5 Ways to NYCC (New York Comic Con)

By George Rose

October 4, 2017

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After I gave up on Hamill, I decided to focus my energy on the Funko Booth Lottery. That’s right, there is no guarantee you get in. There are several vendors that sell Funko Pop figurines but only the Funko Pop company booth sells NYCC convention exclusives. To get in, you had to enter your email into a lottery. The drawing for that lotter was September 28th. After waiting and planning which of the exclusive Pops I was going to get, and asking my parents to give me my October 21st birthday present in cash early to devote entirely to buying those exclusives, did I learn that I was… not selected. It appears the Comic Con gods rewarded me plenty when they got me VIP seats for Stephen Amell’s panel at Fan Fest in September.

With no Mark Hamill money in the budget and the Funko Pop booth out of reach, my entire budget is now up for grabs. With the two biggest pieces of my planning already having failed completely, it is now a matter of which reasonably priced mini-celebs will be appearing. First you find the list on the Comic Con website, then you narrow that down to the days you can go (for me, only Thursday), then you narrow it down to who will do autographs (some celebs are only doing panels). For now, here are the celebs that I am planning to meet:

Jason David Frank (White Ranger), David Yost (Blue), Austin St. John (Red) & Walter Jones (Black)… most of the Power Rangers (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers)
Tara Strong… Harley Quinn (animated Batman shows/movies)
Kevin Conroy… Batman (animated Batman shows/movies)
Troy Baker… Batman (animated Batman shows/games)
Jim Cummings… Winnie the Pooh (animated Winnie the Pooh shows/movies)
Jason Isaacs… Lucius Malfoy (Harry Potter movies)




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2) Building Your Budget

Once you know who you want to get autographs from, it’s time to start guessing what it will all cost you. Luckily, pricing is available online for most celebs early this year. The average price of autographs will be about $40, with Cummings charging as low as $30 and Isaacs charging $60. Those nine definite autographs comes to just under $400. For the sake of argument and the possibility of getting two autographs from a few celebrities (if certain memorabilia presents itself while on the shopping level), we’re looking at roughly $500 for autographs. This could (and hopefully will) go down once I get to NYCC and find that some autograph times conflict or if there are any last minute celebrity cancellations.

Since I am not welcome to the Funko Booth, I have decided this will be a good time to possibly buy some of the older convention exclusives at the generic Funko sales vendors. Let’s say the average price is $35 (retail is usually $10-15) and I’ll allow myself maybe five of those (since it’s triple the price of paying the retail value at the now closed-off Funko Booth). There goes another $150. And let’s not forget the convention exclusive shirts that blend two brands together like the Evolving X-Mon (Pokemon dressed up as the X-Men). With shirts typically going for two-for-$45, I can get eight shirts (the average amount I end up with each year) for $180. $500 for autographs plus $150 for Pops plus $180 for shirts comes to… $830. Let’s tag on another $60 for round-trip train tickets, $10 to park my car at the station, $30 for food for the day, and maybe a few dollars spent on other people and you are looking at a $1,000 day. And that’s WITHOUT even a single Mark Hamill interaction or the money you spend before the Con.


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