The 2022 New York Comic Con, "the East Coast's largest pop culture convention," took place this past weekend in the Javits Center. In the pre-pandemic years of the late 2010s, NYCC averaged about 200,000 attendees over the course of the long weekend. "NYCC 2022 was unmatched," the convention's Twitter account announced on Monday, "We had the biggest Show Floor yet."
This year's NYCC was the second that E. Lockhart (Family of Liars, Delacorte) attended. "Last year everyone was masked," Lockhart said, "and you had to show proof of vaccination. But more significantly maybe, DC and Marvel were not here--including their movies and their comics--and publishers like Random House and HarperCollins weren't, either. There was a different vibe." DC, Marvel and the large publishers certainly turned up this year. Several television, movie and comics projects were announced, and tens of panels featured authors and illustrators from both comics and traditional publishing.
Kylie Lee Baker, author of The Empress of Time (Inkyard Press), was a first-time NYCC panelist. "When I was told about this, it was weird to me that I would be doing a panel," she said. "Isn't Comic Con for real celebrities? What are authors like me doing here?" Despite being a little surprised by her invite ("Daniel Radcliffe is here, too! I'm probably not going be in the same green room as him, but it's cool to be in the same building."), Baker enjoyed her experience at NYCC. The panel "was a lot of authors whose books I knew of, but I hadn't actually met those authors in person. It was kind of like meeting Internet celebrities."
Author and illustrator panels covered topics like queer horror, writing advice, bringing witches back, crime fiction, YA graphic novels and so much more. And creators like Sara Alfageeh were able to sell their books as well as their personal artwork in Artist Alley. Alfageeh's Squire (written with Nadia Shammas, Quill Tree Books) won the 2022 young adult New England Book Award and, according to her, was flying off her table faster than her original art. While Alfageeh, who started going to conventions when she was 11, was chatting with Shelf, a reader came to her table dressed as one of her characters: "Seeing someone cosplaying from my book! That brings me right back to my roots." People were really excited to attend the convention this year, she said. "Honestly, the biggest change I saw was in the artists themselves. There's a real solidarity between everyone who is behind the table this year. We survived! You know? We made it." The community, Alfageeh said, was what always made her want to keep coming back. "Kim Jung Gi is this incredible illustrator who passed away just two days ago, and he was supposed to be tabling here. His table is still there, with his nameplate, and people have showered it in flowers and well wishes. That's why I'm an artist. It's not just because I get to do cool work and draw girls with swords--it's because I get to meet people who also want to see girls with swords." --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness
Sourcebook authors Vincent Tirado (Burn Down, Rise Up), Katrina Monroe (They Drown Our Daughters) and Kayla Cottingham (My Dearest Darkest) discussed "the rise of queer horror" with moderator Jonathan James, editor-in-chief of Daily Dead.
Chuck Wendig (Wanderers; Wayward), Naomi Novak (Scholomance series), Terry Brooks (Shannara series), Wesley Chu (The Art of Prophecy), Delilah S. Dawson (The Violence) and Peter V. Brett (The Demon Cycle) chatted about "the best advice they ever got" in a panel moderated by Tricia Narwani, editor-in-chief of Del Rey Books.
Moderator Lily Herman (second from the left) spoke with authors (l.-r.) Claudia Gray (The Murder of Mr. Wickham, Vintage), Jake Burt (The Ghoul of Windydown Vale, Feiwel & Friends), Dana Schwartz (Anatomy: A Love Story, Wednesday Books), Alex Segura (Secret Identity, Flatiron Books), Sweeney Boo (Over My Dead Body, HarperAlley) and Fabian Nicieza (The Self-Made Widow, Putnam) about "the appeal of crime fiction."
Graphic novel authors and illustrators (l.-r.) Tochi Onyebuchi (Captain America), Kami Garcia (Constantine; Teen Titans), Gabriel Picolo (Teen Titans), Alys Arden (Zatanna) and Isaac Goodhart (Constantine) discussed "the rise of graphic novels and how they're bringing new readers to comics."