A hurricane of nerdery made landfall in New York City from October 14th to 16th, and Stack Exchange was in the thick of it. For readers who have not experienced the pop culture colossus that is New York City Comic Con, I’ll do my best to explain it. The con (colloquially referred to as NYCC) is where the past (yesterday’s coolest trinkets and treasures), present (big celebrities, writers and artists) and future (upcoming films, games and TV shows preview here) of a mess of genres and mediums (sci-fi, fantasy, horror and action comic books, novels, television shows, films and video games among other things) come together in a huge building to entertain over 100,000 people. It’s big, crowded and full of enough people in costume to populate a hundred Party Cities. Stack Exchange’s CHAOS team (which, full disclosure, I am a part of) made New York Comic Con its first foray into the epic world of comic conventions. And we came prepared.
Bubbles, the Stack Exchange mascot, has been spotted in the wild before (most notably on the video feed of a Stack Exchange podcast or two), but she made her big debut alongside thousands of people dressed as their favorite sci-fi/gaming/anime characters (and at least a hundred Matt Smith Doctors). For more about Bubbles big outing, and to see the awesome swag created just for New York Comic Con, check out this Blog Overflow post.
We were there on behalf of Stack Exchange in general, and the Gaming and Science Fiction & Fantasy sites in particular. Attendees who ran across some of the Stack Exchange agents received swag, some of which were exclusive to the con. Yep, the Sci-Fi site (currently still in Beta and sans design) debuted a design (possibly the design) at the con on two pieces of merch: a sticker and a t-shirt. These items were limited to the convention (note how they say “NYCC-SE-2011” on them, which stands for New York Comic Con – Stack Exchange) and are now totally gone. Limited editions are the best editions!
Overall we had a blast at the con and were successful in spreading the good word of the Stack. Our involvement in New York Comic Con was a test run for the future. We hope to go to as many gaming and sci-fi cons as we can, mostly because Bubbles loves to travel (even though we have to buy her three airplane seats) and also because I have to complete my run of Uncanny X-Men somehow.
Perhaps the title should read “Comic Con“?