Jacob K. Javits Center, October 8 - 10, 2010
There were a lot of bleary-eyed geeks all over the metro area today in the wake of New York Comic Con & Anime Fest, the largest East Coast pop culture convention. Over 75,000 people --many in costume -- attended the event last weekend which showcased over 500 different events over three days.
Couch Potato Cop even got off the couch to get his geek on and fought through the throngs at the annual sensory-overloaded pop culture potpouri.
Due to the tremendous turnout, it took some Con-goers 45 minutes just to enter the Javits. But few compained. Bags of swag [ free convention goodies ] go a long way towards putting people in a good mood.
Guest of honor was Stan Lee, creator of Spider-man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and nuerous other iconic characters. Lee was at the Con all 3 days, and signed hundreds of autographs for fans, some of whom waited in line for hours.
Here are some noteworthy highlights from the extravaganza:
ABC's space alien reboot of the V franchise will be returning in November. Star Morena Baccarin [Anna] and cast members conducted a Q&A panel discussion with fans and also screened new scenes from the upcoming season.
Spoiler alert: we're about to give away a big reveal from Season 2.
Original V diva queen Linda Badler makes a surprise turn as Anna's mother --and their relationship is toxic, to say the least. Anna keeps her mum locked away somewhere on the mothership for reasons that are still unclear, but we'll have to wait for Season 2.
Kudos to the cast for flying in from the West Coast and patiently signing free autographs for about 600 or so fans afterwards.
The cast of CW's Nikita also brought footage of future eps. Couch Potato Cop gave Nikita a lukewarm review when it premiered, and seeing the unaired scenes, I'll stand by my review.
But cast members Maggie Q, Lyndsy Fonseca and Shane West gamely answered viewers questions and signed promotional posters after the event.
Corey Feldman showed clips from his direct-to-video opus 'Lost Boys: the Thirst'. You may recall Felman played one of the original vampire-fighting Frog brothers in the '88 film 'Lost Boys'. But he and brother Alan Frog are the only players left from the original franchise.
The new sequel has the embattled Frog Brothers taking on an alpha vampire, who is looking to establish vampire broods of rave-going, club-hopping kids in major cities all over the world. Hey, I don't make up the plots, I just report. The movie was done on the super cheap, but there's enough creepy chills, gore and humor to satisfy most genre fans.
Couch Potato Cop also learned a fare amount about the character the Green Hornet, the star of a major motion picture with Seth Rogan set to unspool in January 2011. The Green Hornet is one of those super heroes way down the pecking order, maybe a notch above Diaper Man. Put it this way: if he showed up at a club in the Meat Packing district, the bouncers wouldn't let him in.
Still, I've always been a little fascinated with the Green Hornet, because here's a super hero that is driven around by a chauffeur. There's something....um, anti-heroic about having a man-servant.
Here's something: the Green Hornet was created by the same man who created the Lone Ranger. In the lineage, GH was Kemosabe's grandson. Bet you didn't know that.
On the Anime side, Japanese voice actress and singer Minori Chiabara made her first trip to New York and gave a free standing-room-only concert at the IGN Theater for thousands of high school and college age fans.
