Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: nycc

  • From ‘Velma’ to ‘Midnight Club:’ Hunter’s Top 5 NYCC Experiences

    From ‘Velma’ to ‘Midnight Club:’ Hunter’s Top 5 NYCC Experiences

    After months of anticipation, New York Comic-Con has come and gone. Four incredible, lovely, tiring days of being a professional nerd. If one were to tell my younger self he was attending events like NYCC as a member of the press, that little guy would explode with excitement. It’s an honor, and every moment spent sprinting around the convention center is one worth talking about. However, we have neither the time nor the patience to discuss every second, so I’ve narrowed it down to my top five experiences instead. Creating a list like this is difficult when so much of the weekend was such a good time, so don’t take it as a condemnation of anything that didn’t make the cut. It’s really just the highlight reel for a perfect game.

    5. Cosplayers

    I love other nerds, so getting to see and talk to them is always going to make the list. I’ve been to quite a few conventions in my day, and if I’m being honest, this year’s NYCC might have been one of the most impressive when it came to fan creativity and cosplay. Every day, the costumes roaming the show floor seemed to become more and more complicated. Many were striking enough to stop me in my tracks. There were giant functioning robot suits, perfect renderings of classic comic looks, hilarious combinations of characters that most would never think to put together, and even one or two people who defied gravity. I saw a man floating and I’m still not sure how he did it.

    The communal love we show each other at places like NYCC, as people with a common interest, is so inspiring. I found this to be especially true at the Marvel booth’s cosplay contest, where dozens upon dozens of folks dressed as every Marvel character a person could think of gathered to celebrate one another. There was no hostility or jealousy. Just a lot of compliments and happy reunions.

    4. The George Lucas Talk Show

    I’m a sucker for comedy and a lover of Star Wars. Therefore, showing up for a live recording of The George Lucas Talk Show at NYCC was a given. For those outside the know, this a satirical show in which comedian Connor Ratliff dresses up as Star Wars creator George Lucas and interviews real celebrities with deadpan delivery. It’s sort of a niche little corner of fandom to find yourself in, but if you like absurdist humor, it comes highly recommended.

    The George Lucas Talk Show records an episode at NYCC every year, using the event to secure top Star Wars talent as guests. This time, they managed to secure Mandalorian stuntmen Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, as well as Aphra comic writer Alyssa Wong and show regular Zach Cherry – who exists more in the world of Marvel than the galaxy far, far away. Belly laughs were aplenty, especially when Wayne admitted that Din Djarin is “never nude,” and the recording was a great little break from the chaos of the show floor.

    3. The Midnight Club

    I’ve loved Mike Flanagan’s work for years. He’s easily one of the best horror creatives currently shaping the genre. So, it was my great pleasure to see him and the entire cast of The Midnight Club take the stage at NYCC for the world premiere of his latest Netflix series. Watching horror with a crowd is so much fun, and the delightful Q&A that followed was even better. The cast and crew were brought onstage alongside a choir of mysterious, hooded, candle-carrying figures, with the lights dimmed all the way down. A theatrical touch I greatly appreciated.

    I was also there in person to see Flanagan and his team awarded the Guinness World Record for Most Jump Scares in an episode of television. Not only did it make for a great laugh, but now I’m able to check “watch someone receive a world record” off my bucket list. A little two-for-one special at one of the convention’s most underrated panels. Make sure you watch the show, it’s worth it!

    2. Velma

    My time at NYCC began with coverage for Velma, the upcoming animated adult comedy from The Office star Mindy Kaling. Before the Main Stage panel began, I had to opportunity to attend the project’s press room, which meant I was lucky enough to share space with Kaling herself as she answered a variety of questions from the journalists in the room. This was exciting in and of itself, but it was Kaling’s genuine kindness and clear joy that really made it so memorable. It was only my second time in a convention press room, and it was all so warm and welcoming.

    Of course, things only got better once the actual panel started. The casting announcements were a surprise for me, and I almost dropped out of my seat when Sam Richardson and Glenn Howerton’s faces appeared onstage. Those of us in attendance were also treated to a screening of the series’ first episode, which was wonderful from start to finish. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Velma going in, but it was definitely not a disappointment. Now, I consider it one of the best moments from the entirety of my time at Javits Center.

    1. Violent Night


    I never would have expected this going into the convention, but the World Premiere screening of Tommy Wirkola’s Violent Night was probably the most fun I had during all four days. Starring David Harbour as Santa Claus, the film sees jolly old Saint Nicholas mercilessly tearing through a group of trained hitmen on Christmas Eve. This isn’t the space for a review, but I can say witnessing that madness with the cast and crew sitting beside me, and a theater full of screaming fans, was an absolute blast. There’s something special about living through the magic that is a large group being insanely happy in unison.

