The Best Costumes, Celebrities, and Pointless Merchandise from New York Comic Con

This past weekend, photographer Nadia and I attended New York Comic Con in order to see people dressed up in wonderfully nerdy outfits and to find a signed No Doubt snare drum. We were successful on both accounts.

This was our second straight NYCC, and I’m still exhausted from last year. Tens of thousands of Batmans and Doctors and Totoros cram into the Javits Center to try out new video games, thumb through rare comics, and meet their favorite graphic novelists. Being a TV blog and all, Warming Glow ignored Issue #187 of The Amazing Spider-Man, and instead paid more attention to the people dressed as Sookie Stackhouse.

What follows on the next few pages are pictures of our favorite costumes, the celebrities who were signing autographs (only $100 for Mark Hamill, who proved visually elusive), and the random pieces of nostalgia you can only get at New York Comic Con. (Or the Internet.)

Also: corgis.

My Ten Favorite Costumes

I’ve been watching “The Muppet Show” through Netflix in anticipation of the movie, and I picked up on something that I didn’t as a child: Kermit’s a total dick. He makes the other Muppets work for little-to-no money, and whenever anyone disagrees with him, he threatens to fire them. This Swedish Chef costume is pretty great, but it would have been even better if he had a green frog in his whisk, as revenge for all the shi*t Kermit’s put them through. Guy has it coming.

The Tick and Arthur, the Bulging Bunny.

There was a surprising lack of “Game of Thrones” costumes. We only saw this girl, dressed up as Arya, complete with direwolf, and two other women made up to look like Sansa and Cersei. No headless Neds, no jolly Roberts, no children done up as Tyrions, nothing.

I’ve probably seen every episode of “Darkwing Duck,” but it’s been at least a decade since I’ve last watched one. So I had no memory of who the two characters on either side of DW were until I looked it up later: they’re Megavolt (real name: Elmo Sputterspark) and Morgana McCawber. Sadly, I saw no “DuckTales” or “TaleSpin” cosplayers.

Never too soon.

After Nadia took this photo, Pedobear came up to her and started creeping and licking his paws. He would do the same the next time we saw him, on Sunday, but with a five-year-old child. I don’t think the kid’s parents understood the “pedo” part of Pedobear.

If the over/under for how many times Poison Ivy was stopped this weekend was at 1,500, I’d take the over. In a related note: BANE.

I couldn’t have done a Comic-Con post without including at least one picture of either Slave Leia or Leeloo, so here you go, you monsters. (I love the facial expressions of the two guys in the background.)

Captain Dog. Dog America. Steve Ruffers. This dignified son of a bitch goes by many names, but only one matters: HERO.

[Editor’s Note: I would’ve gone with “Captain Paw-merica.” Find this dog. I want to make him my Executive Vice President.]

I love Banana Wolverine so much. We were in the press office taking a break from the sounds of the Street Fighter game at Capcom’s booth when he guy walked in. He couldn’t pour water for himself from the fountain so he asked someone to do it for him, and later, when asked when is Peanut Butter Jelly Time, he had no idea what the guy was talking about. Someone tried to explain it to him, but called the show that made it super-famous Family Brother (???). He stripped off the suit in the office, too, letting loose a glorious, Richard Langly-like mane of hair and spent no less than 30 minutes putting the Wolverine banana suit into a garment bag. He embodies the spirit of Comic-Con like no other, especially because from this angle, it looks like he’s either birthing an Alien or he took a massive dump.

The Celebrities

I’m wondering the same thing: why wasn’t The Amazing Panda Adventure on the banner behind Stephen Lang?

Eliza Dushku was there with her boyfriend, former-“Party Down” guest star Rick Fox. Um…what else? She’s pretty. I liked season two of “Dollhouse” a lot. Faith’s pretty sweet. That’s all I’ve got.

I guess Dot Com from “30 Rock” is running for President? Anyone who used to be a part of Phil Spector’s entourage has my vote. Also: no, that’s not me in the photo, nor am I the white guy.

David Cross was at NYCC to talk about season two of his show, “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret,” which returns to IFC in January, but the best part of his panel was when he talked about the third Alvin and the Chimpmunks movie, Chipwrecked, which he appears in. He told the crowd about a joke in the movie that literally NO ONE is going to laugh at — it involves Double Rainbows.

My love, Carrie Brownstein, of Sleater-Kinney/”Portlandia” fame.

Matt’s love, H. Jon Benjamin, of “Archer”/Can of Beans fame.

The Seven Things I Would Purchase If I Had George Lucas Money

Oh, to be 12 again, playing Star Wars: Episode I Racer for hours at a time. Wait, I can do that now, too!

/opens bottle of Jolt that’s been chilling in the fridge for nine years.

Selling swords to overcaffeinated anime fans might not be the wisest of ideas…

Not included: dead Wilson.

Poor Charlie Schlatter. First he was an unlikable Ferris Bueller in the TV spinoff of Day Off, and then he was cast as Fry from “Futurama,” only to be replaced by Billy West. He’s now doing voice work for some show called “Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil.” As for “Manimal,” I really should have bought this $30 collection, to go along with my bootlegged “Night Man” DVDs.

These face fans were given away for free. That’s still too much money.

!!!

There was also a signed Godsmack CD on this table, which resulted in a ten-minute conversation attempting to differentiate between them, Disturbed, and Drowning Pool. So, if you need an autographed copy of The Oracle or Adrian Young’s snare drum, buy your tickets early for New York Comic Con 2012.