Cosplayers, comic lovers turn out for NWI Comic-Con in Schererville
Some people think a lot of sugar is too much, but at NWIComic-Con, Autumn Walker and Chloe Hill couldn’t believe there was any Sugar at all.
The two young women did a double-take Saturday afternoon as each of them was dressed as Sugar, a little-seen character in “Off,” an obscure French role-play video game released in 2008. Autumn, 16, of Merrillville, shouted “Hi, Sugar!” to Hill, 20, from Lansing, Ill., as Hill walked in.
Fandom for the horrorgenre game has dwindled considerably, Autumn said, which is why it was exciting for her to see someone else donning Sugar’s look.
“You don’t see her for very long in the game. She shows up surrounded by candy,” Hill said.
NWI Comic-Con proprietor Brian Grabinski said he was expecting 3,000 cosplayers, comic lovers and all other manner of fans to walk through Halls of St. George Saturday in Schererville, and some 800 had already crossed through by noon, he said.
And as far as he could tell, there were no overly duplicated costumes this time around. Nor were there many duplicated attractions.
The convention, now in its sixth year, relies on a jury process for its vendors to ensure people aren’t seeing the same things all the time, Grabinski said. Several new artists were on the bill, including one of Grabinski’s favorites, Dave Dorman, who has illustrated comics in the “Star Wars” franchise.
“Tim Seeley, who draws and writes for ‘Batman’ and ‘Nightwing’ is here, as is Frank Fosco, who draws for ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,’ ” he said.
“Cory Hamscher is from (Northwest Indiana), and he’s with Marvel. He’s here too.”
Chicago-based artist Jim LaMantia’s project right now isn’t attached to a franchise.
His latest book tells the story of his journey to becoming an artist while also dealing with Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune condition affecting the bowels.
LaMantia got involved in the comic-con game first on the retail side, then was thrown into the art side sort of by accident, he says. One time, he was asked to fill in at a friend’s table who was down an artist, so he brought a binder full of his drawings and little else.
“People would come up and ask me if something was for sale, and I would say no because it didn’t occur to me that I could be selling my artwork,” he said, laughing. “I love how much I didn’t know at the time, when it was OK to be underprepared and learn along the way. I miss that.
“At its core, comic-cons are places where you can come and show your work no matter what it is, and there’s always going to be people who like it, even if they don’t buy anything. And that’s huge for an artist,” he said.
Mandy Madrox, of Kankakee, Ill., author of the fantasy series “Nephilim,” said comic-cons are perfect places for her to sell her books because if someone is a fan of one thing, it’s not hard to get them interested in another genre.
“What I’ve found is if someone’s a fan of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies, you know they’ve read the books first,” said Madrox. “A geek is a geek, and they enjoy everything.”
Madrox is especially fond of NWI Comic-Con, where she’s been a fixture since its inception.
“The crowd here is always amazing. It’s a great atmosphere,” she said.
Then there are the littlest cosplayers like Parker Sharp, 9. Parker and his dad, Shawn Sharp, made the trip from Mooresville so that Parker could ham it up in his Deadpool costume. “I’m not old enough to be watching that stuff, but I do. It’s kind of weird,” Parker said of his favorite superhero. “Deadpool got cancer for no reason.”
Parker was also on the hunt for his favorite YouTube star, D-Pitty, who dresses up as Deadpool, but also Spiderman sometimes. After looking at the program, Shawn Sharp broke the news to his son that D-Pitty likely wasn’t there.
“He comes to all the comic-cons though,” Parker Sharp said.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the PostTribune.