All you comic book lovers brace yourselves and make yourselves some new costumes because Comic Con is back in town. JCC and Unmad have teamed up to bring you the biggest celebration of pop culture this year.
We met Jamil of Jamil's Comics & Collectables (JCC), one of the organisers of the upcoming Unmad-JCC Comic Con Dhaka 2013, and asked him why the comic book fans should not miss this event.
“Last year's Comic Con was the first of such events in Dhaka and we were pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming response of the crowd. So this time, we decided to get a bigger venue. This year's convention is well planned, elaborate and is going to be executed in a better manner,” said Jamil Bhai.
JCC is giving away 20,000 comic books for free at Unmad-JCC Comic Con 2013. That's right! The first 2,000 people who buy their tickets to the event can submit their tickets and claim 10 comic books (each) for free. Plus, this year, cosplayers get to flaunt their costumes on stage.
“We were extremely impressed when we saw the cosplayers last year, so this year we are going to have dressing rooms for the ladies, a stage for the participants and we're giving away 11 cash and gift prizes to the winners of the competition,” informed Jamil Bhai.
There are going to be panels of artists signing comic books and drawing for fans all throughout the event. Aspiring artists can show their drawings or share their ideas with the professionals in the panels, get tips and learn tricks from them. Those who are talented above par will even be recruited. And comic book admirers will also be able to view rare personal collections of comics and collectibles including Jamil Bhai's own.
When we asked him about what's new this year, he told us, “We will have tens of thousands of US comics at Tk 50 on sale. Also, the brand new releases from the US including the 3D comics of Sept. Batman #1 New Edition and Ben 10 & Cartoon Network (at Tk 120), many high quality posters (at Tk 70), brand action figures, t-shirts and too many items to remember right now.''
Unmad is coming up with a special off-set edition of Unmad #1 which will be signed by Ahsan Habib, the editor himself, and others at the event. Other partners like SRK Hollywood, SOF, Hallmark Cards, Dhaka Action Figure Shop, Anifinity, Scavengers and all will have surprises of their own.
We also met Mehedi Haque, who is a cartoonist at New Age, Executive Editor of Unmad and also the Publisher of Dhaka Comics, the first Bengali comic book publication in Bangladesh. During our conversation, we asked Mehedi Haque about Dhaka Comics and he said, “Dhaka Comics started with 4 titles (1000 issues of each title) during February this year and now we have 9 titles. Doing something like this was risky for us as we invested into it from our own pockets but the response was great and soon we sold out the first issues of all 4 titles. We took our comic books to the UK Comic Con and the people there were really surprised and appreciated our work. It was a great achievement for us.”
Last year Mehedi Haque attended the Comic Con as an artist but this year Dhaka Comics is going to have their own stall where they will display their comic books and Mehedi will be signing autographs for the fans. We also asked him whether there are going to be any Comic Con releases. “We are going to release our ninth title 'Rishad' during the event. It's a sci-fi comic book. We will also be meeting new artists and recruiting them,” said Mehedi Haque, who was inspired by Russ Manning of Tarzan and Star Wars during his childhood.
“JCC opened in September 2010 and it seemed like a risk to me at that time because I was not quite sure whether our people will buy comic books that cost anything more than 70 bucks. But I discovered that Bangladesh does have a niche of comic book lovers and that the comic book industry has a great future in this country. Last year's Comic Con was proof of that. This year's Comic Con is going to be even better with great music, good food and cosplay. Comic book fans from and around the city can come together and share their love and enthusiasm for the pop culture,” said Jamil bhai.
The Unmad-JCC Comic Con Dhaka 2013 will be held at the National Shooting Federation Hall in Gulshan-1 on November 14 and 15. SHOUT is the communication partner of the event.