation options and the fact that a lot of out of towners took time before or after the con to make a mini vacation to check out some of these New York City attractions all contribute to the city’s economy.

In addition to the Javits food booths located around the dealer floor, there was a food court on the lower level with a nice variety of food options, but attendees had to be prepared for long waits. Beyond the multiple food carts outside of the center, there is a vast amount of diners and restaurants in the area.

As Allie and I left NYCC for the last time in 2023 we were already talking about the next show.

New York Comic Con will return in 2024 on Thursday through Sunday, October 17-20 at The Jacob Javits Convention Center. Convention news and updates will be available at newyorkcomiccon.com. 

Check back next week to see more photos from New York Comic Con.