New York Comic Con 2022 Recap with Pat Shand

Hey, this is Pat Shands, writer of Robin Hood,

and you are listening to the Geekcast Radio Network.

Hello, hello, hello, this is Pat Shand. Recurring

guest. Just the best idea ever. Don't. Oh, but

the little hands and the hair. Hey, you're fired.

Hello and welcome to GeekCast Radio. This is

episode 307. I am of course TFJ and Mike and

we are doing another convention recap. This will

probably be our last major one of 2022 seeing

as how sort of kind of really New York Comic

Con is the final big show for read pop. At least

I think it is, or it used to be. And of course,

uh, joining me is, uh, the, this will be the

fourth time I've had the pleasure of talking

with him. I talked with him in 2015, 2017, 2019.

So we all, we were all odd at first and now it's

even. So it's kind of evened out that Pat Shand

is back here on the GeekCast Radio Network. Hello,

sir. How are you? Hello. I'm good. Thank you

for having me again for time number four, man.

Absolutely, man. This is awesome. This is great.

So what? 2019, we did the way the comic book

thing where I just got your opinion on comic

books and things like that. So it was more of

just a general pullback episode. The first two

interviews, the first one, we talked about your

time at Xenoscope. The second one, we were telling

you at that time in 2017, you were doing Clonesters

and Destiny NY. What in the hell have you been

up to? A lot, you know, I mean some of the same

stuff some of that stuff in a different different

way I am still on Kickstarter. I'm doing a large

amount of my work through there. I run the publisher

space between entertainment Still doing destiny

New York as our flagship title right now even

we have volume six is on Kickstarter live right

now for Let's see today's Wednesday. So two more

days And that's been great. Kickstarter is my

favorite platform to make comics. It's totally

transformed my career. I've done now, I think,

24 projects through Kickstarter. Wow. Yeah. And

I'm still doing work for hire. I'm still doing

some stuff for Xenoscope here and there. And

yeah, just keep making comics, going to cons,

doing podcasts, talking to you, man. Yeah, absolutely.

So you are a native New Yorker, correct, if I

remember? Yeah, yeah. I grew up on Long Island,

lived in Passau County most of my life, moved

to California, San Diego for a while for two

years there. And now I am back in Long Island

for the past, I think, maybe seven years or so.

Very cool. Very cool. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, that's that's great. So New York Comic

Con is kind of a thing for you then isn't it?

Oh Yeah, you know that was I'm always the big

show for me. Yeah Yeah, my friends and I would

go there. That was the first show where I was

starting to you know See that I could Use conventions

as a means to meet publishers to talk to editors

or maybe to uh, you know transform my career

in life Absolutely. Hey man, you know Whatever

works, whatever is going to get the job done.

So New York Comic Con 2022, did you go for all

of the day? What was it? Thursday to Sunday?

Yeah, yeah, I was boofing there. You know, last

year actually was my first time doing an artist

alley booth. Yeah, this year I split a booth

with Emily Rhee. She was gracious enough to offer

me half of her table because in the past, you

know, when I was appearing there, I would appear

at publisher booths, but The past I'd say like

four years or so I have been you know Going to

art of Sally and being a guest icons as myself

Yeah, I could sell my my books that I publish,

you know and uh have a comp presence there Yeah,

so um, I was there all four days selling the

stuff and then um Yeah, yeah I didn't see much

of the show for, you know, I was up there a decent

amount, but mostly while up there, I was talking

to publishers, you know, I did my con crawl,

seeing Xenoscope, I met the guys at Mad Cave,

met the people at Merck. Yeah, no, absolutely.

