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Comic Con is amazing, you can go if you have any interest in films, games, cartoons, comics or like me just want to nose at the costumes this is a place for you. Whether you are a die hard fan or a casual browser there are plenty of options for you.
This has really been a year of new things for me. Comic con is something I have always wanted to do for years but never came around to it. Out of pure luck I entertained a conversation and was actually told of the event before it happened! I am glad I went as it was truly a different experience.
History
The Comic Convention (Comic con) is a gathering of like minded souls who primarily are into comics. It originated in San Diego in 1970 when a group of teenagers gathered together in a discussion about whether they had met someone they had all admired within the comic scene. A field trip was arranged with this group to meet a creator of a comic. It went down well and the concept of meeting the people behind the comics grew from strength to strength. The meetings of comic authors eventually took place in convention centres. Since then the events include video games makers, actors and cartoons in the line up.
PS it is not called Comeecon as I thought hahaha.
My Thoughts
I honestly had a fear about the event. I am not passionate about films, comics, games or cartoons. It is understandable that I was unsure if I would fit in to the crowd. Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised, the fans were a lot more approachable than expected.
As a Photographer I tried to have a mix of posed images to natural images, I do this to create a narrative of events as it is important to tell a story through the images alone. There is a power behind capturing people in the moment that brings an event to life. It is easy to get a posed picture, but that usually says nothing, while capturing people in their normal mode when they aren't being watched is special to me.
There was a mixture of all ages represented, different ethnicities and also people with disabilities (visible and invisible). What really impressed me were those who were in wheelchairs or had walking aids who wanted to be a part of the fun and had "pimped out" their gear. Overall people were very friendly and accommodated my ignorance of the characters they were with a smile. It was a long day, pretty much standing and walking for hours. As a newbie there was a lot to keep me occupied and so I was fine with this, others needed a rest.
Meet The Fans
There were several stalls filled with things I had little interest in owning. I remained curious on what was on offer. The quality of the items were amazing, from scaled down replicas of characters, to clothing and for some reason a collection of real metal knives. I spoke to the businesses and there were gifted craftsmen (or people), tailors as well as commercial businesses flogging stuff. Even Jesus seemed to be an advertisement.
One thing you may not know about the fans is they spend days perfecting their poses and once in character they do no revert back to being human. Like this zombie below, he did not speak a word but groaned and hobbled along, I was told at one point he was crawling on the floor for photos. The eye for detail here is first class, I am pretty sure some of you would be scared to see this in a dark alley. From this image you can see the battle scars, the unhealed wounds, the internal organs on display. The rotting corpse affect with the skeleton coming out looked gross and repulsive.
In my opinion the real stars of Comic Con are the fans. Fans who dedicate large portions of their lives learning about the stories, who invest in outfits or make them. One of the fans I meet was @thesparkofrevolution, she came as Wonder woman and believe me she was kitted out from head to toe. I was privileged to meet her before the show, but she really came out of her skin when she came on stage. She has mad talent. She was able to source her gear well to pull off amazing looks. She has a dedicated wardrobe space for her outfits, but has so many they all can't fit there. For a hobbiest that does it for fun and I really feel she has a talent. Here she is on stage.
Another person I met was @assaultfox_cosplay, she came as the Widow Maker and she looked outstanding. The Widow Maker is no pushover, and is a highly skilled fighter. When I saw her I could not believe my eyes @assaultfox_cosplay and her team did well! She took one hour to do her face make up, then needed a team of three to do the body painting which took another hour. That is an amazing level of commitment for someone who is doing this as a fan. She was also a great poser, I would definitely love to shoot her in a studio at some point (fingers crossed).
I was surprised to learn that the fans go as different characters even within the same comic con event (different days, I honestly thought people had the one outfit and focused on mastering it. It was really good contacting these fans as they gave me some proper insight to them and gave more meaning to the images I captured (thank you dearly).
QUIZ TIME
For fun I tried to guess as many characters as possible. When I got stuck I asked them if they were an x-men, it turns out there were a lot of anime's out there. Let's see how well you do.
Quiz who are these characters? (Answers in the comment box below)
A)
B)
C)
D)
E)
F)
G)
H)
I)
The Cosplay Competition
The finale was the Cosplay competition, this is where the best of the best came together to pose, act, sing and dance. I can't lie, I had no idea who these characters were and wrote a little list of people as they were announced. Here are some of the competitors.
This is a video snippet of the lady who won best performance. She had crafted this wicked character called Elphaba (I googled it). She lip synced a performance and did it very well, I managed to get the last few moments of her. To be honest I thought it was the witch from the Wizard of Oz. This witch won the best performance.
The overall winner was this lady in the Aloy Horizons outfit. She won because the judges felt that her outfit was the closest to the character being portrayed. I could not pick a winner so fair play to the judges. I was told the winner was really lovely, and seemed to be quite popular with the competition.
Thank you for sharing my experience, don't forget to try the quiz.
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