Readers of my music journalist adventures and narratives who are keeping tabs of what I do over on PiercingMetal.com and its companion Blog are probably already fully aware of my recent outing to the Blogworld & New Media Expo 2011 which was held at the Javits Center on Manhattan’s West Side this past week.  I attended said convention for the exhibition floor only in order to see what I might learn as a person whose brand is firmly entrenched in the world wide web and its Blogosphere.  The Javits Center as an event space was no longer new to me as a media scribe for I had been on point to cover 2010’s NY Comic Con and Anime Festival as well as the absolutely incredible Toy Fair 2011.



Upon arriving to the Blog Expo my associate Skeleton Pete and I learned that the Book Expo America was also going on and we both had immediate interest in looking into that.  As we wandered the Blog Expo we noticed signs that invited the attendees of the Book Expo into their offerings so we checked with the registration people to see if Book Expo was reciprocating and they were.  Talk about a bit of good luck.   Since I was not really “working” the event for site purposes, I just shot a few handful of photos and planned a posting in the blog.  Here’s a quick shot of the IDW publishing and Dark Horse Books booth.  Dark Horse Comics were much read by this journalist over the years and I loved their original “Aliens Vs. Predator” series and kind of enjoyed their “KISS: Psycho Circus” series.

 

Books about G.I.Joe and The Transformers among many other things.

 

Here’s a setup for Rock Playing Cards.  Did you not expect a set of cards featuring KISS?  They are on everything after all.  Go Gene go.

Here is Merry Makers Pete The Cat.  The series is a line of children’s books that gets published by Harper Collins and I shot the photo since I was with Skeleton Pete at this event.

 

Next we glanced upon a series of music related puzzles.  That’s Skeleton Pete in the background talking to someone who is not pictured.

 

This next booth I wanted to take home with me.  I just love the Jelly Belly jellybeans.  They are so tasty and addictive.  I tried to impress their rep with the mighty powers of the blogosphere that I walk upon to get some free samples but he would have no part in it.  Hey, don’t blame me, it was late and I needed a sugar fix LOL

Here are some cute puzzle games.  I particularly liked the penguin one.  It interested me

 

If you are a fan of the Amazon Kindle e-reader and are seeking some change, perhaps you might like to investigate the Kobo e-reader.  The reps let us play around with it and there was even a contest being held to win one.  Sadly we did not manage to win the device but maybe next time.  The device seems priced to sell at about $130 bucks.  Give it a whirl.

 

Being a native New Yorker I loved the designs for the NYCSL or New York City Subway Line.  They made protective casing for laptops, kindles and tablets.

 

And the charming representative of the Pocket Dept. people.  They make small and very functional notebooks.  Yes my friends, people do still write things down in this digital age in which we live.  The young lady was also a musician but she didn’t mention her band name or get in touch after the event about her music so I have no further details.  It might not have been my thing but I am always open to networking.  Oh well.

Back at the Harper Collins row we happened upon “Elephant”.  He is one of the stars of a children’s series called “Elephant and Pig”.

We also ran into the Amazing Spider-Man and while he was super cool to meet, he had no place in his costume for any business cards.  Imagine that.

Pig eventually showed up so we snared a photo of the pair of them.  I decided not to do a photo opp with them to leave some of the magic to their characters.

There were also some cool super hero books available and as you can see were the very recent movie properties.  According to their rep, these books take you deep into the background of the character and they are aimed at a younger audience.  That’s good since it keeps them from needing to outline decades of continuity.  Oh yes and before I forget, Harper Collins also has a line of books coming out under the “IT Books” imprint and these are largely music biographies.  We’ve read the one on Dave Mustaine and Steven Adler already and look forward to the Sammy Hagar and Ace Frehley ones that I understand will be coming out over the course of the year.  I did not see these books displayed anywhere but might have not been looking in the right place.

I did do a photo with Spider-Man of course.

I loved this giant poster that was on the wall of the Marvel booth we happened upon.

As we wandered we discovered that some friends were working the event for their companies.  Here’s my buddy Grant who represents O’Reilly books.  I have a number of their technical guides in my library and can assure you that they are some great reference tools.

