Our 2018 New York Comic Con Adventure! Tons of Photos!

Adrienne and I are currently on the way back from our very first New York Comic Con, held at Manhattan's Javits Center. It wasn't our first rodeo: We've made the rounds to local events, and in April we took a day trip to the inaugural Empire State Comic Con.

To catch the following day's train in Syracuse, we left right after work. We spent the night at my brother and sister-in-law's house, roughly a two-hour drive. After chilling with them for a while, we got to bed shortly after 11:00, and we had to be up at 5:00. The wee hours were punctuated by my crying one year-old niece. You can probably tell it had been a rough night.

By the time the Mountain Dew and Coke kicked in, I arrived raring to go. (Note my Street Fighter V backpack. Can you believe I'm married?)

A few years back, Adrienne experienced the scope of the Javits Center at a hotel and restaurant convention. I'd heard the place was "really big," but I wasn't prepared for the sheer magnitude of what we would encounter at this, the granddaddy of all nerd conventions.

We figured it would be a safe bet to follow the Macho Man. Also, dig that Sega Genesis messenger bag (conveniently devoid of any copywritten logos)! I totally missed it at the time, too freaked out about being in an uncontrolled environment with all my gear.

Behold the Javits Center:

Here we are outside it, in perhaps the most poorly-composited photo of all time. You always take a chance when you ask a random person to snap your picture, and I consider us fortunate just to have gotten Adrienne's phone back!

As mentioned, we've got a photo-heavy entry with this one, so I hope your wi-fi is faster than it is on our five-hour Amtrak ride (six and a half hours after a Boston delay)! Of course, pictures will be accompanied by my celebrated witty commentary.

I have to admit, the first twenty minutes inside the building were among the most stressful of my life! The sea of geeks seemed to spell certain damage to my proton pack. However, the odds were on my side, as a bunch of stuff broke before we even arrived in NYC! (It was nothing insurmountable.) Despite being jostled about a little, the pack emerged unscathed. I told Adrienne the experience was a battle against OCD. It was so cool to walk the streets of New York, owning it as Ghostbusters. We got shout outs from just about everyone!

I'll get this out of the way right now: The standout cosplayer of the event for my money was none other than PAC-MAN himself! We kept seeing him, and we cracked up every time. But the real treat was hearing the only person in the world who didn't recognize PAC-MAN ask the guy who he was supposed to be! The inquiry was met with a warranted disbelief.

Dragonball Super was one of the hot properties at NYCC 2018.

Here's a rare image of my creepy, toothy grin. Looks like I could have gotten a free lanyard, had I noticed the sign.

This vendor had the Diamond Select Janine Melnitz Ghostbusters figure for sale. At $15, I couldn't resist, and in fact it was the only thing I bought at Comic Con. While at the table, a gentleman had a Ghostbusters story to share with me: He actually worked at Dana's apartment building while the film was being shot! The video is below.