Prelude to Con

T-minus three days until New York Comic Con--well, two, if you're going on Friday, but the real fun (read: madness) starts Saturday.

From all accounts, it appears that this year's show will be the biggest one yet; a notion that's got me more than a little anxious. You see, I was at the very first NYCC, and while the show itself was chock-full of creators and retailers and fun things to do, there were just too many people there.

Literally. They had to close the hall because it had become a fire hazard.

But instead of letting people out, they just stopped letting people in. Which meant that, once the main hall was at its capacity, no one else was allowed in. Which meant that the main hall itself was incredibly crammed with people.

Now, I don't mind crowds--or people, in general--but I do mind crowded, tight spaces. And that hall was one giant, people-filled tight space.

Again, I don't mind the people part--the hall could have been filled with pink, fluffy marshmallows for all I care--but it's the claustrophobic part that I can't deal with.

As a result, I swore never to return to the NYCC, even though the show has since expanded floor size to safely (and, from what I hear) happily accommodate all guests. And this year the NYCC folks will have the run of the entire Javits Center, which, as anyone familiar with that venue knows, is a massive amount of space.

And it appears the Reed Expo people (they're the ones throwing this geek party) are taking every advantage of the new, bigger digs, as they've added everything from never-before-seen on-floor exhibits to an expanded schedule of panels.

Oh, the panels.

There are nearly 80 panels each day, running through the night. Pretty cool. Pretty daunting. Which brings me to my main point for today. I'm a bit overwhelmed at the sheer amount of stuff to do at this show.

I'll be there for one day--Saturday, which will most certainly be the busiest day of the con--and I want to do a whole list of things. I want to see a whole list of people, and buy a whole list of swag.

So, for this show especially, I thought it would be fun to come up with a list of things I plan to do, see, and buy, and then report back next week to tell you all how miserably I failed at each.

It'll be our little experiment. So check back later this week to see my all-important plans. Oh, and is anyone here going to the show? If so, drop us a line.