Three things I learnt at Comic Con

Last week I attended the Bangalore Comic Con and I must admit – I was skeptical about the experience. Growing up watching and reading about the convention in the United States, my brain had told itself that if an Indian version ever happened, it would suck because the scale and depth of the original would be unmatched. First, despite its rich history India doesn't really have a history of celebrating nerd culture. Second, finding resources to participate in basic things like cosplays (costume plays for those not in the know) is hard. I have many friends whose attempts at dressing up like The Joker ended up making them look like rotten purple brinjals. Finally, public events that don't seem to have a soul sucking Bollywood connection don't find too many takers commercially. I'm incredibly happy to report that all my fears were laid to rest and I returned feeling a sense of community with thousands of fellow nerds who I'm usually too busy chastising for their choices on the Internet. Here are the top three things I learnt at Comic Con.

Indian kids have never been more into Japanese anime. I have considered disowning some of my cousins for constantly watching human rights abuses called Shin Chan and Naruto but I never knew this was a pan India epidemic. Every second cosplayer was a Japanese character that I had never heard of and each one of these kids knew atleast some Japanese they had learnt from watching these cartoons. Who knew Modi playing the drums would have such an immediate impact.

Amar Chitra Katha continues to hold its own against its Japanese rivals. After being made to feel like a grandfather by anime loving kids, seeing a whole lot of young people also reading Tinkle restored some sanity to my world. It's always nice when you see an 8-year-old love the same characters you grew up with and I imagine that's what it must have been like for my parents when I started enjoying Pink Floyd. It was a little weird that the guy hired to dress up like Shikari Shambu kept saying "Yo Yo Honey Singha" while introducing himself.

Like every other public event, lots of people show up having absolutely no idea about a majority of characters and comics. Luckily, instead of getting shouted out for being a poser like you would at a music festival, the atmosphere was more encouraging towards newbies wanting to learn. An even more encouraging sign was seeing the number of parents bringing their kids to the convention.

All of these are extremely healthy signs for the Indian comic book industry and nerd culture in general. For the sake of the alternate culture industry I can only hope it grows. Who wouldn't want to see Shaktimaan fans slug it out with those that prefer Street Fighter?