NYCC officially opens its doors today, so hang on to your hats! Those who attended Retailer Day have already spent the entire day, and I’m one of them.
I’ve got some Retailer Day reports today, and I can tell you it’s been a long day. There were 11 to 6 non-stop presentations, a short break (I went outside to feel the wind in my hair), and then a Lunar Cocktail Party with another round of presentations, including the same people as in the morning.
Although I had to leave before the DC finale, I spoke with several retailers who definitely enjoyed an informative day dedicated to providing previews and other necessary information. Therefore, we have achieved solid success on this basis. As I have written many times when reporting on events like this, the atmosphere was very cheerful! That’s right, despite the diamond turmoil, economic uncertainty, tariffs, and everything else, people are optimistic about comics. They always are! And a flurry of announcements of upcoming projects from more than a dozen publishers shows the pipeline shows no signs of slowing down.
That night’s presentation was perhaps a little more star-studded, with Rob Liefeld, Garth Ennis, and Scott Snyder in attendance. Dynamite’s Nick Barucci appeared to praise Lunar and provide further reassurance about the future and importance of comic shops. Liefeld had his own moment in the sun with a long anecdote. Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane powered the daytime proceedings. As I said before, the founders of Image are all very charismatic.
Todd McFarlane talked about believing in yourself and staying the course. I have heard him speak on similar topics in the past and it was always said with conviction. It was definitely a fun hour, going into the audience with a live microphone and answering questions from various people. And yes, the Spawn movie is still in production. Spawn II is constantly in development.
But it was Lee who stole the show, delivering a heartfelt speech about the importance of retailers, storytelling, and human creativity. Everyone was talking about it for the rest of the day. Again, these are subjects we’ve heard before, but in these difficult times, they’re worth hearing again. And speak out against AI. “AI doesn’t dream, feel, or create art; it aggregates it” – this was the message we needed to hear from a senior executive at a major entertainment company at a public event. Honestly, that’s common knowledge, but these days it’s rare.
That being said, it was a very long day and I’ll probably have to pace my Retailer Day. People definitely would have liked more breaks to chat and feel the wind in their hair.
It’s a long way from the annual winners and losers column, but we already have entries.
Winner: Teamsters. To be honest, I snuck onto the show floor around noon, but it was such a mess that I couldn’t get far. I often sneak onto the SDCC show floor the day before preview night, and most of the infrastructure is up and running. That wasn’t the case at NYCC. It looked like a truck had backed up and unloaded several tons of crates a few minutes earlier.
And yet, when I left the house around 8 p.m., I looked down and saw order emerging from chaos.
As mentioned earlier, Preview Night is probably coming to NYCC. Preparing for that will require a great deal of effort, and Local 533 will be up to the task.
Something like this:
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