    A member of the cast sat behind me during the showing, and hearing the hoots and hollers from his family during key moments was fulfilling and sustaining. Screaming, laughing, and cheering with all my fellow horror fans was a ride. Sitting in the first few rows, and being only feet from Harbour and John Leguizamo as they introduced the screening, was a very warm feeling. One of those experiences that reminds me why I’m doing what I do.

  • NYCC: Marvel Announces New ‘Daughter of Blade’ Comic

    NYCC: Marvel Announces New ‘Daughter of Blade’ Comic

    Marvel Comics announced a new Daughter of Blade comic during New York Comic Con on Saturday. The comic, titled Bloodline: Daughter of Blade, will hail from writer Danny Lore and artist Karen S. Darboe. The limited series will consist of five issues, with the first issue debuting in February 2023.

    Bloodline will focus on Blade’s daughter, Brielle Brooks, aka Bloodline, who made her Marvel Comics debut with Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/X-Men #1 earlier this year. This marks the first solo title for Blade’s daughter after the originally planned Blade: The Hunter was meant to introduce another take on Blade’s daughter with Fallon Grey. While that series was announced in 2015 with Tim Seeley and Logan Faerber on board the project, it was eventually cancelled.

    The cover for the first issue of Bloodline can be seen below.

    Brielle is a good kid, no matter what her teachers say—it’s not her fault she’s developing vampiric super powers and the undead want to brawl! And as if problems at school aren’t enough, Bri’s got a wild ride ahead of her… she’s about to discover she’s the daughter of the infamous vampire hunter and Daywalker known as Blade!

    Bloodline: Daughter of Blade will debut next year.

    Source: Marvel.

  • Funko Reveals ‘One Piece’ Funko of the Going Merry Heading to New York Comic-Con

    Funko Reveals ‘One Piece’ Funko of the Going Merry Heading to New York Comic-Con

    New York Comic-Con is just on the horizon and we’re slowly getting a few teases of what merchandise will be available for fans attending the event. Not only did we get our first look at Secret Invasion‘s Nick Fury due to their reveal, but it seems that One Piece fans are also getting something fun. As part of Funko’s Frightmare on Fun Street, there will be a new Funko POP! Ride that’ll feature Luffy on top of the Going Merry.

    Being teased as a “Super Deluxe” edition and limited for NYCC, this new Funko Pop will definitely be a must-buy for One Piece fans and collectors. It would be fun if they follow it up with a version of the Sunny or even the rest of the crew aboard the ship they initially joined the crew with.

    One Piece has currently seen quite a resurgence in popularity in the West. The franchise has sold more than Batman within 25 years mostly by dominating the Japanese and even French market; a reason the Red film has released there early while the rest of the world has to wait until October. There’s also the live-action adaptation that’s on the horizon which will add a potential boost to its popularity moving forward. So, it’s a perfect opportunity to bank on the franchise’s growing success by also giving them a bit more spotlight even during NYCC. Who knows if Netflix is also already preparing for a round of merchandise fo their own adaptation to accompany it once we get more news on the project.

    Source: Twitter

  • The Future of Fandom Conventions and Studio Promotion

    The Future of Fandom Conventions and Studio Promotion

    Much like how the pandemic has put the “neutral ground” of movie theaters in jeopardy in favor of streaming services closely tied to different studios, it’s accelerated a similar situation in how these studios announce and promote their upcoming projects. We all know the pandemic dramatically altered the 2020 pop culture con season. Most smaller cons this year were cancelled and for the biggies, the convention landscape will likely never look quite the same. That’s not to say events like SDCC, New York Comic Con, and CCXP will never be held in person again, but this year we saw a trend that was slowly rising in the convention world finally come to the forefront of the media that may take away some of the relevance and buzz of the traditional headliner events going forward.

     

    When it became clear that the behemoth conventions wouldn’t be able to move forward as usual, they shifted online. This could have provided a great opportunity to allow fans who wouldn’t be able to travel to these events in-person to get the experience of being part of a big moment in pop culture fandom, and it did…but that opportunity didn’t come from any of the big-name cons. Instead, Warner Bros. decided to forgo their planned Hall H mega-panel for the DC movies at SDCC and host their own fully-virtual event in the form of DC Fandome.

