The Breakdown: Cape Town Comic Con 2023
This year’s Cape Town Comic Con was a roaring success, selling out for the full weekend. Since it was announced, excitement grew exponentially with eager fans looking forward to the convention and the sense of community that comes with it. This enthusiasm was on full display, with attendees dressed in Viking regalia, superhero outfits ranging from easygoing to extravagant, and more varieties of video game and anime cosplay than could possibly be listed here.
Comic Con’s main arena was the Pop Culture Area, comprised of the Main Stage, Artist’s Alley, Cosplay Zone, StreetCon, and the Cape Town Animation Festival. This impressive space was met with an equally impressive crowd. Many stalls were swarmed with people and those that weren’t had curious onlookers exploring them. Comic books, toys, artwork, and more were available for sale and several stalls were simply there to showcase their work, including hyper-detailed statues and prosthetics that wouldn’t be out of place on the set of an A24 horror film. The Cape Town Animation Festival gave attendees an opportunity to learn about the growing animation industry and Triggerfish shared a sneak peek of their latest project, Aau’s Song, for the latest season of Star Wars Visions. There was a space where artists painted sneakers with pop culture portraiture and even after making several rounds through the stalls, I wasn’t entirely sure I had seen it all.
The Main Stage hosted international actors like Tati Gabrielle, Kat Graham, Jason R. Moore, and Ross Marquand as well as Italian and American cosplay stars. The cosplay competition ran throughout the course of the convention, involving a casual event that ran alongside the Regional Championship, the winner of which, Nicola Andalis, will head to Johannesburg to participate in the National Championship in September. Cosplay was clearly at the heart of the event, with attendees young and old proud to show off what they were wearing and eager to chat with others. The spirit of Comic Con was especially evident at the cosplay hospital, staffed by people happy to mend otherwise broken outfits.
Upstairs was the Gaming Area, characterised by dimmed lights so as to not interfere with the sea of LED screens. Gaming PCs with Overwatch and Minecraft were available and high school eSports teams even hosted an exhibition match. On console, people competed in FIFA, Tekken, and Call of Duty with prizes given out on each of the four days.
On the whole, Comic Con was an incredible display of Cape Town’s vibrant creative culture and a place for like-minded people to meet and share their passions with others.
Article and images supplied by James Nash who attended Cape Town's Comic Con 2023 on behalf of Shelflife