The return of Portsmouth Comic Con!
Cosplay at the ready folks – Portsmouth Comic Con – International Festival of Comics is back this weekend! For the first time since 2019, the show is back on with a whole raft of special features over the course of the weekend including the Star-Wars Walk-Through Experience; Saturday’s She-Quential, A Celebration of Female Superheroes; and Sunday’s World of Witchcraft and Wizardry!
Comics and more!
There are comics guests from across the world, including Marguerite Sauvage, Laurence Campbell and virtual guest Adam Hughes, as well as tons of guys and girls from the UK indie comics scene, who will be more than happy to help you spend your last pay check on their books, prints and original art – I know that I’m going to come home needing to buy more frames!
According to the official con maps there are not one, not even two, but FOUR comics cities, plus a whole comics village, sections for Doctor Who and DICE Boardgames. Plus something called “Lawn of the Dead” that I’m going to check out from sheer curiosity. The Star Wars walk-through also features an “Ewok Experience” and let’s be honest, they had me at Ewok.
Panel lineups!
Panel wise, comic book artist Gary Erskine will be demonstrating what makes a successful comic book character and offering advice on how to design your own characters. On Saturday and Sunday, children and teens can learn the basics of comic and zine making, understanding about framing action, drawing dynamic poses and elements of caricature. Plus on Sunday, professional artist Louis Netter will look at how comics are conceived and created, with a specific focus on acting in the comic and how to explore emotions.
For those of us that like to get into the spirit of things and cosplay, the ever-popular adult and children Cosplay Parades will return on both Saturday and Sunday, with some great prizes to be won. A great opportunity to see the time and effort that people put into their homages to favourite characters, these also celebrate the diversity and inclusive of the spectacular world of cosplay and costuming. Portsmouth Comic Con does tons of work via it’s social media to develop and inclusive atmosphere, and has a strict anti-bullying policy that I for one appreciate seeing laid out so clearly.
Warzones?!
For those of us who remember eating our Sunday tea in front of Robot Wars (showing my age there), this year appearing for the first time are Extreme Robots, the leading fighting robots arena spectacular, featuring the stars of the smash-hit BBC Television series “Robot Wars”. Billed as “a smoke-fuelled, fire-breathing arena show” that features previous winners from the show and the incredible house robots including Major Damage. And if you didn’t mentally salute at that, then I don’t know if we can still be friends.
If you are heading down this weekend let us know, and we would love to see your photos of your days out!