Here’s the “Dummies Man”, and he is a well known face on the very popular “For Dummies” guide books.  You know that these are really not for dummies and instead are a succinct grouping of must know facts about the topic.  They have helped me get a clearer picture on things over the years and I am glad that they exist. I learned at Book Expo that over 1,600 of these guides have been published since the original 1991 “DOS for Dummies”.  You’ve come a long way baby.

The representative of Image Comics shows off their table.  Everything on display was a reprinted edition and available for convention goers for free.  I made sure to take a few of each to give to friends who did not attend.

Next up was the Hermes Press booth.  As you can see there are images of Brenda Starr and many other characters that have for a long time been deemed classic.  Hermes Press has been releasing these iconic strips and long out of print comic books in beautiful bound editions.  We saw copies of The Phantom, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea and even learned that some stuff was coming out for Dark Shadows.  Did you know that there was even a Tim Burton directed film coming out for this venerated Horror Soap Opera?  If not, you do now and guess who is playing Barnabas Collins?  Yep, Johnny Depp.

Some additional views of the Hermes Press stuff

Here is Veil Sweeny, the main brain behind Pink Pig Press.  They are an independent publishing outlet that has a good mission statement.  Simply put, they feel that every author should have a chance to be published whether they already have been or not.  Good luck in this Veil, there are a lot of creative people out there who I am sure you can help.

The Random House signage showcases just one of the many giants that was present at the Book Expo this year.

This was by far one of my favorite visuals observed at the Book Expo and it was a drawing of William Shakespeare in KISS Makeup with the tagline “Authors Are Our Rock Stars”.  That was fantastic.  Totally fantastic.  They had kitchen magnets and buttons.  I snared a couple for the HQ decorations.  Thank you Source Books.

Here’s a guitar that was in a display case at the Hudson Music booth.  They seem to be preparing a couple of the new Martin Popoff books for release as well.  We’ve reviewed a number of that author’s work on PiercingMetal.com over the years.  He is a terrific writer and gets you very interested in the subject matter.  Take a look HERE.

It was however a mystery as to the location of the members of the Mystery Writers Of America when we passed by their booth.  I guess that they packed up and got out of the convention center early.

Here’s me and writer Gary Goldstein.  He was dressed in prison stripes and dragging a ball and chain in order to promote his book “Jew In Jail”.  The book apparently reflects upon his time in prison and deals with the blight of addictions.  Good luck with your work Gary, thanks for the photo op.

I’m a fan of Batman of course and just loved the book title next to it.

Walking down one of the aisles we were besieged by pirates and as I asked them to pose for a shot one of them said “wait, you’re Ken Pierce!” and while I did not initially recognize him it turned out to be Metal singer Chandler Mogel from the band Outloud.  He is a great singer so please look up his stuff.

Of course I was going to do a photo with them for posterity.  We did not however break into any songs of the sea.

You had to know in advance that I was not going to leave our comrade in arms Skeleton Pete out of the mix.

There was a booth for Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not” stuff which happened to catch  my eye.

And after walking the convention floor for the amount of time that we did who wasn’t interested in an ice cold Coke.  Sadly, there were none to really be found here.  It was a decoration.

Kindle and other e-reading means fans might enjoy that Google eBooks was present.  Oddly enough this same company was noticeably absent from the Blogworld Expo going on downstairs but I complained about that already in that convention article.

I had to say that I really wish we knew earlier that we could access this great Expo along with the Blogworld one as I would have gotten another day out of it.  This was surely interesting and while it does have a nominal entrance fee to attend, it is surely worth it.  This is especially the case if you are an avid reader, or educator and historian.  I’ve provided some important links for you all to examine and perhaps I shall see you at the next Expo.

Websites Of Note:

Book Expo America: http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/
Harper Collins: http://harpercollins.com/
Random House: http://www.randomhouse.com/
Simon and Schuster: http://www.simonandschuster.com/
Hermes Press: http://www.hermespress.com/
Image Comics: http://www.imagecomics.com/
Pink Pig Press: http://www.pinkpigpress.com/
Kobo eReader: http://www.kobobooks.com/

Please note that we did meet a ton of amazing people at this Book Expo but did not take photos of everything around us. Maybe next year we can expand upon the adventures for all to enjoy.