NEW YORK COMIC CON 2026 DAY 1 RECAP: WELCOME TO THE SHOW!
credit: ReedPop/RELX Inc. (RX)
IS IT OCTOBER YET? YES IT IS!
New York Comic Con kicked off its’ 20th year to the enjoyment for many fans in attendance. The Comic fall classic has been a staple in the fandoms for years due to its’ huge news and celebration of all things pop culture.
Thursday, October 8th, 2026 kicked off festivities in grand style. There were some notable news breaks dropping from some of comics’ best publishers. '
Let’s do a quick recap on what stuck out from Day 1 of NYCC 2026!
dc comics: black label strikes back!
Jason Aaron, Kami Garcia, Terry Dodson, Amy Reeder & Denys Cowan at DC NYCC 2026 Black Label panel.
DC Comics made waves early with the first of their major panels at NYCC. Opening with the DC Black Label line, fans learned about upcoming releases from Jason Aaron, Kami Garcia, Terry Dodson, Amy Reeder & Denys Cowan.
Aaron announced he and Tirso would be releasing “Green Lantern: The Dying of The Light” in March 2027. The gritty panels shown indicated Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps at odd with Hal are in dire straits.
Kami Garcia followed that news with a huge return for fans to watch out for. “Harley/Joker: Malicious Intent” is a follow-up to “Criminal Sanity” and sees Harley involved in a much different mission than we’ve seen her before. Mico Suayan, Cat Staggs, & Jason Badower fill out the creative team with the A cover crafted by the one and only Martin Simmons.
Capping off the Black Label portion was another bombshell hitting shelves in Summer 2027. “DC Black Plabel Presents” will be a 48pg Anthology featuring a variety of DC Characters. Terry and Rachel Dodson are doing a Zatanna story. Amy Reeder is helming a Poison Ivy tale that sounds like a great take on the Batman rogue. Denys Cowan & O.M.A.C. (w/ Ho Che Anderson) got a huge reaction from the audience when Cowan explained his first memory of comics involving New Gods #3 and the impact it made.
DC VERTIGO IS PUSHING MORE BOUNDARIES
Ram V.,Stipan Morian, Deniz Camp, & Brian Azzarello at the NYCC DC Veritgo Panel.
Last year, DC Vertigo came back with much fanfare announcing their lineup for the calendar year. This portion started off with an announcement of “Hide Nor Hair” by Adam Smith and Bob Quinn. The series debuting in January is described as ““1950s setting and everything goes to hell. Masks are monsters”
Following the video intro, Some of the current creatives took the stage to talk up their current series.
Ram V. gushed about the excellent Black Tower: The Raven Conspiracy saga. The supernatural espionage book was announced for a current six-issue run then a hiatus for the next story. When asked about the series future, Ram V stated the series will be recurring in the short term for with ni time table of running its’ course (much to the applause of this writer)!
Deniz Camp and Stipan Morian broke down the creative process on their smash series “Bleeding Hearts.” Their stories captivated fans while unveiling some of the improvisation of their work.
Brian Azzarello closed out the current teams by dropping huge news of his “100 Bullets” spin-off “The U.S. of Anger”. The series will be ending one issue early at #7. Fans were elated to hear the reason why: “Enemigos” will be a new series spinning out of the “100 Bullets” world with Eduardo Risso as the artist.
From here, the panel brought up more creative teams to discuss more new series dropping. Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell talked “The Crying Doll”, an 8-issue series starting in March 2027. This was followed by arguably the most dramatic and puzzling moment of the panel.
“Fanatic/Dreambound” by Grace Ellis, Hanna Templer, and Brandt&Stein will be adapting a story from Webtoons Canvas to paper comic. This presentation was crashed by someone posing as one of the main characters of Dreambound. E for effort but this was very confusing to the audience as they were ushered off the stage by staff. An ashcan featuring Dreambound and Hide Nor Hair was handed out at conclusion.
LET’S PLAY A GAME WITH EXQUISITE CORPSES!
exquisite corpses card game (tiny onion)
Tiny Onion was the belle of the Thursday NYCC ball with two huge panels. The first was based off their hit series “Exquisite Corpses”. Compiling this panel was Che Grayson, Tyler Boss, Michael Walsh and James Tynion IV (Moderator: Sami Demonster).
It was announced that The Lone Gunman series will be season 1.5 of the current EC timeframe. The series will deal with other killers who donned the golden mask, while telling stories of the 13.
Che Grayson was in attendance and spoke about the character work being done in this series. Grayson hyped up season two, touting it will be “some (work) of the best in comics.” Michael Walsh followed that statement describing how the series “caught lightning in a bottle”, so season 2 will be lightning everywhere”.
Talk moved to the card game and the impact its’ made many aspects of the series. They discussed how its’ assisted in strengthening the relationships between creators and the creative process. It was mentioned that the game should arrive in early 2027 & will continue to evolve. That wasn’t the only major Tiny Onion news of the day.
THE SLAUGHTER-VERSE REIGNS SUPREME!
Ramiro Portnoy, Eric Harburn, Chris Conroy (exec. Editor - DC Comics), James Tynion IV, Werther Dell’edera and Kiersten White (Moderator: Sami Demonster) - “Slaughterverse Unmasked: Inside the World of SIKTC” NYCC 2026
Closing out the comics coverage was a monster (pun intended) panel diving into the world of Erica Slaughter!
“Slaughterverse Unmasked: Inside the World of SIKTC” featured Ramiro Portnoy, Eric Harburn, Chris Conroy (exec. Editor - DC Comics), James Tynion IV, Werther Dell’edera and Kiersten White (Moderator: Sami Demonster) discussing major moves involving this popular universe.
Panelist dived into the celebration of SIKTC #50 (BOOM! Studios/Tiny Onion). Tynion IV discussed the latest edition to the universe in Bex. The young hunter (mentored by Big Gary) is slated to be a huge part of the story moving forward. They also discussed #50;s blind bag featuring a card for the new TTPRG game coming out in 2027.
The project making the most noise is “Swamp Thing Is Killing The Children”. The crossover with DC’s Defender of the Green is set to drop Dec. 2026 (FOC 10/19/26). Tynion IV stated how this was such a passion project & a “love letter to comics that I fell in love with.” Fans in attendance were awarded an ashcan primer for the special event.
The show was closed with some fun Q&A This was arguably the best panel of the day with Demonster keeping the energy high during the panel. Everyone left very hyped for what’s coming next.
THE MCU MADE SOME NOISE WITH A SIGN!
Marvel Televisiontook care of the Stremaing news of the day with announcements for “Vision Quest” , “X-Men ‘97”, “Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man”, “Marvel Zombies”, and “Daredevil: Born Again”. The major news from this one was the announcement of “Zodiac”, which sparked fan’s interest if THIS marked a return for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. properly in the MCU.
There was much more news breaking that one blog couldn’t do proper justice. Keep an eye out on FLZ socials for more stories from pop culture’s largest event!
Hit us up in the comments below and/or on FLZ social media and let us know your favorite stories were from Day 1 of NYCC!
Thanks for reading.
