Musings from the God of Cities

brokeback fever, spring street c/e train station, feb 28, 2006.

big, fat nerds that we are, goldberg and i once again braved the elements to go to a comic book convention. specifically, the new york comic-con. what makes the new york comic-con better than your previous new york comic book conventions is that this one is a whole heckuva lot bigger than the rest, and it included much bigger names than any other cons they've had in the city. (and by "much bigger names" i mean "comic book writers and artists that about 99% of people reading this have never heard of, but that comic book nerds would give their copy of incredible hulk #181 to meet. people like comic scribe and harry goldenblatt look-alike brian michael bendis

when i saw him, i had approximately the same reaction as my mom would have if she ever saw oprah. but i bet that most of you bitches don't even know he brought back spider-woman from obscurity. like most everyone at the show, he was supernice and ultrafriendly. also, he's totally short. like, chloe dao-short. not that there's anything wrong with that.

but comic creators weren't the only big names there. also in attendance were

chun li


flaming carrot


kevin from sin city


a jedi knight [update: turns out the knight's name is rich zak, and he was there promoting nyjedi.com. -thanks, flynn!}


uhm... some other guy from star wars (anyone out there know who this is supposed to be? i'm a much bigger comic nerd than a star wars one.) [update: turns out he's a rebel fleet trooper.]


supergirl


unemployed skeletor, who, p.s., has a myspace profile. is this guy the new blackface jesus or what?


green lantern (though, i don't know which sector's) yes, the picture is kinda crap-ay, but i realy loved the fact that it's a chick who is so into g.l. that she even had a light-up ring. i had to give homegirl a shout-out.


black... african-american... khandaqian adam (teth adam to friends) posing with goldberg. he (black adam, not goldberg) was actually working at the con, promoting this website.

there were also some cosplayers whose outfits i didn't recognize like these folks

(though, of course, the dude on the left is venom... actually, it was just pointed out that venom is actually spiderman in his black symbiote costume. the people he's with are from the anime naruto. specifically, uchiha itachi of the leaf, and momochi zabuza of the mist. thanks, rich!)


i think these guys are supposed to be specific anime characters (again, anyone know who they're supposed to be? lemme know, wouldja?) [update: a reader wrote in:
Regarding the cosplayers you have pictures of in post "Take Me Out to
Comicon": I believe the ninjas with the silver forehead covers are all characters from "Naruto", this new cartoon on Adult Swim. It seems like the show is getting pretty popular; at the con I saw at least 20 attendees dressed as such. Also, in the picture with the four cosplayers in front of the stairs, the leftmost is from Naruto, no idea who those two in the middle are, but the one on the right I also saw at the con; she seemed to be going for Dante from "Devil May Cry", a video game for Playstation2.

thanks, dustin! good to know.

update part deux:

"Jiraya
Uchiha Sasuke(as a girl)
Uchiha Itachi in his younger outfit (pre ANBU and Akatsuki) The 3 i named are from Naruto, jiraya and itachi don't come in until after the Chuniin exams and the sasuke is just a girl cosplayer as a guy character. the one on the right i have no idea though"

thanks, jon! also, since y'all are being so generous with your information, can someone tell me how so many of you wind up on this page from a comicon.com page from february of this year? I'm not complaining in the slightest. i'm just curious is all]


i think this guy is from a video game


as are these chicks.


i kinda almost don't want to know who this dude is supposed to be... middle aged man-man? [update: turns out it's the flash villain trickster. thanks, brian!] but i do have to give him credit for putting a good amount of effort into his costume, which is more than i can say for some people


*ahem*

it must get hot in those costumes




the thing that tickled me the most about all of these cosplayers is that they all had a pose ready. whenever i asked them if i could take their picture, they all totally struck a pose that had clearly been practiced in the mirror over and over again until it was just right. shit, if you're gonna go through the trouble of making a costume, you're gonna wanna make sure you look right in it.

but folks in costumes are just one of the things i went to the con to see. i also wanted to check out all the awesome, awesome merchandise. (non-into-comics folks, y'all might as well leave now, 'cause this stuff coming up will be of much less interest to you than the costumes were)

...are they gone? ok, my fellow nerds, onward to cool merch!


awesome upcoming marvel figures like iceman, phoenix, cyclops and colossus


baron zemo, captain marvel, spiderwoman, like cage, and old-school iron-man


rogue, mandarin, 'house of m' wolverine, and iron man


young avengers figures(!!!) hulking and patriot


'age of apocalypse' sabretooth


and antman, sentry, ms. marvel, and shadowcat (with lockheed, no less)

there were also some marvel statues like

colossus


mojo

of course, there was merchandise from other companies like

this tarzan (i think) statue


lex luthor, red tornado, atom, and greren arrow paperweights


batman puppet


hellboy statue

and some more... shall we say, "out there" stuff like these figures





fafi girls


goring and hitler dolls

and my personal favorite

pink astronaut jesus, aka the king of wtf?ville

for a big ole comic nerd like me, the con was pretty outta sight, and could be best summed up by this dudes jacket


oops, i meant this chick's shirt



p.s. i know a lot of fellow comicnerds find their way to this page, and if any of y'all wanna hook a brotha up, please check out my ebay comic book auctions. i'm selling off chunks of my comic collection after almost 20 years of collecting. it kinda kills me, but i need the closet space and the money. every little bit helps...

Labels: comicon, comixxx

as i've mentioned countless times before, i spent a good deal of time up in taxachussets while the manpanion was working at an intership there last year. he was living in a pitstain of a town, where there was precious little to do or see. our most frequent diversion was checking out the kam man, local asian market. since i'm apparently half-raccoon, i'm always attracted to bright, shiny things, which kam man had in spades. these are a few of my favorites:


eggplant-shaped rubber husband.


gatsby hair color.


soy sauce dispensers.


kiara hair color.


naive ...hand cream? ...soap? i dunno.


scrubby cloths. or something. (anyone out there read whatever language this stuff is written in?)

and last but not least, my personal favorite:

lame markers!

my friend anton has to find a home for his cat, pumpkin. by this weekend. anyone want a cat? here's his (the cat's) friendster profile. i've never met the cat, but i have it on good authority that it is sweet and wonderful. please pass this along to anyone who might be interested. contact information is located in the friendster profile. try not to feel to bad that the cat has more friendsters than you do.




(pictures taken by pumpkin's daddy, anton.)

i walked around and snapped pictures, mostly. this is what i saw:


a fellow italian,


a tender kiss,


a small blue creature, too pooped to party,


woods in new york city,


and this handsome devil.

roach wieners, quincy, ma, winter 2005

hull, taxachusetts, winter, 2005

victoria's secret, midtown manhattan, nyc, 2005

today in nyc, it snowed like a motherleopard!


snowy trees, yorkville, nyc, february 2006


fruit stand, 86th street, manhattan, nyc february 2006


very snowy pup, yorkville, nyc, february 2006

in other news, i went to the brooklyn brewery this weekend.

punta cana, dominican republic, december, 2005.

north end, boston, winter 2005

today was my 30th birthday. i decided to celebrate that fact by doing something that would reinforce the sense of mortality that turning a milestone age tends to give a person. namely, i went to see the bodies exhibition down by my old stomping grounds down at the south street seaport. now, technically, there picture-taking wasn't allowed, but, as in times past, i threw caution to the wind dodged the security guards as best i could to take the pictures below. if you're not into looking at dead people (and a fetus), and/or bits and pieces of dead people, don't scroll down. if that is your cup of tea, though... enjoy!

nolita, new york, 2005

why is ev'rybody always pickin' on the astor place subway station?