Malta Comic Con

The Macarena

I should have typed this up a while ago! Well, Malta Comic con has come and gone for another year, but what an event it turned out to be. It was easily the best convention yet. The talks were interesting, the guest artists were wonderful, and there were so many cosplayers (my favourite is probably my friend who wore Alice's costume blue dress, made by the Mad Hatter, from the Tim Burton film). I had so much fun.

My table was one of the trickiest things to prepare. The first time I put the pictures up, it looked a little plain. I added my steampunk costume to the wall, and a tree branch-a real branch that my mother found out on the Victoria Lines! I also had some nice fake velvet to drape over the table. Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of the stand.

I got a really good table this convention, in one of the main exhibition rooms. I also had a lot of really great artists in the same room: David Lloyd, John Haward, Susan Waitt (a really great local artist), and down the steps there was Sonia Leung and Emma Viceli, as well as many other local artists.

For the first day I wore my Babydoll costume. something has been bugging me about that costume for a while and I've finally found out what: I set the sleeves upside down! Oh well, it looks good. Though quite a few people asked where i had left my weapons (I was lazy and didn't bring any).

This is the first year that i have actually made any profit, thanks to the steampunk and bottlecap jewelley, and Soulcakes. I don't think I've mentioned Soulcakes before. This is a little project I worked on through the summer right up until comic con. It's a simple photocopied comic (I think they are called ashcans).You can read it in its rough form on my deviantart account , or order a copy from me (1.30 Eur per copy), but the basis of the story is as follows: would you sell your soul for a pancake?

Trade was slower on the second day. I managed to sell most of my necklaces (I gave the last two away as presents), two mini tops hats, almost all the copies of Soulcakes, the bunny ears, the kitty hat, and numerous post cards. I wore my Sweet Pea costume for the event. The hood is smaller than I would have liked it to be. My own fault: I should have made a mockup.

Since this blog focuses mainly on cosplay, I'll talk about the cosplayers now. Overall, a great turnout, especially for the competitions. Not everyone had made their own costumes, but for the most part everyone looked like their character. One of my friends did a great Chrono (from Chrono Crusade) cosplay, complete with wings; all of which she'd made by herself. I was rooting for her, but she and her friend (cosplaying as Rosette) lost to a Lupin group, though they were a close second.

There was a lot of controversy surrounding the contest, between some competitors and the main cosplay group in Malta. There's been friction between independent cosplayers (often former members of this group) and the group. At the contest a lot of people specifically stated that they were entering to beat this group. there were lot of technical problems, which led to rumours that this group was sabotaging the contest (it didn't help that the day before, the winners had all been members of this group). There was also controversy over certain participants not being allowed to compete because of their costumes (they were cosplaying a band, and apparently cosplays of real people aren't welcome. What does this mean for my Lady Gaga cosplay?) They were allowed to compete after complaining to the convention organisers. This annoyed me: why shouldn't you cosplay figures in the music industry eg. Gaga, Keisha, Kiss? I mean, the year before the winner of the contest had been cosplaying Freddy Mercury! Any thoughts on this issue?

Controversy aside, the overall performances were good. But GAH! Caramell Dansen was used as an entry. On the forums of Cosplay.com says this is a major faux pas in skits. This was actually one of the winning skits! I will give that cosplayer credit: she knew her dance, she made it fun, and she kept going even when the music cut out.

A lot of skits were good, but needed polishing. the Yu Gi Oh skit is a good example. Plenty of the people in the skit were not dressed as actual characters or monsters from the show. Isn't that kind of a cop out? It's a bit like cosplaying people from Pokemon and throwing ordinary soft toys around, without a single Pikachu in sight. There was a good Vampire Knight skit (the yaoi joke was short, sweet and funny), though Yuki spoke a little too fast to hear her properly.

 A few skits suffered from being too long: there was an impressive Metal Gear Solid Snake (is that the right name?), with a moving doorway (it even had a laser built into the frame), which featured the character making his way through the laser guarded door. Overall impressive, but my attention lagged: let's face it, a guy shooting at invisible enemies is not that thrilling. One of the audience also pointed out that at the end of the skit, the cosplayer walked AROUND the doorway, not through it-the whole point of the skit was that he needed to get THROUGH the doorway.

Mind, if he'd had fellow cosplayers in his skit, he would have been stiff competition for the group skit category.

Another skit with similar problems was an individual cosplayer, dressed as Cloud from Final Fantasy. The skit was a recorded interview-I think. It was a bit too long, and random-towards the end he began playing air guitar to Bon Jovi's 'Its my life'. I know squat about Final Fantasy, but is this what the character would do?

I'm so pleased that we won the group skit. the judges were all very complimentary. Apparently the fact that we continued our skit even when the sound cut clinched our victory. So happy . . .

And now for something completely different . . . photos!

Our group: Sweet Pea, Blue and Rocket; and one of the judges, Sonia Leung. She mentioned doing a Bayonetta cosplay: I'm holding her to it :) Look at the trophy (rocket's holding it)

Ahh, the smell of victory. LOL. I love Rocket's costume: it looks really professional.

blue is not happy! I need proper stockings and boots. I need flat boots, and didn't want to spend money on them, so I substituted with cool looking boots instead. for photo shoots I will probably wear thigh high heeled boots: not exactly correct but they'll look good.

Revenge is sweet!

Overall, I had a wonderful time at Malta Comic Con 2011 and I hope to return next year.