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Academic Insights for the Thinking World

New York Comic Con

by Cassie, Publicity Assistant

I was lucky enough to be able to attend a day of New York Comic Con this year, and let me tell you, it was amazing! It was my first time attending a con like this, and I felt right at home among my fellow geeks. I got tons of free loot, and a few things I was happy to pay for. And panels! And heroes! And costumes! Here’s my (kind of late) recap.

When is it normal to see Stormtroopers in full armor wandering around? Why, at Comic Con, of course! Members of the 501st Legion were definitely in attendance this year, and I was so excited to see that I completely forgot to take any pictures.

Turns out that was kind of the theme of the day—my head was so busy looking this way and that that the camera rarely came out of the bag. As a result, I don’t really have awesome visuals to share, but I did get a picture of a guy drawing an amazing and huge piece of chalk art, and of course, the ghostbusters!

Even without pictures to remind me, Comic Con was an event I will never forget. Being in the book industry, my favorite part was, of course, getting to stop by all the different publishers’ booths and see what they have coming up. And get free loot, of course! Michael, another OUPer who went, and I each took home a pretty decent haul, along with a few purchases.

Publishing has a huge presence at Comic Con, and I know I missed a few booths, but one that I absolutely made sure to stop by was the Tor booth, because they have something coming out soon that I’ve been anticipating for YEARS: A Memory of Light, the last book in the Wheel of Time series. Still no official date, but I’m told that yes, it really will be coming in the Fall of this year.

The poor kids at the Bantam Dell booth spent most of their days telling people that yes, the next George R.R. Martin novel really is scheduled to come out this fall, yes, September is correct, yes, it will be arriving soon. And of course, that was the question I asked too. But hey, I got my answer! A Dance with Dragons will arrive in time for me to give it to my brother for Christmas.

Frank Beddor, the author of the awesome Looking Glass Wars series was on hand signing books. I was sorry I hadn’t brought my copy of the first book to get signed, but he and I had a great chat about the fact that I had just finished Seeing Redd on the Kindle, and he had no idea they were even available electronically! He was lovely and signed a poster for me and gave me a free cd of music inspired by the series, as Sunday was also my birthday. He told me he just sent off a manuscript to his editor, so the next book in the series should be coming soon.

The best of the loot I received, in my opinion, is a galley of the sixth book in the Ranger’s Apprentice series from the Penguin booth. Why, exactly, was this a great score? Well, I literally just picked up the first book in the series last week, and as soon as I had book six in hand, I went home and devoured the first one. Now, I’m off to the bookstore to pick up the other four books so I can get to my shiny prize. (Sidenote: Yes, the first one really was that good. I’m a sucker for good YA lit. Luckily I have a giftcard. Additional sidenote: I did go to the bookstore after I wrote that last night, and bought the next three books. I have devoured two of them already.)

Of course, there were tons of other publishers’ booths that I visited, and all sorts of comics, video games, and toy booths as well. But you can tell that I’m in the right industry—the books are what stick out in my mind.

For more complete roundups of Con events and activities, here are some links. Publishers Weekly has a nice recap, and their own blogger Barbara Vey was in attendance. Blog io9 has, of course, a great post about con costumes, and there are great roundups at the Tor blog and Suvudu, the Random House sci-fi/fantasy blog.

As a closing note, I wanted to share with you this brief line from the con guide book: “8 Hours of Sleep + 3 meals a Day + 1 Shower = A Happy and Healthy NYCC Atendee.”

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