While the San Diego Comic Con has been for some time a significant part of Hollywood’s marketing calendar — and it only continues to grow, as was shown with last year’s very heavily covered event — there hasn’t been as much emphasis put on the New York Comic Con, despite its logical opportunity and its more pertinent proximity to the opening of the blockbuster movie season. Compared to San Diego’s convention, which takes place in July, too late to really showcase the present year’s releases, New York’s is in April, right before the first of the big summer release dates.

But Hollywood’s presence seems to be more noticeable at this year’s event. Looking at a list of some of the previews and attractions, located at Super Hero Hype, there’s promotions going on for movies like X-Files 2, Hellboy 2 and The Incredible Hulk, all of which could use the extra buzz from its core demographic of comic book and movie geeks. There’s also the world premiere of the new teaser trailer for Frank Miller’s adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit, a jump on San Diego’s usual tradition of being the place to introduce such way-in-advance materials (the film doesn’t come out until 2009).

The most surprising — though I have to say it’s appropriate — movie to get exposure at the NY Con is Special, a film that showed at Sundance two years ago and was only recently picked up for U.S. distribution. Hopefully it won’t be too low-budget for the kids who like their superhero movies to be expensively grand. Meanwhile there’s metropolitan cinephiles like myself, who have been waiting to see Special since 2006, who might want to purchase a one-day ticket for Sunday ($30) in order to finally see the film. Otherwise, since Magnolia still hasn’t announced an official release date, we have no idea how much longer we’ll have to wait.