Mel's Travel blog: USA trip 2014

New York ComicCon (NYCC) 9th-12th October, 2014

I was lucky enough to have a free 4 day pass to ComicCon courtesy of some friends who had invited me to join them at their show. Apparently these passes sell out very fast and outside the gates, I saw scalpers trying to sell tickets at some outrageous price. I'm not great with large crowds so I didn't last very long on Thursday afternoon. Popped in to have a bit of a look around at the stores. I was looking for a Pop toy - Baby Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy... but the line was sooo long!

The autograph lines...

Fri 10th Oct - I popped by in the morning and wow... there were soooo many people around. Lines were a mile long... There were seriously more people in one place than I have seen in my whole life. Apparently 100,000 people in the whole premises which consisted of a few big feature rooms for panels, smaller rooms with other activities, a big hall with lines for celebrity autographs and a huge hall of stalls... Very overwhelming...

The good thing is that for the panels, if you show up early, you can have a wristband which will give you entry to the panel. So you collect your wristband and closer to the time of the panel, you return to the entry point. They limit the number of people in the rooms so no wristband, no entry. So I turned up early and collected wristbands for the panels I wanted to attend then I went back to my hotel for a bit of a nap... I was actually popping in and out of the convention centre all weekend because I didn't want to buy that much and the crowds were getting to me. I just wanted to see some of the panels.

The queue to go into a panel...

I really enjoy panels because the stars of various TV shows/movies give you insight into what goes on behind the scenes. Sometimes you learn personal information about the stars but I really enjoy when they tell stories of what happens on set whilst filming the show/movie. I enjoy when producers or editors talk about why certain content was included or character development during the series/movie. I find those kind of details fascinating... However, I find it creepy when in Q&A people ask questions like "oh you said on twitter that your dog is sick. Is your dog better?" It's a bit of a stalkerish/creepy question when you don't really know the person...

Anyway, I've condensed this post into some highlights from various panels I attended...

Elementary TV Show Panel

Lucy Liu, Jonny Lee Miller and Ophelia Lovibond are terribly thoughtful with answering questions...

Some reference to Sherlock Holmes' popularity with his leading ladies...

Lucy Liu

I'm such a big fan of Jonny Lee Miller. He was very funny and entertaining.

There was a random Robot Chicken panel I was watching on a TV screen whilst waiting to go into the Marvel Agents of Shield Panel. No photos were allowed in the Marvel panel because they were going to give new season spoilers so they had security guys walking up and down the aisles and a hint of a camera or recording device and they threatened to toss you out on your ass...

Robot Chicken panel. I know Seth Green and Matthew Senreich (creators) and Breckin Meyer (writer) and the girl is Clare Grant but I've never seen any of her work...

This year was special because it was the first time that the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast were all together (minus Wil Wheaton). They appear separately at lots of events but are never together like this. One of my childhood favourite shows was ST:TNG so it was soooo cool being able to attend the panel. Patrick Stewart was actually meant to be doing this panel but he made his apologies and offered three replacements...

Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar), Michael Dorn (Worf) and Marina Sirtis (Counsellor Troi)

Michael has a very very deep voice... His latest project is Ted 2 which was being filmed in NYC at the moment

Marina Sirtis... she's absolutely hilarous!!

I absolutely loved the Arrow panel too...

Stephen Amell - Green Arrow

Colin Donnell (Tommy Merlyn)... Ahhh I'm still so sad about Tommy...

These guys are hilarious! No wonder they had such good on screen chemistry...

2014 marked the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Karate Kid movie... wow... 1984... I remember watching it as a kid and it's still and oldie but a goodie and favourite of mine... This panel was a cast reunion...
The cast came into the panel with the phones videoing the crowd for social media purposes...
They look a little older but not 30 years older... I haven't really seen any of them except for Ralph Macchio in anything else...

Martin Kove (John Kreese), Ralph Macchio (Daniel Laruso), William 'Billy' Zabka (Johnny Lawrence)

Somebody in the audience offers to fight Ralph Macchio

Kreese "Mercy is for the weak... An enemy deserves no mercy..." and Martin Kove is still sporting the Cobra Kai t-shirts...

What's their anti-aging secret?

Forever Panel - this TV show premiered on New York TV a week ago. It's about a doctor/mortician who can't die. Every time he gets killed, he is reincarnated naked in water. He works with a New York city police detective to solve crimes and it gets complicated as he's hiding this massive secret...

Ioan Gruffudd

Alana De La Garza

One of my other favourite panels was the Person of Interest TV show panel...
Who knew Jim Caviezel could smile so much and was so chatty... he is definitely not like that in the show... but I suppose that's what makes a good actor...