     

    DC Fandome was certainly not a perfectly run event; there were plenty of schedule changes – namely, the last-minute announcement of a switch from a one-day thing to a two-day one (with the second day taking place two weeks after the first) – and not every major panel was a slam-dunk (remember when most of the Shazam! Fury of the Gods panel consisted of a Sinbad casting joke which was so oddly executed that many people, myself included, believed it was a legitimate announcement even days later?). But despite a relatively short amount of time for the event to be put together, it managed to excite and please fans with a pretty cool virtual stage-like set-up and did its main job of getting hype in the media and eyeballs on DC’s new trailers and clips.

     

    That’s more than we can say for SDCC, which occurred a month earlier to smaller-scaled panels with little fanfare or NYCC in October which was even less of a blip on the media’s radar. What some fail to realize is that in the past couple of years both of these events have been overshadowed to an extent by CCXP, a Brazillian event which has grown to about twice the attendance size of SDCC and in some years has matched or surpassed it in major announcements and exclusives, like 2018’s Spider-Man: Far From Home footage from Sony shown to attendees or 2019’s Wonder Woman 1984 trailer drop panel with an extended version played for those in the audience from Warner Bros. (Compare that to SDCC, whose only truly memorable panel in the past few years was the Marvel Studios one in 2019.) So the notion of major studios like Warner Bros. and Disney waiting to drop their goodies until the December event wasn’t out of left field.

     

    But then CCXP 2020 happened, with only minor news from Sony, nothing from Disney, and, in a stunningly disappointing example of quantity over quality, a six-hour panel from Warner Bros. with very little new information or material of note coming out of it. What was quickly becoming one of the top events for fandom news sunk just like its peers in 2020.

     

    Just like with DC Fandome eclipsing SDCC At Home, the disappointment of CCXP was quickly forgotten about when Disney put on their second Investor Day. The first, which was held last year, was when the company confirmed projects such as the first Marvel Disney+ shows, but this time they took the event to the next level. Clearly taking inspiration from DC Fandome’s format, Disney pretaped the entire event and made it appear to be occurring on a virtual stage. They didn’t have as detailed a schedule laid out as Fandome, but they made sure the fans knew at around what time they could expect the goods (AKA, announcements and trailers). And they truly delivered on that front, with two-and-a-half out of the four hour event being taken up by an onslaught of reveals and clips (some of these were only shown to the investors the day was said to be for, but Disney knew enough fans would be watching to make a point to mention that there would be plenty in store for them as well, even encouraging them to watch the event on the biggest screen they had available).

     

    This may have been the second “Disney Investor Day”, but it turned out to be more like a hybrid of the spring 2019 Investor Day and a D23 Expo, Disney’s biannual event for news and celebrations covering their entire brand that would not have been held in 2020 regardless of the pandemic, but had its 2021 edition pushed back to 2022 because of it. Disney knew fans were eager for news, and took the opportunity to drop it at a time when they would have everyone’s full attention.

     

    That last sentiment is what entertainment companies have been increasingly trying to achieve as of late. For most studios, dropping major news at an event like SDCC or CCXP where a lot of their competitors also have presentations runs them the risk of potentially being overshadowed, so it only makes sense for them to try to grab the spotlight for themselves. Disney had already jumped on this well before the pandemic with their annual Star Wars Celebration and the aforementioned biannual D23 Expo. And now others are doing the same. When E3, the biggest event in video games, was cancelled for 2020, the gaming companies simply put on their own events (which has made some question E3’s future despite plans for a 2021 edition moving ahead). Instead of presenting at SDCC, Warner Bros. took the opportunity to make their DC announcements their way, and now the DC Fandome isn’t just a single event, but a place for DC fans to “gather” for events online like the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984 virtual red carpet. And surely there will be more to come in the future.

     

    So while online events have been the talk of 2020 (and it’s possible they may continue in some form given the success of Fandome and Investor Day) the real story is that the landscape of major conventions – whether in person or virtual – is becoming less about general geekdom and much more studio- and franchise-specific. SDCC and NYCC have been the places to go for star-studded affairs with breaking news in the fandom world, but their format is ideal for most fans but not most studios in all likelihood they will continue to decrease in buzz moving forward in favor of full weekends of Star Wars, DC, Disney, or whatever other companies decide to grab the spotlight for themselves. So short of a big Marvel Hall H panel every couple years or a trailer or two being premiered in Brazil, if you want to be in the room for the biggest announcements in Hollywood you’d be better off saving for D23 or whatever in person event Warner Bros. inevitably mounts in the next few years than a trip to San Diego.