Memorabilia... When is it a Con?
MEMORABILIA, or The Birmingham Comic Con as they promote it these days, actually had a very healthy number of stands selling comic back issues this winter. The major criticism regarding popular culture shows of this kind of course being that there are so few comics actually on sale or folk who produce them professionally.
False advertising then?
Well, that depends on how you read the label: Grammatically a “comic con” tells you directly that if you’re coming to this event for the comics you’re being conned.
Old gits like me might look down our noses and explain that such shows are simply an abbreviation of the descriptive term “comic convention”, as defined by our cousins over in the USA. The popularity of San Diego’s version of this having escalated in recent years by the proliferation of Hollywood film companies seeking to promote their potential blockbuster wares there having blurred that concept increasingly in recent times. The mainstream popularity of TV show The Big Bang Theory allowing this new belief system of a what “a con” is all about to now extend to the general public consciousness over here too.
So hey, deal with it my fellow die-hard comics fans – This is what comic-cons are today. We can still complain that B-movie actors only recognisable by the photo hanging behind where they’re seated for you to come and pay for their autograph is rather cheeky, and yes beloved 70s soap TV stars is pushing the remit rather strong but at least in Birmingham the valid claim can be made that Memorabilia started as a popular culture show right from the very start – And proved incredibly popular at it, so much so that many years later others copied the format, and labelled themselves comic-cons, and one of those companies, MCM, bought up Memorabilia to get a foot in the door in the second city and one day will rebrand its name completely. Stick that in your e-cigarette and smoke it you would be history revisionists.
But what did we see this November in Birmingham? An increase in the numbers of real dealers selling back issues and graphic novels as already stated. What does that tell us? The general public must be buying them, though hopefully not because they think they’re going to be worth a fortune in a few years time. Northern book store Travelling Man was there too selling loads of bargain priced graphic novels, with lots of mangas on sale and board games too – In fact they too up so much space they obviously came with serious intent, and their busy smiley-faced staff looked very busy. Look harder and you will also find dealers regularly there in isolated corners selling back issues of old British weekly comics too, and at decent prices.
Cosplayers a plenty were there as per usual – and maybe it was my flying solo the reason I noticed so many mothers dressed in costume this season. My own daughter usually comes with me, this year I just paid her ticket and she went swanning off with her mates, and while she’s all grown up now it was curious to see the various kids there holding the hands of their moms dressed as Xena or Harlequin. Women in uniform were also on the rise with an upsurge in attractive Mega-city judges of the Anderson and Hennessy variety adorned in tight fitting black latex of leather about.
An awful lot of anime/manga related franchised material but less Japanese sweet stalls in evidence, a lot less peripheral stuff all round actually, meaning the fans must be demanding more real comic related stalls – Possibly because of all the TV shows folks now watch? The trouble being there’s still a load of stalls selling knock-off prints, illustrations and merchandise featuring Superman, Captain America and the like that you know is not licensed and the public doesn’t know that. At a real comics convention dealers like that might possibly be policed better. Over in the Comics Village where it’s predominantly small press folk it tended towards a quieter outlook, but then they always have been segregated and hopefully those that sought them out found them.
Throughout, what was most apparent was how friendly the various dealers were, I struck up many a pleasant conversation and not just because they were haggling me to buy their goods. A fun family day out then, albeit that the food is far too over-priced. Memorabilia may have been reduced to the subtitle in the promotion of this event but it has yet to fully become one of those comic cons!
Sponsored by Target Media.