So you're you're kind of doing like the work

thing, but you're also doing the fan thing at

the same time. And that's one of the reasons

why I wanted to have you on here is to kind of

get the Specifically from a comic book creators

point of view the Overall, I guess you could

say art of the comic con why they haven't changed

the name since I mean I'm has it gone more back

to comics or is it because there were a number

of years where it was just called comic -con

because You had every single Brent Spiner type

celebrity showing up. I don't know. I mean It's

kind of hard to say you know because You can

kind of tailor your experience. You know it is

It's largely a non comic -con pod that is true,

you know But every time that I go my goal is

to sell comics to meet people who read comics

and to talk to publishers and you know, see if

I could You know strike some connections. So

hopefully in the future I can get work with those

publishers, you know So, my experience there

is very comics focused, but at the same time,

you walk on the show floor and it's almost like

an Easter egg hunt finding the publishers. You

do find a lot of comic shops who are, they have

booths there, they are selling these boxes of

like half off trades, that kind of stuff. You

have mainstream stores that have retail spots

there, but... Largely yeah, you know, it's media

you have Probably the biggest the most visible

IP there was Dragon Ball super they had people

were wearing the Gohan hair the gohan beast hair

from the new movie the silver spiky hair as cardboard

up You know kind of a headpiece thing that they

were giving out for free They had a lot of video

game booths. They had a stranger things Demogorgon,

you know this huge statue. Yeah, it is largely

you know a mixture of What you would expect from

something called comic -con that is comic focused

but also very very very strong focus on I Mean

geek media, I guess, you know, yeah. Yeah so

What was the, from your perspective, how are

they still doing COVID type precautions? How

was the layout of the place for all four days?

Was it good? Was it bad? Was the food in the

room? Was the food section in the right place

or did you have to like, you know, run around

a corner or something like that? All good stuff,

man. Yeah. All interesting questions because

You know, the COVID thing I feel like is probably

the new way for cons of this size, you know,

because they put out the statement that it was

going to be masks required. And I feel that they

put out that statement to kind of protect themselves

because in actuality, that wasn't enforced at

all. You know, I would say it was probably about

maybe less on the show floor, maybe 10 % wear

masks, masks on the show floor, and maybe 20

% in artist alley. And very, very low. And I

mean, it's clear that the people going have chosen,

you know, that they don't want to wear masks,

but they did, you know, the con put out a statement

saying that they were gonna have people have

to do it. So they did not follow through there.

But I just don't see it really with this number

of people not wearing it. It's kind of hard to

enforce to be fair to the con because I mean,

it's such an overwhelming percentage of people

that didn't do it. You know, I haven't seen this.

I mean, like, for example, last year, Comic Con

2020. They had a similar policy. They enforced

masks and they Required you to show a vax card,

right? Mm -hmm, which is a more intense policy

but People that went were largely messed up,

you know, like people would remove their masks

for pictures and stuff, right but It was a different

time too, you know and people still were wearing

masks Here, it was just in such mass that people

weren't wearing masks. I couldn't imagine what

enforcing it would look like, you know? Yeah.

That's one thing that I did see is these articles

critiquing the con for not enforcing it. But

at the same time, I think you kind of had to

be there and look at it. And I just can't wrap

my head around how it would be enforced with

that number of people, you know? So how Do you

know off the top of your head what the, what

the, the layout, the square footage of the place

was to versus how many people was there? Oh,

no, no clue whatsoever now. Okay. So they didn't

have, did they have like record attendance? Was

there like, I mean, I assume there's more than

a thousand people there with every. I just like

scrolled through half the guest list that I'm

seeing, not just comic artists, but like you

said, the media, you know, the geek culture stuff.

It's like, holy crap, they have all these guests

here. And I'm thinking the people that want to

go, there's probably going to be more than a

thousand people at this thing within the four

days. Oh, I mean, there's probably more than

a hundred thousand, you know, that I mean, a

thousand I'd say would go to a local convention.

But I mean, this. You know, it's, you know, it's,

I think the second biggest pop culture event

in the world. Um, next to SDCC. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

so yeah, no, it's a lot of people, but it is,

you know, this year felt closer to a pre COVID

San Diego. Well, not New York, but you know,

let last year was noticeably slower. You know,

last year it felt like you know, maybe 75 % or

maybe even 70 % of the people who were supposed

to be there came, and the other 30 % maybe called

out last minute, you know, so there were empty

tables there last year, and the crowd seemed

very manageable for a New York Comic Con last

year. This year felt as if it were close to back

to normal, but still not quite. A normal New

York Comic Con is a huge chore to get through.

