Pop goes the comic!

Even as enthusiasts and fans immerse themselves in the much-awaited Bengaluru Comic Con happening today, we take a deep dive into the history of the pop culture phenomenon and finds out what it takes to be a cosplayer.

Jatin Varma, founder, Comic Con India 

A comic strip created by 'War And Peas'

Cosplay artiste Rahul Karan Diwakar 

Nabil Khan with his Dr Otto Octavius costume

There is a particular thrill in being a part of a niche subculture or community. And when that common interest is intensely interconnected with your favourite comic book or anime series, you feel an unmatched sense of belonging. A common phrase or dialogue can be meaningless to an outsider, but to a fan, it becomes the portal to a newfound friendship! In 2022, such pop culture fandoms take themselves very seriously — they are cultish, obsessive, and sometimes even dangerously so. However, more often than not, pop culture fandoms are about obsessing together in an immersive and thoroughly passionate manner. This weekend, after a gap of three years, Bengaluru plays host to the Comic Con India 2022, described as the country’s greatest pop-culture celebration. More than just a convention, Comic Con today is a worldwide phenomenon that gathers lovers of comics, video games, manga and TV shows under one roof, where the energy is palpable and the love apparent.

Where it all began

It was New York City where the first official comic book convention was held in 1964. Today the San Diego Comic-Con is the biggest gathering of fans and is held every year in the state of California. These conventions typically have fans of movies, anime, manga, toys, collectible card games, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels in attendance, along with guest speakers, panel discussions, competitions and exhibits.

This year marks a decade since the property entered the Indian market. Jatin Varma, the founder of Comic Con India, reflects on its very humble beginnings, “We started back in 2011 in Delhi as a small free-to-attend show at the back of Dilli Haat (a popular arts and crafts bazaar in the city). We just had a small stage with maybe 30-odd exhibitors and a handful of cosplayers. There was not much merch or any international titles, no manga, and no fan experiences. I had no expectations, honestly. We decided to host at Dilli Haat, thinking that we’ll be able to get an audience that already visits the marketplace. Plus Delhi being our home base, we felt that we could attract enough friends and family to make it a decently successful event! We were overwhelmed with the response we got from the word go and that excitement and interest has never died down since.”

A decade later, today, the event boasts of thousands of cosplayers, hundreds of exhibitors, multiple fan experiences, and an overload of comics and merchandise. “The shows have grown by leaps and bounds, and so has the market in India for all things pop culture,” Jatin beams.

So what is cosplay?

One of the main highlights of the event is the cosplay competition. Cosplay is a form of performance art and one that has a thriving subculture of its own. Tanzim Pardiwalla is a popular cosplayer who plans to attend this year’s Mumbai Comic Con as a female version of the Mandalorian, and as Sailor Moon Knight (a mash-up of the characters Moon Knight, a Marvel comic superhero and Sailor Moon, the lead character of a Japanese TV series of the same name.) “The word cosplay comes from the two words 'costume’ and ‘play.’ It has its roots in Japan,” she explains about the art.

Cosplay is a way to show love to the characters that you look up to. Fans create elaborate costumes of their favourite characters, be it from manga, anime, movies, comics, or video games. Roleplaying as your beloved characters is a way of paying homage to them. It was Japanese movie producer Nobuyuki Takahashi who coined the word in an article in the June 1983 issue of My Anime, a magazine by the Akita Shoten publishing house. At the time there was no real term for the art form, and Takahashi wanted to invent a new term that was distinct from the words used to describe it, such as the English word ‘masquerade,’ or the Japanese word ‘kasou’ (that is akin to disguise), and hence he came up with the term.

But the history of cosplay goes even further back, before it even had an official name. Way back in 1891, the Royal Albert Hall in London played host to a science fiction convention, the first of its kind. The theme of the convention was Lord Lytton's sci-fi book, Vril: The Power of The Coming Race. The hall was decked with prop artefacts from ancient Egypt, Sumeria and India, and replicas such as that of Cleopatra's Needle stood in the middle of the hall. The convention also had magic shows and a fortune-telling dog. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Fans of Vril, who were many in number, attended dressed as characters from the novel. The event, unfortunately, was a financial failure.

Another one of the pioneers in the field of cosplaying, a fan called Morojo, was a certain Myrtle R Douglas from Los Angeles. Myrtle, along with her boyfriend publisher Forrest James Ackerman, used to attend conventions dressed as characters from pulp sci-fi magazines in the 1940s. By the time the term entered common parlance in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was a much-accepted art form within the communities.

