#365DaysOfWriting – Day 168
Mumbai Film & Comic Con – Day 2
Phew! The end of another Comic Con. It was another long day, but fulfilling. And how!
Today, I met my best friend after a really long time.
Kalpesh! It’s always fun to meet him. And Vrishali too. I was meeting them after almost 8–9 months. But the advantage of having friends like these is you can always pick up from where you left off. We met only for a couple of hours, but it was great fun. I tried to convert him into an action figure collector, but I failed…
Speaking of which, I picked up some good comics today – by Indian creators!
I’m a great believer in promoting good Indian content. Fanboys, written and illustrated by Abhijeet Kini, is a MAD Magazine-esque attempt at poking fun at comic book ‘fanboys’ who attend Comic Con – there is a lovely Jack Kirby reference in there too, if you can find it! This follows just after his wonderfully fun Angry Maushi trilogy, which I bought last year.
Ravanayan, on the other hand, is an imaginative re-telling of the Ramayana, where Ravana is the protagonist. It has some really good art by Vivek Goel and good writing by Vijayendra Mohanty. I’ve always wanted to read it, but would never find the complete set. Today, I got it!
There were more members of the Action Figure Fanatics India group.
Mithun was there, as per usual. Attending the Con with him was fun! We also met Prityush, who’d come down from Chennai. Then the Boxman, Mr. Craig, and his lovely wife Naomi. Rohan was briefly there at the WWE Entrance installation.
I wasn’t able to take too many pictures sadly. There were just too many people around. Oh, I also met Heena after more than a year – this was on Day 1 though.
There was also a very poor attempt at a Dr. Strange cosplay.
Forgive me for the erroneous hand pose. My fingers don’t comply.
Ajay Devgn was here to promote Shivaay.
(I don’t have a picture of that. There were about 30–40 people who went on stage to get photos clicked with him. Again, too much crowd.)
All-in-all, it was a decent Comic Con if you went merchandise shopping.
But India has a LONG way to go to sustain a truly ‘comic’ Comic Con. The culture hasn’t set in yet. One of the major points – promote good Indian art and comics as much as you can. Maybe next year…
