Comicdom Con Athens 2013

We often hear from our international guests that Comicdom Con Athens is unique. Not so much for its program which, apart from its minor innovations, has its core structure based on similar international conventions, but for the fact that nowhere else in the world have they encountered an event that has the same standards while also being admission-free, especially with everyone involved in the organizing part being volunteers. Given the economic crisis, we fought to preserve that uniqueness and succeeded in doing so.

The international guests for our eighth event were veteran British writer John Wagner, co-creator, among others, of Judge Dredd, acclaimed British writer Jamie Delano (HELLBLAZER) and talented Italian artist Matteo Scalera (SECRET AVENGERS, DEADPOOL), while we were delighted to once again welcome British artist Rufus Dayglo (TANK GIRL), one of the previous year’s guests of the convention and someone we now call a good friend.

Despite the diverse list of our esteemed guests, the highlight for this year was the exhibition “The Life And Work Of Hergé”, a tribute to Tintin and its creator through many original pages that were presented to the Greek audience for the very first time, in collaboration with the Hergé Museum.

And, since we missed the image of the theater turning into a place of simultaneous mass display of creativity, we brought back the charity sketch event, this time in collaboration with the Embassy of Belgium in Athens and the “Smile Of The Child” foundation.

Regarding the “funnest” event of our festival, the extremely popular (no exaggeration whatsoever, everyone who’s seen the lines stretching out off the building, knows what we’re talking about) Comicdom Cosplay, we’re very proud of the fact that this year’s competition served, for the first time, as the national qualifying event for the EuroCosplay 2013 contest, with the winner representing our country in the European competition at the London MCM EXPO!

And all that while our schedule was full of panels with subjects such as “Comics And New Technologies”, “Inspiration Vs. Deadlines” and “Characters Are Forever”, the screenings of Steven Spielberg’s popular movie THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, British indie film JUDGE MINTY and the OTAKU UNITE documentary, not to mention, of course, the Comicdom Awards.

Turning every convention into “our best event yet” isn’t always easy, but when it happens, one can actually see it on the faces of both the visitors and the organizers. And honestly, there were many of those faces around this year, with the fanzines/self-publishers section joining the rest and stepping up the game this time!

  • Date: 19, 20 & 21 of April
  • International Guests: John Wagner (JUDGE DREDD), Jamie Delano (HELLBLAZER), Matteo Scalera, (SECRET AVENGERS, DEADPOOL), Rufus Dayglo (TANK GIRL)
  • Christos Martinis worked on the artwork of the poster
  • Matteo Scalera worked on the cover of the catalogue
  • Check out the results of this year’s Comicdom Awards