Strollerderby

Publishers and toy manufacturers look on the New York Comic Con as a golden opportunity to pimp upcoming releases to comics fans of all ages, while reinforcing the iron grip of such perennial faves as Batman, Superman, and the Star Wars panoply. Porn star turned Shadow Hunter Jenna Jameseon entered the fray with a well-positioned booth, not knowing that my childrens' hearts tend to belong to those who don't skimp swag. Having toted home a few worthy purchases, over six bags of giveaways,  and a fluorescent tangerine Ugly Doll the raffle gods visited upon us quite unexpectedly, we sat down to parse the wheat from the chaff. -- Ayun Halliday

Wiley Publishing juices the Bard with suitably melodramatic graphics, without reducing the original language and violent actions to pabulum most foul. Romeo and Juliet lay waste to fluffier notions of manga romance, while the skull of Hamlet's jester-friend Yorick. as rendered by the delightfully named Tintin Pantoja, rots like he's auditioning for Tales from the Crypt. A couple of minutes alone with MacBeth will make the little nippers think twice before calling any adult a lying, shag-haired villain. Milo says any of these Elizabethan bloodbaths would make way better birthday presents than the popsicle molds his mother's been purchasing in bulk.

Archie – Subscriptions starting at $12.50

Before you mock Archie's pathetic attempt to hang onto the youth market with  a tie-dyed t-shirt and a lime green electric guitar, consider that he's turning sixty-five while there's still some milk in the Social Security Administration's udders. The kid's a survivor. The current tenders of the Riverdale flame stoked the next generation's fires with free comics, a larger than life plush Jughead, live artist sketches, and an appearance  by the guy who sang Sugar Sugar. Inky's got a crush on the whole gang, but particularly Moose, because "he's big, dumb, stupid, and does stupid things".

Incredible Changebots - $15

Jeffrey Brown found underground comics fame with his endearingly confessional graphic autobiographies, Clumsy and Unlikely but he cuts the mushy stuff for Incredible Change-Bots, a Transformers send-up that bestows macho shape-shifting powers on all manner of middling vehicles and lowly household appliances. Milo went wild at the Devil's Due booth, where a prototype for the action figure of his favorite Change-bot, the golf cart,  Balls, was on display.

Emotes  - $5 for 2.5" PVC figure to $19.99 for 10" Plush

According to the manufacturer, Emotes are a "small race of beings with human-like emotions who live inside the internet". The booth reeled young visitors in with a dress-up box of cunningly constructed, hopefully lice-repellent, devil-horned pajama-style costumes. Was it coincidence or size that led Inky to try on the bubbly, orange Joie (Superpower:  Gymnastic Cartwheels) while her incendiary younger brother rocked the irresistibly furious red Boom (Superpower: Flamethrower)?

Sukiyaki Western Django

I wouldn't advocate bringing the kiddies anywhere near Takashi Miike's campy, bloody, phonetic-English shoot-em-up, but Milo and Inky give its representatives high marks for glad handing plastic six-shooters to kids waiting in line for a sneak preview of the Igor trailer. (Get with the program, Igor! Nobody wants your crappy quarter-fold posters, but everybody enjoys nailing their neighbors with deadly spurts from a water pistol, especially those of us who technically aren't allowed to have guns!)