We feel a certain kinship with Hobbits and their penchant for three breakfasts and dinners. Photo: Watsamon Tri-Yasakda.
We’re gonna need a bigger Comic Con.
This past weekend’s celebration of geek culture burst at its seams, unable to contain the costumed enthusiasm, 8-bit beer bellies and sheer volume of sweaty superfans at Siam Paragon.
As with its roots in San Diego, Calif., the event was a symbiotic exercise between obsessive otaku desperate to show their colors and get their fantasy fix, and the corporate entities which keep them well-supplied.
Young and old squee’d themselves just to be close to multimedia installations promoting properties from Batman and Game of Thrones to One Piece and obscure MMORPGs.
But it’s also a coming-out party for the closeted ranks of Bangkok’s geeks, for whom anime, games, comic books and superhero movies are usually enjoyed at home, alone and in the dark. Instead many lost control of their bodily functions to the chiptuney remixes of anime anthems by DJ Nutty, and strutted our more modest, regional take on Cosplay.
Geeks thrashed their bodies in unfamiliar ways to the anime theme button-mashing of DJ Nutty. Photo: Patchamon Suriyont.
Much of the event consisted of waiting in epic queues for photo ops atop the Iron Throne of Westeros, wielding Hobbit-height swords and, most bizarrely of all, posing with hazmat-suited drug lab techs cooking blue yaba in a RV (Isn’t “Breaking Bad” over?)
With the first of two Bangkok Comic Cons now behind us corporate backing from Bectero and more sponsors made this the greater of the two), organizers will need to think bigger for next year. After all it seemed to barely whet Bangkok’s appetite for a bigger slice of global geek culture.
Some avoided the queue to sit in the throne of “Game of” fame, a line long enough to read George RR Martin’s entire Song of Fire and Ice series, and opted for the Bangkok version. Photo: Patchamon Suriyont.
Don’t miss Coconuts TV tour courtesy of ubernerds Bai and Sunny of “The Roach”
Related:
Coconuts TV: Nerd Alert plunges into the sweaty glee of Bangkok Comic Con 2014
Reader Interactions