Going to the Comic Convention in Fiera di Roma

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After visiting the Toy convention in Singapore last year, I was keen on going again. And thus, I was at the Romics Comic Convention last weekend with Cart and his friends.

When we reached Fiera Di Roma, where expos and events are held, there were already a large amount of people there.

I noticed that while queuing in, the cosplayers were lining up in a separate line. We found out later that people who were in costumes got to enter in for a cheaper fee.

After queuing up for the tickets, we entered inside the event hall, and at first sight, I already knew that the experience will be something similar to the one in Singapore.

There were so many people!

The Comics

Obviously being a comic convention, there were a number of publication houses on display. One of the biggest names that I could spot out was Panini Comics.

Panini Comics is probably best known for their character, Ratman. Ratman is interesting because the character was conceived as a parody to all the comic superheroes – with his Mickey Mouse’s ears and his cape. He was wierd but yet, amusing. Kind of like how 2gether was a satire for the overflow of all Boybands.

I also had the chance to seeing a couple of artists doing works in progress, drawing and singing autographs. And I admired a few artwork and wished that I had half the artistic talents that they had.

This particular guy was so diligently doing watercolour on the first page of his comic book.

Looking closely, I see a name tag and saw that his name was Luca Russo – Of course, I had to google it out, and I saw a couple of his artwork. It was so lush.

Naturally, Cart being crazy about reading comics and collecting them, bought for himself a nice pile of comics to add to his shelf dedicated to all his comic books.

I looked around and I saw a number of Japanese comics that I recognized like Love Hina, Battle Royale, Evangelion.

And I was pausing for the longest time pondering if I should get a Domokun Comic. I love Domokun! It’s a charming singing brick but this time round was in Italian.

The Toys

There were not as much toys here as compared to the convention in Singapore, and the World Cybergame section seems to be very subdued. There was hardly any console games like Nintendo Wii or X-Box consoles, Playstation and such but there were still a couple of interesting collection of old-school toys to be seen.

Like these figurines of characters from the movies. I think that it was really well done. The joker really looked like Heath Ledger.

I quite like the top row with the “Movie Set” smurfs.

Did you know that in Italy, smurfs are known as Puffi? There are even Puffi flavoured ice cream in Italy, but that is another story altogether 🙂

Stewie, from Family guy, probably the most evil baby in the world. And also one of my favourite cartoons that I watch here.

A couple of stuff from the Lord of the rings. I snapped this picture because it reminded me of the crown that Yanni crafted not too long ago. The lady behind the counter offered to let me try it on, but I didn’t want to have the risk of being tempted to get it.

And this was a nice figurine of King Arthur and the knights of the round table. Coming up in the future, we will have a nice figurine of Hang Tuah.

Oh and this is a very interesting figurine.

Which reminds me, I even saw a booth dedicated to Hentai, with a tv display for all to see. I was momentarily stunned. But the interesting thing is that I didn’t see any horrified faces around me. Europeans are really liberal about this, I suppose. The person manning the booth was amused to see my flabbergasted face.

The Costumes

For me, I think that the highlight of the convention was probably the cosplayers. There were so many! I think that there were probably about an equal ratio (or perhaps even more) regular outfits to the cosplayers. Regardless, they were all pretty nice. And if you asked for a photograph, they would always oblige

There were characters that I could recognize like :

Flippy from Happy Tree Friends. I lurve happytreefriends, I think that they are the most adorable critters. The irony is that I dont have the heart to watch an episode since they always die violently.

Bender and Doctor Zoidberg from Futurama. Another one of my favourite cartoons!

Luigi and the Princess.

And at one booth, I spotted out something interesting. A storm trooper playing a Clone wars game! A very dedicated and loyal staff.

This is one piece – It seems to be very popular judging from the amount of people dressing up as Luffy. I like the middle cosplayer’s boots! Quite well done! But the actual anime annoys me though.

But as much as there were many that I could recognize, there were many more that I could not. Anyone could help spot them out for me? Like this character below.

Mario hanging out with the Milk and the Mushroom.

Seriously, I wouldn’t have the patience to sew this and they both coordinated their outfits well!

And this is another fantastic costume. With the black face and the red eyes and all.

But after spending some time spotting out costumes, the following would be in my top 3 :

I think that this guy here did a very good job in his zombie outfit that I had to peer closely at his make up.

Scary! And it wasn’t just his neck, but his entire limb had wounds and such.

This guy probably took at least 3 days to make his costume.

Also, he’s the first person to have the initiative to really pose when you ask for a picture. Seems like a professional cosplayer. Regular people would be frustrated after the 5th person I think.

And lastly, I’m not too sure what character this is, but I think that this costume was one of the most well made and the most intricate one that I’ve ever seen.

I think he did an amazing job on his costume!

Anyway, interestingly enough, while I was there looking at the different costumes, a little boy came up to me and peered at me as if I was wearing a costume myself. That was so amusing.

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Before I end this post, something funny to share. Cart and I were looking at a comics display when suddenly the crowd parted into two.

There was this ferocious looking golem walking through. And everyone was transfixed at the sheer awesomeness of it. Everyone was afraid!

Except for this little girl who seems to make it her duty to smack the Golem’s butt.

LOL!

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