October 6th to the 9th was New York Comic Con. I was able to represent Coffee With Kenobi as press. There was not as much of an official Star Wars presence as there was at last years NYCC but it wasn’t completely barren this time around. The Hasbro panel had plenty of news for new Rogue One toys and the Star Wars Authors Roundtable was a fun and engrossing conversation about all things writing and Star Wars. Let’s dig in shall we?
My journey started after work on Wednesday night. I took the train down from Boston to NYC where I met up with my hotel roommates for the weekend; Riley and Bethany Blanton from the Star Wars Report and William Devereux from the Ion Cannon! They had all arrived earlier in the day and we headed to our hotel to prepare for the first day of the Con. Thursday morning we were awoken to a great surprise, our fifth roommate Aaron Goins of Star Wars Bookworms! With everyone collected we headed over to the convention center. All that was on the schedule for Thursday was the Hasbro Star Wars panel as well as my interview that you can hear on the next episode of Coffee With Kenobi. The panel had a lot of cool highlights announcing new 6″ Black Series figures as well as new 3.75″ figures as well. Chirrut Imwe, Baze Malbus, Director Krennic, and Darth Vader will all be getting new Black Series figures. I was lucky enough to interview some of the fine folks from Hasbro at an off site press event and talk with them about their decision process on character choices as well as how the next generation of fans continues to grow.
Besides the Hasbro event, the main attraction for Star Wars fans would be the Del Rey books booth. The booth was located in the main floor area around the other major publishing houses. The most eye-catching thing about the booth was the new Catalyst (pre-order here) and Thrawn (pre-order here) book cover banners behind the table. The folks over at Del Rey are some of the nicest, coolest, and just overall amazing people in Star Wars fandom. Using the booth as “home base” is always one of the highlights of these big-time cons.
Over the course of the weekend the booth was graced with the presence of numerous authors that took part in signings multiple times per day. The signings included Chuck Wendig, Timothy Zahn, John Jackson Miller, Christie Golden, and James Luceno. In addition to giving away signed posters, it was really cool to see the unique items con-goers brought to be signed. Plenty of classic copies of the Thrawn trilogy.
On Friday over at BookCon (a block away from the convention center) the Star Wars Authors Roundtable took place. Hosted by Jen Heddle the panel featured, Wendig, Zahn, Luceno, E.K. Johnston, Charles Soule and surprise guest Kieron Gillen. It was a really fun panel that was less of a press conference and more of a conversation discussing what Star Wars means to them, how its different writing Star Wars stories compared to original work or other franchises, and even what their toughest characters are to write. You can see full video of the panel here.
Also taking place on Friday over at the Topps booth was my roommates Riley and Bethany hosting a live podcast right on the show floor! I was lucky enough to be featured on the show talking about the Hasbro panel and Rogue Friday. The other guests featured on the show were William Devereux, Mark Von Ohlen from Topps, Steele Saunders from the Steele Wars podcast, Chris Seekel and Dominic Jones from Star Wars Underworld and Aaron Goins and Bria LaVorgna from Tosche Station.
Over the course of the weekend I got to see plenty of other awesome Star Wars things including cosplay, art, and even fashion pieces. It’s always a struggle to put a lock on your wallet when it comes to conventions like this. (I loosened the vice-grip for a certain few beverages.) Besides Star Wars things I did go to a few other panels including Wonder Woman 75 and DC Rebirth: What’s Next? It’s always nice to be able to indulge in other medias and fandoms.
I constantly say that the best part of conventions like NYCC, SDCC, and Celebration lies in the friends you see and the new ones you make. Being able to be around and hang out with people who you otherwise only see online on a regular basis is extremely gratifying. You truly do form a family with these friends. I’m already counting down the days until Celebration Orlando to reunite with everyone that was at NYCC and, even better, with everyone that wasn’t!
Have you ever been to NYCC or am looking forward to Celebration? You can leave your comments below or email in at mikea@coffeewithkenobi.com.
As always, This is the Podcast You’re Looking For!
Powered by Sidelines
