New York Comic Con Feb 7, 2009

Instead of browsing around, I decided to check out some panels and cruise through the artist alley again. Maybe I will find something that will catch my eye…so guess who I found? Cliff Chiang! When I was an undergraduate, I invited Chiang, along with Alex Simmons, founder of Kids Comic Con, and William Foster III, comic book historian, to my school as a speaker for Asian Heritage Month. I was wondering what happened to Chiang and it looks like he is doing pretty well.

Continuing with my scrolling around the artist alley, an elegant drawing caught my eye. It was a picture of Hawkman by Greg Moutafis, but it was not the character that caught my attention. It was the beautifully drawn wings and I said “Wow. That’s really pretty.” For me, wings are hard to draw, because of the fine details of a feather and knowing how feathers look at different angles and positions on a wing. Hey, no harm in trying until I get it right.

Graphica: An Untapped Resource in Media Literacy Education
12:15 PM 1:15 PM 1A23

Now, on to the panels! I attended three of them, and the first panel I attended was Graphica: An Untapped Resource in Media Literacy Education, which was conducted by Peter Gutierrez, whose career spans from being a publishing/media/education consultant to a writer and journalist. The panel was from 12:15 PM 1:15 PM in room 1A23. Even though it was in a convention panel room, the environment Gutierrez created was similar to a classroom. For example even though teachers tend to do the lecture aspect of a course, they usually try to get their students to participate in the lecture, which would create a discussion among the students. Gutierrez did the same thing by asking the audience questions and their perspectives on images he showed on his powerpoint slides. Conclusion from this lesson, you can use graphic novels to teach from reading to imaginary.

Asian Americans and Super Heroes: Secret Identities
1:30 PM 2:30 PM 1A18

Next panel I attended was Asian Americans and Super Heroes: Secret Identities from 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM in room 1A18. I rarely get to see that many Asian individuals in a room, nor have I seen a panel full of people from Asian decent. Another thing that I did not realize, until this panel, was that within the comic industry, there are quite a number of Asian professionals. Diversity in an industry is a good thing.

Intellectual Property 101 2:45 PM 3:45 PM 1A21

The last panel of the day for me was Intellectual Property 101 from 2:45 PM to 3:45 PM in room1A21 conducted by Thomas A. Crowell, Walter-Michael Lee and Sheafe B. Walker, Esq, who are three good-looking professional lawyers. This is the awesome panel! Honestly though, after going to this panel, it was a huge eye opener and my thought was “maybe I should have been a lawyer…” I never knew cosplaying as a character would be considered copyright infringement until now and probably one of the reasons for cosplayers to not get sued is because companies might be seeing it as a promotional opportunity. Scary isn’t it? The other thing I learned was about one way people try copyright their creations, which is by sealing it in an envelope and mailing it to themselves. I always thought there was something odd about that process, but from what I gather from the panel and at graduate school, that way of copyrighting your work is out the door. There was a lot more I learned, including trademarks, but there is too much to type up. Plus, I am not a lawyer, so go ask these guys your questions. ☺ The conclusions I got from this informative lesson is one get your damn creations copyrighted and trademarked, and two these guys should be professors and teaching all of us these things. If it were not for this panel, I would continue to be misinformed.

Check out the slides from the panel titled New York ComicCon 2009 Lecture: Copyrights and Comics .

Lastly, these are photos of the aftermath. Big @$$ crowd on both sides of the room.
© 2009 Linda Thai

Visit the NYCC Blog Archive 1 and Archive 2 and the NYCC website and floor plan for more information about the convention!

Also check out this site's New York Comic Con category for more pictures and information.

Photography by Linda Thai