So, I had my first Comic Con experience at the Bangalore Comic Con. It was quite interesting. It was also really exhausting.
I had one of the smallest stalls there but had the most number of friends helping me which was such a blessing. We sold books, posters, art prints, mugs, t-shirts, badges and stickers. It struck me that the whole event was more commercial than comic art related. I expected to see more individual artists being showcased but there was only a handful of those and more of the bigger/famous comic/pop culture merchandise.
Here are some of the highlights from the event. I wish I could show my friends who helped but I don't even have comic characters for most of them. The best part of the event was that there were some people who really cared about individual comics and supported them. There were some people who'd actually heard about my comic (a big thank you to everyone who shared!) and others who asked really interesting questions and seemed genuinely interested in sharks. It was worth it just to meet all these people.
As much as I love tigers, I couldn't understand why everyone was more surprised at a cartoon shark than they are about cartoon tigers. I mean, the chances of us Indians being killed by tigers are probably higher than being killed by a shark, right? The villagers in the Sundarbans would probably ask the question "But why a tiger?", huh?
I bought a shark hat on ebay which was what everyone was interested in. Even the ones who were surprised at the shark theme or didn't even notice the shark theme.
Many people didn't know about shark finning at all. I hope we could get more people to see how amazing sharks are and how rare they're becoming.