This was still a chore to get through as far

as walking from aisle to aisle, but it wasn't

as overwhelmingly insane as the past. So it's

not fully back to what I would say is a standard

New York Comic Con at its height, but it is very

close. So according to their what to the read

pop website what I'm seeing and I I don't think

This is specific. This could be specific to this

year. I'm trying to see if it is but I have a

page up here that says The attendance 210 ,000

plus exhibit is 670 plus press 8 ,000 plus media

impressions 16 .2 billion And social media following

so the attendance I don't know if 210 ,000 people.

Like did you when you were there like how like.

In your circle in your area that you were at

that that you went like how busy did it feel

to you. It felt busy yeah I mean it's um. It

felt busy. There was always someone passing by

when you were on You know going to the show floor

because one thing that I love about near comic

-con is their separation of artist alley from

the show floor Even San Diego doesn't do that

San Diego you walk far enough from the show floor

and you're in artist alley and that is a disservice

to artist alley in New York People who want to

go down to Artist Alley are going to Artist Alley.

There's a huge banner that says Artist Alley,

presented by Comixology, and you go downstairs

and there's a huge, huge showroom that has the

Artist Alley section. The separation there is

a major major help To make sure that the people

who you're seeing in artist alley are people

who want to be finding you, you know So it's

a bit calmer down there than the show floor because

the show floor is essentially everything else

You know, it's um, yeah video games publishers

TV stuff Everything is just a mix up there some

small presses up there So It's a different vibe

when you go from upstairs to downstairs, but

both are still insane. You know, like the show

floor is just a very unique level of insane,

but artist ally, you know, it's still more popping

down there than any comparable convention. You

know, like I would say Baltimore is a big show.

Heroes con is a big show, but still, but still

New York. is just a special kind of beast. It's

yeah, it's very much a state of mind. Yeah, definitely.

And I am looking now out of everything I've tried

to research before we did this. The fact that

Wikipedia is the one that I can go to for actively

interesting numbers that actually have citations

next to them. They don't have anything listed

for this year, which For those that don't know

what I didn't say at the beginning of this episode,

October 6th to the 9th of 2022 is when New York

Comic -Con was this year. Last year, according

to Wikipedia, who have it archived from the original,

whatever the hell the original, I never heard

of that website, but last year was 150 ,000 people.

October 3rd to 6th, 2019 was 260 ,000, which

was their biggest ever. And this is all at the

Javits Center. Yeah. And so talk to me about

that because I don't, it's been a long, I'm sorry.

I, I bow before your New Yorkness, but I'm a

Bostonian. Damn it. Like, you know, but I don't

know everything about the New York stuff. So

the Javits Center, how, I guess I could technically

just look at the Wikipedia article, but like

how big would you say it is? Like, I mean, it

is huge. Yeah, it's huge. What I would say sets

it apart though is the size of the show floor.

You walk in. I've been in many convention centers

and it's kind of like an airport. You know one,

you know them all. Some are better or worse than

others. Javits has a lot going as far as it has

a lot of different floors. I'd say probably the

overall center itself, If I were to guess it's

smaller than San Diego San Diego Feels overwhelming

as far as the size of the convention center.

It feels insane going from show floor to panel

at San Diego New York Comic Con. It feels a bit

more condensed as far as where Certain floors

are regarding panels are to the show floor to

artist alley that feels right easier to navigate

With the skies of the show floor itself. Okay.

It just feels it feels it feels huge So according

to this three million three hundred thousand

square feet total for enclosed space. Yeah The

exhibitor hall floor is eight hundred and forty

thousand square feet That's yeah That's a lot.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's and yeah, it's big.

