BENGALURU: Last week, I happened to go to ComicCon – the annual fest where you realise how old you’ve gotten. With my bare-basics knowledge of superheroes and their origin stories, ComicCon was always amusing to me. I would buy a few comics and return home, having judged everybody who came to the event – myself included.
I never understood the concept of ‘Cosplaying’ – dressing up as a character for an event. I likened the Cosplayers to Bangladeshi cricket fans who painted themselves as yellow tigers. Which must be a traumatising experience because whether your team wins or loses – you have to spend three hours in a bathroom with a bucket – taking all that yellow paint off!
But this year, I was at ComicCon on work. Years had passed, but some things had remained the same. Children came dressed in costumes – but with parents tagging along! I saw cute, little ‘Wednesdays’ holding the hands of Mommy Wednesday and Daddy Long-Weekend Holiday. There were stalls of books and comics, and I met some old friends.
I saw Raj Comics – the homegrown Indian brand of slightly amusing superheroes like Tirangaa – who punished terrorists while reciting shayaris. I saw them cope with a post-internet generation of social media and bitcoins. I walked through the Tinkle stall, and watched parents with proud, glowing faces when their kids pointed to Suppandi. And then I saw a stall titled ‘Savio Mascarenhas’.
The name struck a gigantic bell – he was the person who illustrated Shikari Shambhu – my favourite character in Tinkle! I sheepishly told him of how many nights I spent reading his comics, and how I loved the little details he added to his panels – a surprised frog, or the frowning bison used as a showpiece in Shambhu’s house.
As I walked ahead, I noticed characters from worlds I was unfamiliar with – anime, gaming, comics, and horror movies. Characters from Japan, South Korea, and children’s YouTube playlists. I, of course, was fully dressed as ‘Judgmental Indian Uncle’! But I was stumped to find out that nobody was really judging anybody else. With faces and personalities hidden, the focus was not on perfection, but on having fun. A potbellied
Wolverine was as loved as a Naruto who looked like he had a hangover amidst a midlife crisis. Everybody smiled, took pictures with each other, and went on to eat food at their favourite stalls. I met the scary Michael Myers from Halloween, and when I went to shake his hand – I heard him whisper my name!! Only to find out that we meet each other in the gym everyday!
And that is when I realised what ComicCon really is. A safe space for people to be someone else for a few hours. Where reality is hidden behind a mask and thermocol biceps. Where people are free to step out of their own crazy corners of the internet, and revel among others who understood their weird craziness.
Where the crazier you are, the more people appreciate you. I watched as people from my generation looked on at the Cosplayers – perhaps a little envious of the mildly unhinged manner in which the younger generation could spend an entire day.
When ComicCon arrives in your city, make sure you visit the space with a non-judgmental mind. In the age of AI-generated Self-Help, you are often told to ‘Be Yourself’. But going to ComicCon made me alter that statement a little. Be yourself, but on ComicCon – be someone else for a day. And then, go back to being yourself. It won’t hurt!
(The writer’s views are his own)