Expocómic 2014

This last week has been jam packed with all sorts of interesting outings but I'll start off where it all began; last Sunday when I went to my first ever comic convention. Aurora from the creative group invited me along with her boyfriend and we arrived to stand in the drizzle to buy tickets. Inside the enormous space was filled with stall after stall selling comics and other merchandise. There was a videogame section with lots of consoles to play with and stands where people could pay to be made up into their favourite comic or manga character.

 

There were graphic artists doing demonstrations on stalls selling their work and other authors signing books and prints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a cosplay competition going on in one corner of the convention with a crowd of people dressed up in fantastical costumes. Ironman won 2nd place in the individual competition:

 

 

 

While a manga character that I didn't recognise won first place:

 

 

There were a couple of Elsas and Annas from Disney's Frozen:

 

 



 

My favourites were the overall winners; a group dressed in brilliant oriental inspired outfits:

 

 

 

 

There were plenty of people wandering around in their costumes too:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed it but was a little disappointed in some things. It's true that many different types of comic and graphic novel were represented in some way or another; from superheroes to manga and beyond, but I was shocked at the general oversexualisation of women. From the leaflet advertising the convention to the souvenir mugs and towels some stalls were selling, images of semi-naked, grossly exaggerated cartoon women were plastered everywhere. I've since learned that in Japan pornography in banned and that as a result many people resort to manga and other comics. Erotic images have their place but most of the time it just seemed totally gratuitous; the first pages of the convention guide begin with a cartoon strip of a girl getting up and getting ready to go out to visit the convention...fair enough. Except that the first page is devoted to 3 large cartoons of her bum, crotch and cleavage as she puts on her thong, tight leather trousers and crop top. There were plenty of families with young children dotted around the convention, what kind of message are we sending them if the most common images of women they see in comic books are all either minutely slim, totally naked japanese girls in sexually naive poses or Jessica Rabbit style manga sex objects? Of course not all comics or graphic novels portray women in this way but it seems sad that some artists seem to think that the only way to make a story interesting is to add some random naked girls.

 



 

All in all though I really enjoyed the convention; something's got to be said for a place where you can just sit and eat your lunch with a tail and nobody bats an eyelid...