Comic books. People in costumes. Thousands of trees worth of free posters that will end up in the garbage. This weekend I proudly attended the 2009 New York Comic Con.

Our nation’s economy may be crumbling, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from walking around this convention center. Here you’ll find people paying thousands of dollars for some seventy year old paper, giant life-sized plastic statues of comic, movie and video game characters, and a guy dressed in an all rubber Batman costume that he says he paid almost a thousand dollars to compile before irritating the hell out of me while we waited in line together.

Thanks to photographer Mo Cahill (she’s not really a photographer), allow me to take you on a magical visual journey of Comic Con. By “magical visual journey” I mean “photos of me posing with people and things that were at Comic Con.”

Here I am being symmetrical with a Stormtrooper costume. If there was someone actually inside the costume this may have been a more interesting photo.

Here’s me with a Steve Carell doll. Somebody paid good money so they could license his image and as you and I both know full well that no one will ever buy one of these, I felt it was my duty to share it with you.

The major companies had lavishly decorated booths. This is a photo of an enormous banner featuring Superman. Included in the photo, notice my head, for scale.

Here is an ice sculpture of Slimer from the popular film Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, by the time I came back to take a picture, it had melted. I just sort of stared at it like this for quite some time.

Here’s Mario. Nice guy.

Excepting myself, no one in this photograph wanted to be in it. Serves them right for mixing Marvel and DC characters together. Also, why are there three Flashes? The entire convention was swarming with continuity errors like that. AND THE PEOPLE AT THE INFORMATION BOOTH JUST WALKED AWAY WHEN I TRIED TO COMPLAIN!

BUSTed!

These guys were awesome. They refused to break character, their costumes seemed really accurate, and they acted like they weren’t interested in being in a photo with me. THIS is what the Comic Con is all about. Keep it up, gentlemen!

Thank you, New York Comic Con, for the memories. You’ve given me an opportunity to buy some stuff, see some stuff, and make some cops think I had no idea they were real.

(For slightly more photos click here!)