NYCC day one

Today is day one of NYCC, or Metaverse, or whatever we’re supposed to call it now. Much like SDCC, it’s all virtual this year. They’re really trying to make it a full con experience, which is nice. There are a bunch of panels streaming on YouTube. I took today and tomorrow off from work, just like I did for SDCC, and I’m trying to get into the con frame of mind, as much as I can. I watched the Star Trek panel earlier today, live, and just finished watching the recording of the Doctor Who panel. (I had a doctor’s appointment today, so I had to break out of the con mood for a couple of hours mid-day to take care of that, and missed seeing the Who panel live.)

I’m not sure which panels are being done live vs. prerecorded, but according to this article, about 25% of them are supposed to be live. So that’s cool. They’re all being streamed “live” at a specific day and time, with the YouTube chat window going, so that helps thing feel a bit more “live”, even if it’s just a prerecorded panel.

The article linked above compares Metaverse to SDCC@Home and DC FanDome, and how NYCC is trying to learn from what worked (and didn’t work) from those two events. And here’s another article about Metaverse, and the evolution of virtual cons. I’d be really happy if we can go back to having in-person cons next year, but I’m not optimistic. If there are in-person cons next year, I probably won’t want to take the chance on going to one, unless, by some miracle, this country actually gets its act together enough to get COVID-19 under control so large gatherings are safe again. I suspect that cons will still be mostly virtual through at least the first half of 2021.

The Star Trek panel was fun. I’m still resisting the urge to sign up for CBS All-Access, but I might break down and do it soon. Lower Decks looks like it’s a lot of fun, and I’m guardedly enthusiastic about season three of Discovery. I picked up the first season of Picard on Blu-ray today, so I’ve got that to watch now. And I guess I can wait a while on Lower Decks and Discovery, since they should both come out on DVD/Blu-ray eventually. (I already have the first two seasons of Discovery on DVD.)

I actually bailed out of the Star Trek panel a bit early, so I missed the announcement that Captain Janeway will be returning in the new Star Trek: Prodigy show on Nickelodeon. I’ll probably watch that one as it comes out, since it’ll be on “normal” TV and I can TiVo it.

There are a couple of more panels I will probably watch tonight, including one on The Expanse, and one on the Sandman audio adaptation. There’s really not much going on today that’s actually related to comic books, which is a bit of a bummer, but there’s more stuff tomorrow.