I mean, for let's just take the overall the three

million square feet, like 210 ,000 people seems

like a lot smaller than what three million square

feet can like that number of people. Like it

just seems like there would be more room. I don't

know. Well, I mean, it's you gotta look at this

way, too. It's The panel area is not going to

be overflowing with people the way the show floor

is. That's like a line of people and they're

all going there for a specific reason. There

are multiple floors that aren't really even as

far as, you know, people seeing stuff. It's just,

there's small restaurants where people line up

for food, for coffee. I mean, I spent a large

amount of time online for Starbucks for me and

Emily, you know? Yeah, it's just insane. Because...

Most of the actions happening in one place, you

know, there is action happening in art of Sally.

That is true There's a lot of people down there

and because it's a smaller Show floor than the

main show floor. It can even be a bit harder

to navigate sometimes. However, the main action

happening on that show floor is It's what you

would picture in your comic -con debate. It's

a massive crowd Yeah Yeah, absolutely and I never

thought it wasn't massive. I just didn't realize

how massive it is. So what projects were you

promoting this time around? The big one was my

new book that I, you know, I received it in September.

It's a newer Kickstarter book. It's called Smoke

Weed See the Future. It is about a seer. Who

develops a strain of weed that allows people

when they smoke it to see what she does, which

is the future It's a comedy fantasy and it has

been It did well on Kickstarter and now I'm gonna

testing to see you know, how much of it I bring

to conventions because cons sometimes have a

different audience like Kids books for example,

don't work on Kickstarter very well, but sell

great at cons This title Along with my title

gangster as barista uh was a great success at

this con because people uh I would notice that

they would pass by and they would see the title

the title on the book look at it and laugh and

That kind of like instant understanding of what

the book is through the title And a sort of like

inside joke immediately between myself and the

person passing by and seeing the title works

very well to bring people in. It kind of removes

the need for an elevator pitch. So that was my

big focus during this con, trying to really kind

of see how my idea with this title works in practice

and also just promoting the staples of what I

do, which is Destiny New York, which is Afterglow

and books like that. Yeah, yeah. How many, is

Gangster Asperist is just one volume or is it

more than one? I don't, I, I'm sorry. It's been

a lot going on lately. So Gangster Asperist is

currently one volume. Uh, the point is this,

uh, we're going to put out single issues through

black mask starting in November. So we're working

on that now. Um, we're going to serialize the

original series as a three issue mini series.

And then we will think about and see the numbers

there. and make a plan for a second volume. It

could either be something that we do direct through

Black Mask first and then put on Kickstarter

for the trade, or we could do it just the traditional

way that I've done before and kickstart the entire

volume, volume two, and then when that's done,

serialize it in stores with Black Mask. I just

kind of want to see how those singles do to see

if there's a way to try something a bit different

next time. Yeah. Yeah. Just to see how well It

performs or if it performs that way, it's you

know, you always get to try something. All right.

So what was your Favorite thing from I'm gonna

ask you for all four days. So what was your favorite

thing from day one from the convention? Oh, I

mean, this is gonna be kind of hard to answer

as far as what will happen on the four days It's

it's kind of hard to separate it, you know because

it all blends together. Let me write I'm trying

to think of day one as the first one like the

setup the early the early stuff this is going

to be kind of like inside baseball but uh that's

the point come on boy but butterfingers so butterfingery

hit a homer dude crispity crunchity butterfinger

from nestle Nobody better lay a finger on my

butterfinger. Best thing on day one was seeing

my booth mate, Emily Rhee, put her booth together.

How she did it, the choices that she made, the

way that she built it as not a flat surface showing

books only, but she built it into this sort of

like tiered art piece where she had you know,

books above the table on this sort of shape that

she built with these planks. And she themed her

outfits to the booth. She was able to really

turn it into a visual experience and seeing her

do that and seeing how she, you know, crafted

something memorable for the booth rather than

just use it as a display. Yeah, was really interesting

to me and um, it's something that I want to see

if I can replicate in my own way for my booths

in the future because I am I sometimes do my

booths as patch hand I publish your boots with

space between and I really want to sort of elevate

how we do things and See seeing both how she

does things and then the next day how Xenoscope

does stuff now in a different way was very interesting

to me. So that's day one best thing Thursday.

Let's see, Friday, I did a panel. So I'll cite

that as my best thing. I was on a panel with

some great creators, including Amanda Connor,

who was awesome to meet, incredible artist. The

panel was for Kickstarter. We talked about, we

talked with Kickstarter, Orianna from Kickstarter,

the comics rep, about our journey, About um What

works on kickstarter and what doesn't work as

well? Uh, and we answered questions from people

in the audience, which was really cool. Um Let's

see, uh saturday by saturday. I was very tired.

Um But after the show, I went to a strip club

called Sapphire 39, and that was really cool.

So that's my best thing. There you go. And then

I'm not convention related, folks. I mean, is

it though, you know, like you, you know, people

travel for these things? Yeah. And you know,

yeah, yeah, yeah. Local fauna, you know. Yeah,

yeah. All right. So no, Saturday, best thing

for real, I would say. I spent more time with

Xenoscope on Saturday, so it was cool, you know,

catching up with Ralph and Joe, talking to Casey

and Noah, and just seeing the whole Xenoscope

crew, because, you know, one part of conventions

is that you'll see people who you've worked with

for years with these things, who you don't always

get to see. So it's always nice, you know, checking

with them and seeing them. And then Sunday, my

favorite thing about Sunday was that I used time

to forge new connections. I talked to people

at Mad Cave. I talked to people at Merck Publishing.

And, you know, I used that time to invest in

my own career with Conversations and also as

a publisher to find artists, you know. Artist

Alley is such a great, great way to Meet incredible

artists, especially at a con like New York sometimes

at the local cons You're pretty lucky if you

find one or two standouts New York Comic Con

everyone's a standout, you know, so it's really

it's a cool place to Meet incredible artists

for sure. Yeah, absolutely I mean and you would

think because like like we've already said it's

one of the two biggest of the of each year Right.

And, and yeah, man, that's awesome. So you're

working most of this, but did you have any time

to like, look at the show floor? Did you even

go to the show floor? I mean, I know you said

you're mostly an artist alley for the most part,

but. Yeah. Uh, well the show floor had the publisher

booths. So that's where I saw. Okay. Right. Okay.

Yeah. So that I'm saying, you know, like just

as a, as a fan of the, the, the rest of the stuff,

when you weren't. Catching up or when you weren't

trying to cultivate those new connections. Did

you have a time as a fan there? No, no That's

true in general of cons like um Sometimes the

most that'll happen is that if if a convention

launches near the same time as a new Pokemon

card set You know, I'll go up and look look for

a few people selling those Or if I want to get

a souvenir for someone, I'll do a brief little

conquer all. But the truth is that no, you know,

um, I. I used to buy so, so much. I used to leave

conventions, my back aching with a bags full

of graphic novels. Holy come on, buddy. Um, he's

just on my laptop now. Um, all right. So. Uh,

yeah, I used to do all that stuff. But the truth

is that, um, there were times where I would end

up doing like three cons a month and it It became

normal to me, you know, it became normal to me

to have access to all this cool stuff. So I Stopped

kind of looking into it and like checking out

it from a fan's perspective because what became

a bit more abnormal Um, especially at a con like

new york was the publisher access, uh, because

publishers don't really go to all the smaller

cons So right what's exceptional to me about

new york is that access so now I did I did not

get that fan experience but i've also and people

might see this as like sad, but it's just Part

of part of doing what what we do here is that

I didn't really look for that experience either,

you know Yeah, but like you said, you were there

to work, but I figured, you know, at some point

or another, you may have like 15 minutes to go

check out your favorite action figure booth or

something like that. And if you didn't, you didn't,

that's fine. That's, that's, I, you know, I mean,

and like you said, you were there to work, you

were there to do everything else. And honestly,

conventions, I mean, you were there for all four

days. Even in four days. I don't think four days

is enough for every you always hear about and

it's worse now than it was 30 years ago, but

Disney World you can't do this. You can't do

all of Disney World Epcot and all of that You

cannot do all of that in a four -day weekend.

You just can't it's impossible Same thing with

these conventions like like I said earlier when

I was looking at the guest list. I'm like like

I just started scrolling. I didn't even like,

I was slow scrolling, looking at each name to

see if I recognize the, the guests that they

had this year. And then I just, you know, as

we started talking, I'm just like fast scrolling.

Oh, I caught my, I caught my eye on that because

there's so many and so much to do. You really

do with any convention, not just New York, but

you really have to focus in on what you want

to get done and right. You know, it's a. What

I would say, though, is that at New York Comic

Con, there is no such thing as like a 15 minute

check in on something, you know, the size of

it prevents that. And that's part of why I don't

do it, especially at this time. I mean, for example,

when I would go and get coffee, that would be

at most no, at least a 45 minute trip. The line

was insane. Just it's just everything that you

could possibly think of. That could be quick

because of the amount of people doing everything

that you can imagine there. It's just so, so

slow. Yeah. Well, I've had my buddies, Chris

and Matt on here. They did Emerald City and Rose

City out there on out there in the Pacific Northwest

and Seattle and in Portland. And Matt, he would

be a runner for people. So if you if you said,

hey, I want food. As long as you told him if

you're allergic to anything he would go bring

you back water and you know snacks and whatever

Yeah, yeah, we need more people like him at conventions

for people like yourself and people who were

you know working the grind for yeah for all of

this and even with the pandemic I love that New

York has always been Well, with the exception

of the first couple of years, I was going to

say, it's always been in October. They started

doing October in 2010. The first three years

they did February and April and that kind of

stuff. But I love that neat, like you got summer

of San Diego, you've got essentially fall slash

winter of New York, you know, because by October

it should be. Cooler than 75 degrees during the

day. Yeah There was one morning that was very

cold, but I also like that It's at a time before

it gets too frigid, you know, just me if it's

real cold So it's at you know, the time right

before that happens Which is is good because

you know, there is a lot of walking to the convention

center. It's not really one that you can drive

up to. Some people do, but driving in the city

is an insane task. Yes. I love it when, and I

mostly see this in fiction, but I know it's actually

true. New Yorkers, they walk everywhere. People

in New York, you're walking everywhere. You don't

drive, you walk. You go out to LA, it's like,

why would I walk anywhere when I can, because

it's more obviously wide open and has, I mean,

it has its traffic, but there ain't no traffic

like New England traffic. There just isn't. People

don't understand this. Like whether it's Boston,

New York and hell, you know, Dover, New Hampshire

or something, it doesn't matter. There's traffic

everywhere. You might as well just get out and

exercise. No, no, it's true. And that's that's

a great part of it, too, of doing a con like

this. When you look at your phone and see how

many steps you put in during one of these, it

is a lot more than you would think. So the trick,

though, is to not just eat, you know, horrible

things during the show and like really ruin the

exercise that you have put in. I am. Mean just

the amount of walking even even just from convention

center to Penn Station and back to you know Dinner

afterwards just to get certain things turn during

the convention. It's It ends up being quite a

workout for sure. Yeah, absolutely All right.

So what are you you mentioned the one book you're

currently promoting? But what what else is that

the only one you're currently doing? Are you

doing more than that? Oh, no, I'm doing a lot

right now. Yeah, I have On kickstarter. I have

destiny new york volume six. That is that tiny

url .com slash destiny ny the number six This

has now 57 hours to go And then after this one

i'm going to launch right into another kickstarter

that's going to be on october 21st I'm doing

this with the guys who wrote Metal Shark Bro.

This one is called Mixed Magical Martial Arts.

It's a sports fantasy comedy that is about a

woman. She joins an underground league. Fight

club of magical users so it's a little fun magic

fight club book and i'm still doing that helping

for this new york on my second run on the title

i've been doing that for about a year and a half

now let's see what else what else what else i

have a gangster aspirates to coming in single

issues from black mask and of course i have my

first book. As of the barb coming from Scout

comics, we did release number one already But

uh scout comics printed number one with half

of its lettering missing. So they said this Yeah,

they sent it back to print. So now the newly

Complete number one will be released to stores

for free as a replacement the same day as they

put out number two so that is uh That's very

cool right now, you know, uh, yeah Yeah, it's

good stuff. It's fun stuff. Yeah, that's awesome.

Very, very cool. Thanks. Is there anything else

we need to cover? Is there anything else you

want to discuss about the convention itself?

Is there anything else you want to bring up before

I kind of close it out? The convention itself.

Let's see. Um, uh, I mean, it has been interesting.

You know, I've seen publishers at large, um,

sort of tailor their booths to New York Comic

Con. Like mother as a scope image comics idw

the boots at near comic con become. A retail

store where you actually walk in there's different

displays it's really cool so if you ever. As

a fan of a publisher fan of comics you know the

word. On the street is and it's been true for

years that near comic con is no longer a comics

focus convention it's true to an extent however.

If you go to the con looking for an experience

with comics you will definitely find one that

that experience is still to be had there. Yeah

absolutely like i said i mean i'll have the links

to the convention website i'll have all your

links to all your stuff in the post but like.

I'm scrolling through and I didn't even get to

the L's before I'm just like, okay, I can fast

scroll to see what big names I can see as we're

talking here because there's so many guests and

so many things and I love that artist. I want

a convention that has something for everybody

and I want a convention that has easy, even though

you're going to be maybe waiting in line or whatever.

Ease of access so like you said the show floor

is one thing artist alley is another thing there's

food over across the hall or whatever you don't

mean like it needs to be. The space needs to

be planned out in a way where it's easily accessible

for everybody no matter what you want to do at

it and it sounds like. That new york has really

really. Figured it out as for at least from this

show specifically that you've said to us about

you know How how it was and and that's great,

you know? Conventions should be for everybody.

I'm I'm not gonna I don't do well with crowds

210 ,000 people give me a break. Yeah, I mean

The crowds can be intense for sure. You know,

there's um, there's no denying that you know,

there were times where Especially I mean only

think what year was I think it was 2016 I was

walking the New York Comic Con floor and I thought

I Don't want to be doing this anymore. You know,

I mean I I was pitching them to publishers and

taking those meetings and I just it felt almost

not worth it because there was just so much going

on and I Don't feel that way anymore. Yeah, things

have changed but I can see it just being overwhelming

because I felt it being overwhelming sometimes.

Um, I mean I've told this story a million times,

but there was one time where I was pitching to

black mask before I ever got a book there and

Matt Pizzolo who now now I can call him whenever

I want. That wasn't always the case. You know,

like now I've had multiple books through black

mask. Um, and I, I've become friends with Matt,

but there was a time where the idea of a black

mask book was what I thought was a golden ticket,

and it was in many ways, but I was so intimidated

by the pitching process. So I asked Matt at a

2016 New York Comic Con if I could talk to him

for a minute, just show him some ideas, and he

was on the way to a panel. So he said, you can,

but make it very quick. I was talking to him

showing him my little pitch packet and as soon

as I start a drunk guy barrels into us and falls

down in front of us and falls down right next

to us pretty much on us and Matt like cracks

into action to help this guy and He's like having

people come come help all around, you know, make

sure the guy's okay. And meanwhile, I'm like

This guy just ruined my one chance, you know

And uh the guy was fine, you know, but by the

time it was all done Matt had to go and I walked

away feeling pretty dejected like oh wow, like

I I Can't control how the crowd is here and it's

making it difficult for me to do The only reason

I really came here because back then I wasn't

you know doing booths, right? So yeah, that was

definitely An example of how the show can be

overwhelming And I was just walking away in the

sea of people thinking man. I'm not gonna do

this again And it's true for a couple of years.

