After being forced to cancel in 2020 because of COVID, New York Comic Con returned to Javits Center on Thursday (10/7) for its reduced capacity, masks and vaccines required 2021 edition. I was last at Javits back in April to get my COVID vaccines, and it was slightly jarring to see it transformed back into a convention hall, but this year looked quite a bit different from years past. The biggest and most obvious change was the size of the crowd. There were far fewer people than usual walking the halls of Javits and aisles of the show floor, which could be uncomfortably crowded in years past. Along with mandatory masks, everyone sported a wristband proving they'd had their vaccination status verified (which, for me, was an extremely quick process done in an outdoor location a block away from the convention). There were also fewer extra activations inside Javits, and no events held at offsite locations like Madison Square Garden or Hammerstein Ballroom.
Although some major players like Funko didn't attend this year, the show floor was still filled with comic books, action figures, t-shirts, and a wide variety of fandom and entertainment-related collectibles and art, and plenty of people attended in spectacular costumes, dressed as characters from Kingdom Hearts, Good Omens, Pokemon, Star Wars, The Dark Knight, Birds of Prey, Suicide Squad, Beetlejuice, Sesame Street, Edward Scissorhands, Bob's Burgers, The Sandman, Ghostbusters, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and many more. See pictures from Thursday at Comic Con by Amanda Hatfield below.