It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Call me Ishmael.

Once upon a time…

It was a dark and stormy night…

It was my very first comic convention. I was excited, but exhausted. The train from Williamsburg arrived in Penn Station right on time at 1:50 a.m. I caught my very first NY taxi (not as easy as it looks in the movies) and headed to the Jane Hotel. When I arrived, the bar that was located in the bottom of the hotel was throwing people out, and the steps were full of drunken people in nice clothing complaining to everyone around. The three impressive looking bouncers were inadequate to clear the steps, so I had to punch a hole through the crowd with one arm and haul my baggage up behind me with the other.

Finally I made it into the hotel and up to the room to pass out until eight o’clock a.m. when it was time to get ready. I wore my shirt, emblazoned with the Therefore I Geek logo. (This is called “foreshadowing,” which means that I am providing a seemingly trivial detail that will reappear later.)

About an hour later, it was time to head to the convention venue, the Javits Center. I had some protein bars, a bottle of water, and some pretty high expectations stuffed into my backpack. The line to get into the convention center was not particularly long, and the guys who were scanning our badges to let us in were working very quickly, so we moved right along.

Once inside the center, there was so much to see and do! Too bad there were so many people blocking our way. We started out meeting some of Andrew’s friends and picking up some free, signed books. Cosplayers were everywhere! I was impressed at the sheer number of people who were willing to dress up. Perhaps more impressive than the really amazing costumes—of which there were many—were the number of not-quite-finished costumes that fans still wore with pride.

As we walked through the publisher’s booths, a woman noticed our shirts and commented on the reference to the therefore symbol. I got very excited, since not everyone sees the symbol in our logo and explained that we were the staff of a geek blog. She promptly showed us the book that the table was selling—a new translation of the story of the Book of Revelation presented in a graphic novel. She also introduced us to Mark Arey, who was the primary translator for the project. I had met my match in wordsmiths, clearly. We had an impassioned conversation about languages and their nuances, and I ended up buying the book.

After a few hours of checking out authors, books, and other booths, we decided to head to Artist Alley to see the creators of Atomic Robo. This was pretty high on my list of things to do, so I was excited. Brian Clevenger and Scott Wegener were both friendly and willing to have a conversation with us. We picked up a couple of books from their table and had the creators sign them.

Then we were off again, this time through the tables of Artist Alley. The aisles were lined with artists, from the very famous such as Chris Claremont and Frank Cho, to those who had never actually worked on a book, but were trying to get their names noticed.

In one of the more disappointing moments of the weekend, we stood on line to get autographs from Neil Degrasse Tyson, only to be told that the line had been cut off. After that, more running around was punctuated by a panel about “breaking into comics,” hosted by the editors from Dark Horse, Oni, Avatar, and Boom! comics.

Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end of the day. The next morning came way too fast, and I definitely started out the day with a shortage of energy. I picked up some new trades and a couple of graphic novels upstairs, and a really nice print of the cast of Firefly from Artist Alley. I looked high and low for a Beast figurine, but without any luck.

We wrapped up the day with a panel about protecting intellectual property, which contained a lot of valuable information. It was funny to see the height of the waiting queues shrink as the weekend progressed. On Friday, people stood in line and chatted with each other. By Saturday evening, about half of the line sat on the floor while they waited for the doors to open. On Sunday afternoon, every single person on line was sitting on the floor. Clearly there was not even enough energy in the collective to keep one human being upright.

While the competitor inside me cannot say that I “won” my first con, I did have a lot of fun and made a lot of great memories. However, I really cannot wait to do the whole thing over again—perhaps even in a different city.