A friend sent me a text before I arrived Saturday saying there is 50,000 people in the building and it's sold out. I thought I was prepared for the large crowd but was really blown away when entering the Jacob Javits Center. The amount of vendors , artists, writers, actors and companies present were diverse and impressive. We made our first stop to the Captain Action booth to pick up the convention exclusive Cast-A-Way Toys Captain Action and Dr. Eville retro boxed 8" figures. Only 35 were made and the 60's style photo boxes look awesome. They also had prototypes of a new 12" Captain Action figure and Spider-Man costume that will be available at Toys R Us next year. Both of them looked great. We looked at a few other tables and left to the autograph area.

Four cast members of Saw 3D were signing and we went to that line. Cary Elwes was 30 minutes late and they cut the one hour signing down to 40 minutes due to time constraints. It seemed like 90 % of the people in line only wanted to meet Cary and only cared about The Princess Bride. Cary was nice but seemed robotic in voice and mannerisms. Betsy Russell was dressed like she was attending the Oscars and seemed a bit uninterested in the signing. Director Kevin Greutert was quiet and professional. Costas Mandylor was the most down to earth of the cast. We were lucky to be the last few people to make the cut off and meet the cast.

Our next goal was to to find the Zica table with Buck Rogers 8" figure display. Buck Rogers In The 25th Century is one of my all time favorite TV shows. To see 8" retro figures combined with modern technology in person was mind blowing. I normally wouldn't think highly detailed sculpts, paint applications, costumes and accessories would work for this scale. I was wrong. The prototypes for these figures were about as close to perfect as possible. Zica went out of their way to have these figures look as realistic as possible. I met Zica owner Craig and another gentleman (I never got his name) and both were great at answering questions I had about their upcoming lines. Buck and Tigerman will be available in December and will cost $30 each. I told them this was the first time a company raised the price above the early estimates and the collectors did not mind at all. Once everyone saw how incredible the prototypes looked , the increased price and delayed release to have to have a perfect product was understood. The Adam West figure is based on the comic book by Bluewater Productions and will be available next year. Zica will also be making Logans Run figures based on the Bluewater Productions comic book that will look similar to the movie and TV characters.

Executive Replicas had a great display of their upcoming 1/6 scale prototype figures on display. I'm especially looking forward to the Herbert West Re-Animator, George Romero and Karen Cooper figures when they're available.

The next thing we did was attend the V autograph signing. They announced that the stars would only sign for an hour and only 100 people will probably get to to meet them. We were 300 in line and made it to the room. They didn't allow photographs as to keep the line moving and announced one autograph per person. Morena Baccarin (Anna in V) was more beautiful in person and extremely nice. She had no problem signing an extra Firefly item along with the V poster. Laura Vandervoort (Lisa in V) was also beautiful and really appreciated her fans. She apologized for the long wait in line and also signed extra Supergirl photos people had. Original V cast member Jane Badler (Diana) was also at the signing as she will appear in the new V as Anna's mother. Jane still looks great and was very friendly and excited to meet the fans. First season executive producer Steve Pearlman was also sining to promote the first season V DVD.

We later met up with friends at a pub. The pub didn't have half the things on the menu, but we had a good time catching up. We all discussed what we picked up and had other discussions about the hobby. Joe showing off two sweet Mego boxed pieces he picked up from Mark Huckabone

Laura and I after a few cocktails

Dr. Atomic and Jarrod in deep conversation

The mysterious empty modern Star Wars package that no vintage fan would fess up to at the table

We then did more walking around getting a chance to see more as the con was less crowded in the early morning. Diamond had some really cool upcoming figures on display. The Universal Monsters 6", Universal Monsters 8" Frankenstein's monster and Wolfman and Star Trek 8" Pike and Salt Vampire were among the coolest.

The line for The Walking Dead panel We then waited to see The Walking Dead panel. Instead of walking directly in the theater, you had to wait in a separate area in rows. Some clowns tried to cut in line and were thrown out. In the theater, the we got a chance to see clips of the upcoming AMC series based on the comic book. The makeup on the zombies looked top notch as they were done by veteran Greg Nicotero.

It was time to leave. Reed did an overall great job with the convention. They seem to be learning from their mistakes over the years. They had lines organized fairly well for such a huge crowd. Security was really on top of things as well. The next NYCC will be 10/14-10/16/11. Should be a blast!