The New York Comic Con has always paled in comparison to the much larger, but unrelated San Diego Comic-Con, as we can attest to from attending last year's small-ish show. But the Twitter buzz started building early for this year's event, and we got reports of lines hundreds of people deep just to pick up passes and tickets on Friday and Saturday.
The key to the show's newfound success is in its very liberal definition of a comic gathering. If anything, most of the floorspace was devoted to video games, television, movies, and other pop culture ephemera, although there were certainly plenty of aisles full of vintage comics and an entire room devoted to artist meet-and-greets (plus the usual gang of autograph-hawking celebs, from Lou Ferrigno to wrestler Jerry Lawler).
The biggest attraction for most gawkers is definitely the cavalcade of costumed characters. While New Yorkers are used to seeing crazy attire on the street, this collection of superheroes, game characters, and weird mash-ups is eye-opening, even for a town with Times Square's iconic Naked Cowboy. The most notable trend in this area was definitely the large number of costumed babies and toddlers -- at least a few of whom didn't look especially thrilled by their creative outfits.
Click through the photo tour above to enjoy the insanity of the New York Comic Con from the relative safe and normal confines of your laptop screen.
Bonus: Check out these flashback pics from last year's New York Comic Con:
