I love fans. I love anyone that is super passionate about something even if I don’t care about that thing. There’s just something there that I sympathize with. I have been a collector all my life from baseball cards to comic books to CDs to DVDs to finally, as an adult, photo books. I am an obsessive fan of the Miami Dolphins and while football is as mainstream a hobby as you can get, it’s pretty derided in the hipster Brooklyn world I live in where people live Tweet the Super Bowl so they can make jokes about how they don’t get sports. So I love fans and I love fans that are willing to dress up in a silly costume and go hang out in public without giving any fucks.

So this past weekend I went to the New York Comic Con to take pictures of fans and it was great. I went to NYCC back in 2012 and wanted to go back at some point. San Diego Con has been on my photo bucket list forever but I haven’t had the chance. NYCC is growing rapidly and was way bigger than when I went a few years ago. I didn’t spend too much time at the convention and honestly didn’t do a good of a job photographing it as I would like but it was sort of a last minute thing and I spent as much time figuring out where to go and getting through crowds as taking photos.

I still the experience was pretty wonderful. It struck me how many disabled people were there and how super heroes could be an escape from whatever handicap they might have. I saw the cutest kid who had some sort of mental disability smiling like I have never seen anyone smile. He was so fucking happy to be surrounded by superheroes and I watched as his parents took him around the convention and I almost started crying it was so wonderful. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to raise a child you know you are going to have to take care of for the rest of their life, but it has to be completely worth it at moments like that where your child is so happy to be in his element.

That is why I love events like these. It’s this moment where people who may have been made fun of their entire life for liking comic books or toy ponies or insane clowns or whatever can come be with people who get them and they hug strangers and take photos with each other and talk about cosplay designs and all of that wonderful shit that they can’t do anywhere else. And yes I get that with the huge Marvel movies and nerd culture being “cool” that comic conventions aren’t like they used to be, but there’s still these moments that are so magical that it makes even a depressing motherfucker like me happy to be alive.

Now click here to see my 2015 NY Comic Con photos that will not at all live up to the hype of my write up.

 

 

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