Today there are cafes, entire conventions dedicated only to cosplays, cosplay magazines, internet communities, celebrities from within the cosplay world and more all making up a thriving community. “When you are cosplaying, you don't have to be yourself, you get to be someone else,” states Rahul Karan Diwakar, a famous Bengaluru-based cosplayer, adding, “At a big convention especially, you are playing a character that everyone loves. Even if they don’t know you, everyone knows your character. For example, there was a girl dressed up as Bellatrix Lestrange from the Harry Potter series. Anyone who saw her would call her name out and she would say a spell back to them from the series. There is a huge sense of community.” The 34-year-old first attended the 2013 Comic Con dressed as the character Ichigo Kurosaki from the Manga series titled Bleach and has since won many awards for his work and hosted workshops for newbies as well.

Behind the scenes

But there is also a lot of work behind the scenes that goes into being a cosplayer. Tanzim says even though it looks cool and glamorous from the outside, there's a lot of struggle and sweat involved. It takes a lot of craft and tools to create the costumes. “The actual work is pretty unglamorous. You have to learn so many skills. For example, how to use a power tool, a glue gun, and sanding tools. And my house is always a mess before the costume is ready to be showcased to the world — there is foam, fabric and material everywhere!” she remarks.

Nabil Khan, a Bengaluru-based cosplayer who is known for detailed and elaborate outfits such as the one of Dr Otto Octavius from Spiderman comics that had eight mechanical arms, agrees. “I come from a mechanical engineering background. I didn’t have any prior understanding of how to sew, stitch or do makeup. I am driven purely by the passion to build something. I think when you start making a costume you have to be creative and resourceful because you don’t really have the budget to spend extravagantly. So you have to manipulate what you already have. It is something you practise and get better at it,” he tells us. Fans pull out all the stops when it comes to creating their costumes. The skill and the craft that goes into creating the costumes are unmatched.

At this year’s Comic Con Bengaluru, there are five categories in which you can enter the cosplay competition — comic books/graphic novels, movies/tv, anime/manga, sci-fi/fantasy and video games. Rahul feels some of the hot favourites for this year’s convention will be anime characters or ones from popular web series like Squid Game and Money Heist. “Usually there is a ‘flavour of the season’ but since we haven't had a convention for two years now, it is difficult to say. On the bright side, people have had two years' worth of a repository of ideas. Anything can come out of that! But in Bengaluru, there is an inside joke about the show The Mandalorian and how it rhymes with ‘Bangalorean’ and ‘Mangalorean.’ So that will definitely be one of the bigger outfits this year,” Rahul predicts. There has also been a shift towards more Asian content in the two years of the lockdown, he divulges when it comes to current trends. In the younger age group of 15 -24, fans favour outfits from anime and manga, over the more mainstream superhero ones.

Not just cosplay!

Comic Con is not just about cosplay. Over the years, some of the most well-known graphic novel and comic book authors have made their way to India for the event. Mark Gatiss, noted actor and writer of critically acclaimed and fan-favourite shows such as Sherlock and Doctor Who, visited Mumbai for the 2014 Comic Con. Game of Thrones star Natalia Tena visited Bengaluru for the 2015 convention. Declan Shalvey, Irish comics artist and writer, who has worked for Marvel Comics, drawing titles like Moon Knight, Thunderbolts and Deadpool, came for the Delhi convention in 2018.

This year, the artist behind the popular webcomic War and Peas, Jonathan Kunz, is visiting Bengaluru. “I’m looking forward to meeting the fans and other creators. Bengaluru sounds like a thriving city and I can’t wait to discover the local delicacies,” he shares with us. The War and Peas comics, which he has co-created with Elizabeth Pich, are whimsical and funny and feature an oddball bunch of characters. The last time he was here, he had visited Hyderabad and enthuses about his time there. "Indians might be a little shy at the beginning but warm up quickly. I think the potential of Indian comics is endless.”

Sailesh Gopalan, the creator of Brown Paper Bag, a webcomic series that showcases comedy and irony in Indian life, is also at the event. “What I love most about being part of a convention like this is that the environment is incredible! There’s art everywhere and appreciation for art in the air, so it always feels like a place in which I truly belong,” he surmises.

A convention of such scale is a testament to the love fans are willing to show and the lengths they are willing to go to, for the sake of their idols.