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If you had asked me on Saturday morning what I thought my New York Comic Con 2024 memory would be, I’d have said watching a video of Masako Nozawa leading the audience at the Dragon Ball Daima panel in an iconic Kamehameha. I might have talked about watching the voice actors from Bleach do a live dubbing of some of their favorite scenes during the Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War panel on Saturday afternoon. However, none of those things seem so important right now because I just watched my 14-month-old son take his first steps at New York Comic Con.

Most of our readers probably know me as an insufferable geek with a limitless supply of anime hot takes (which you can check out in our Members Only Popverse Jump feature), but the rest of the time, I’m a dad. It is a big part of my identity; one of the first features I wrote for this site was about my hopes for being a father, and I still read it now and then to remind myself of the kind of dad I want to be.

These are two sides of me that don’t always meet, so being able to say that my son took his first steps at my first New York City Comic Con is special. Not only is it a great story, but it links this weekend in my mind so firmly and with such a positive memory that even I will take it with me back home and share it with anyone who will listen. If I hadn’t already had a great time working the convention the past several days, this would have sealed the experience for me.

Perhaps it was watching the parade of superheroes (and the occasional villain) walking back and forth through the halls. Maybe it was the general buzz and excitement of the crowd that gave him that little extra motivation to take his first steps at the biggest event in the busiest city on the planet. Maybe it was just watching a million-plus people walking the streets around him that made him go "I could totally do that." No matter the reason, I’m so proud of my little guy. He’s made this NYCC the most special convention I’ve been to in my twenty years of attending them.

Now excuse me while I think of how to completely baby-proof the house when we get back home.

Relive New York Comic Con 2024 with Popverse's all-star crew of writers, editors, and video producers right here.