Hello readers and welcome to my explorations at this years Book Expo America. Its also commonly referred to as BEA and for a few years has been taking place at the Javits Center where you find us for Comic Con, Photoplus Expo and Toy Fair. In the past I’ve documented these findings over on the PiercingMetal.com site in narratives that you can examine HERE but this time around I wanted to line it all out on the PiercingKen site. My reasons for doing this are simply based on their being a wider range of discoveries that fell outside of the normal offerings of the stuff I would focus on with my other site so sit back, enjoy that coffee and wander the halls of Javits with me.
Here’s what the Press Badge looks like for BEA and as you can see there is a QR Code that vendors and such will be scanning throughout the course of the expo. Its easier to add my outlet to mailing lists in this fashion to be honest. Here’s a couple of shots of the lobby floor before I headed inside the expo.
Here’s the massive Penguin Random House pavilion.
Now let’s wander over to the Abrams Books area. I always love seeing what they have on hand and have reviewed a few of their tomes over on PiercingMetal.com; Check those items out by clicking HERE when time allows. A link will open any “Abrams” reference on my other site.
I neglected to get the larger sign for the Image Comics company but here is the table of their takeaway stash for the attendees of BEA 2015. Yeah every single comic book that you see on this table was free for the taking and since they know I do gives they let me take a couple of extra copies of ones that I knew readers would like. How awesome is that? Quite awesome I say. Did you see “The Walking Dead” first issue reprint in that stack?
When I come to BEA I am primarily focused on the comic book companies and the folks doing anything with a heroic nature or musical in scope. Another fine provider in this area is IDW Publishing and they have a lot of superb licenses such as “Transformers”, “GI Joe” and “Godzilla”. They also had a few things to take along with you but not as much as Image did.
Valiant Comics had a nicely stocked booth but only a couple of free books for the taking. This is primarily a business affair here with buyers and sales reps looking to do business but there are also some educators and librarians wandering about so they could pick up stuff for their classes if they wanted to. I need to get a few of the legacy title trade paperbacks since I was reading them back in the day more so than now.
Boom Studios also had some nice offerings to examine. I admit that this company is still rather new to me. They had two books on the table for the taking and one was called “Munchkin” which I grabbed for my friends kids and “Hexed” which sounded like something that I would like.
Here’s Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein, stars of “The Little Couple” a program that airs on TLC. They were at BEA signing copies of their book “Life Is Short (No Pun Intended): Love, Laughter, and Learning to Enjoy Every Moment”; I was glad that they had a second for me to snap this shot.
This is Madison Kensington, but you can call her Madison K. She is the subject of a series of young adult novels and they had a lovely display at the Expo. They also had a big bowl of M&M’s so necessary sugar and chocolate were acquired while talking to them.
Chef Emeril Lagasse was signing his latest book. I did this photo ninja style as opposed to waiting on the super long line.
Alright so that is all I have from my first day of wanderings but I did return for a second day and that post will go live tomorrow to break it up a little bit. Until that time please click through on some of these weblinks so you can learn more about what was discussed and support these fine providers of literary stuff. Ciao for now.
Official Websites:
Book Expo America: http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/