The Strange World of ComicCon

Know who this is? No? I didn’t either until I spent Friday running around Times Square asking people Do you know who I am? NARUTO! Now I know he is a Japanese Manga character, his birthday was Friday, and onlythe people who attend comic conventions and the occasional Japanese tourist knows who he is.

He was my ticket into the crazy world of ComicCon (touched upon in my last post). Now that I am no longer employed as a pirate, I am a freelance promoter/brand ambassador/promotional model. That means I hand out a lot of free shit. Naruto swag was as good as it gets- I passed out $20 T-shirts, tote bags, plush toys, action figures- nice stuff; truly a shame I had no interest in the subject. I get paid to give people free stuff, dress up like a Japanese Manga character, and people watch at ComicCon. Not as cool as being a pirate, but still fun.

I was dressed in the orange outfit and black headband you see in the picture, joined by 30 other promoters in the same garb, running around ComicCon. They didn’t let me keep the outfit- a huge disappointment, I thought I’d solved What Should I Be For Halloween? ComicCon is very much like Halloween. In between karate moves (we were told to do them to attract consumer interest, I am NOT kidding) and passing out swag, I snapped pictures (on my SHITTY phone- apologies for the quality) of the patrons of ComicCon.

comiccon4 — Sonic and Fox! These were among the only characters I recognised.

comiccon3 — Yeah, no clue who they’re supposed to be. But they were thrilled to have their picture taken!

comiccon — I think they might be characters in a comic they wrote themselves. That red face paint show “I am the creator” kind of dedication.

ccivyww — Recognize these ladies? Like Halloween/Ren Fair, ComicCon is an excuse for women to show T&A. But maybe you can’t tell that from this picture. My phone started taking extremely low resolution pictures at this point.

comicaliens — Can you see anything in this picture? It’s the true tragedy of my shitty phone. These guys came in dressed like aliens with SUPER detailed scary looking costumes. There were six of them and when they marched up to Javits Center there was seriously a feeling of invasion. I’m so bummed I failed to capture it on film!

Best people watching ever on the job, and that’s saying something as I’ve worked next to the Naked Cowboy!

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4 thoughts on “The Strange World of ComicCon”

This is great. I was there! My husband is a life-long comic book fan, so ever since they started the con in NYC (aka HOME) we’ve been going. You are NOT kidding, though, about the BEST people watching EVER. Every year I keep telling my husband that there really needs to be some sort of sociological experiment done there. We don’t dress up, but we do attend. Hubby knows more of the costumes than I do, but as the years pass I am learning… I worry that someday when we have children, they will be face-painters!

Well, I’ll have no one to blame but myself. I definitely got some Naruto swag (that’s always great stuff to bring back to the students), so, who knows? We may have crossed paths!!

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