london Comicon 2015 - All about black cosplay

So this year saw my first foray into the world of Comicon and it did not disappoint!! I only had one agenda, find and document the elusive Black Cosplayers! And lo and behold I found them and they were glorious!

Now I’ve read online comments from other Black Cosplayers that they can sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of racial abuse, being told they cannot dress as certain characters because those characters are not Black - newsflash people, half the characters you dress as are Japanese, and most of you ain’t Japanese… or do their Anglicised anime style features confuse you? Anyway, I found none of that here at Comicon 2015 - from promotional characters to comic book icons the range and effort of these Black Cosplayers was a beautiful sight to see.

There were Black fans dressing as their favourite characters and inventing some of their own, inspired by their best loved series. They challenged perceptions about what cosplay characters should be like, as well as drawing inspiration where there are no characters of colour and inventing their own costumes. The Black Cosplayers were definitely the highlight of my day!

The venue is huge, take supplies and a homing device! you will need it!! Two aching feet later, I swear I must have walked about 10miles today, I’m still not convinced I saw/experienced all Comicon had to offer! One of my favourite parts was just sitting outside people watching - well I say people, it was more like watching a parade of characters from multiple fictional universes having a day out! It looked like so much fun that next year I’m gonna have to cosplay too!

At the rear of the main exhibition was the comic book section, which featured tables from independent artists. Here I was able to meet with three very different artists/story tellers, all with some wonderful work!!

Olivia Rose  - Lalas Dreambox:  She draws beautiful pen and ink pictures of ethereal creatures, very natural, lots of beautiful flowing lines and also haunting somehow.
See her work in more detail here www.lalasdreambox.com/ & https://instagram.com/lalasdreambox/

Kiru Comics: I met three of the team from Kiru Comics who publish their own manga style comics, I was really impressed with the quality of their work, it can stand up against any Japanese Anime that I’ve seen and I hope to be able to read their publications soon. You can check them out at their website www.kirucomics.co.uk - they even have a couple of issues you can download for free!!!

Nathan Hawthorne - Artist, Illustrator & Storyteller: A very nice young man, and very talented. His comic 'Arksong' was on display, which is what drew me to his stall. The storyline sounds a bit Twilight zone-esque, different seemingly unrelated stories, coming together to form one epic saga. 'Arksong' is available now with the next volume due in Summer 2015.  Check out his website http://www.nathanhawthorne.com/