I didn't go to the to this specific show But

There's also great things about it. It's um,

it's a show where before I was published Back

when it was a bit slower. It's still intense,

but but a bit less. Yeah, I would You know, I

would go booth to booth meeting these publishers

before I had credits to my name and I would leave

Feeling, you know hope it's like swelling hope

in my chest that this was going somewhere for

me and And I was right, you know many of those

publishers I've since worked with But I remember

that feeling of like I'm leaving the car and

being sad that it was over and that is not a

thing that I feel anymore because cons there's

just so many more conventions to go to that I

even realized but I always saw in New York for

me as the Mecca and kind of in some ways the

end all be all con even though you know that

became depressing at some points when it didn't

you know when a show didn't go my way but. No.

Yeah. I mean, it's such a memorable, big, amazing,

intimidating show. Yeah, absolutely. And they

are about to, well, in a couple of years, they're

about to celebrate their 20th anniversary in

2026. And yeah, you're right. Like, you know,

look, looking at this, this Wikipedia article,

like 2015, they had at least according to this

Cranston, Fillion, uh, Natalie Dormer. Jack Black

and Vin Diesel. 2016? I believe, and I'm probably

wrong, but I've looked at their dates of death,

so I'm just going to say this as a potential

fact. October 6th to the 9th of 2016 was the

last convention Adam West and Stan Lee were both

at before they eventually passed, sadly. According

to what I've seen, but like, you know, there's

like... Ten names in this in this part of the

wood like it's like three whole lines where is

like you know twenty fifteen was like one line

kind of thing and you being the native new yorker

that you are it's your home thing is just like

anyone who lives in san diego san diego. Comic

con even though it is a little bit too big for

its purchase nowadays sometimes. It's still their

home thing. It's like Billy Joel walking into

the Yankee Stadium to perform live. That's his

hat. That may be the house that Ruth built, but

it's going to be the house that Joel plays in.

Yeah. Kind of thing. So no, it's, you know, it's

always, it's, it's an absolute great, great,

great time. So where can the people interact

with you on social media, sir? I am, uh, at Pat

Shand, which is my name pretty much everywhere.

Uh, TikTok, Twitter. Instagram, Facebook, you

can find me there. For Kickstarter, I am right

now at tinyurl .com slash destinyny6. That's

my current campaign. It has 57 hours left to

go. You can go there, support the book. And with

all my Kickstarters, you can get every book that

I've ever kickstarted through this campaign as

an add -on. You can just buy any tier. And a

menu will pop up and you can add on any of the

previous books Uh, what else what else what else?

Um, as far as conventions, I will be appearing

at three more this year I have um in october

I have exotica new jersey. That is an adult convention

where i'll be showing off my book thirsty Uh

the very next week. It's halloween weekend. I'm

gonna be doing baltimore comic con That is not

New York size, but pretty much the closest that

you can get before it is. That's a huge con.

It's very artist focused too, so that's very

cool. And then in November, I believe mid -November

is my final con of the year, to my knowledge.

That is Long Island Comic Expo. Oh, very cool,

very cool. That's awesome. All right, folks.

You can get us at geek cast radio .com You can

check us out on Twitter at geek cast radio for

the network I'm at TF2 and Mike be paying attention

to Pat folks. He's he's an awesome creator. He's

an awesome person I've loved talking to him over

the years and Throughout all his work. I do need

to catch up on reading a lot of his stuff But

you know that is what it is and I will I'm sure

at some point there's gonna be on over on the

pullback there's gonna be at least an entire

year where 50 episodes is going to be nothing

but Pat Shan written comic reviews because it's

like, holy crap, I've missed out on all this.

I need to catch up. Oh, thanks, man. Absolutely.

Absolutely. All right, folks, unleash the geek

in you and we will catch you next time here on

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