The world of comic books is dominated by stories from the West. Two South African brothers are helping reshape that narrative with a central character inspired by the iconic hero.



Nelson Mandela had his own following at the recent Comic Con Africa convention at the end of September in Johannesburg.



At the center of all the organized chaos at the event at the
Gallagher Convention Centre attended by 71,000 visitors over four days was a
comic book bearing the late South African president’s name created by brothers
Phemelo, 28, and Omphile Dibodu, 25.



The comic book, Young Nelson, features an African superhero,
for readers in the continent and beyond.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="819" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/69712219_2127595184208556_1696296882583633920_n-819x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42302" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/69712219_2127595184208556_1696296882583633920_n-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/69712219_2127595184208556_1696296882583633920_n-300x375.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/69712219_2127595184208556_1696296882583633920_n-600x750.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/69712219_2127595184208556_1696296882583633920_n-240x300.jpg 240w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/69712219_2127595184208556_1696296882583633920_n-768x960.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/69712219_2127595184208556_1696296882583633920_n-1229x1536.jpg 1229w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/69712219_2127595184208556_1696296882583633920_n.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 819px) 100vw, 819px" /></figure>



Co-founders of Rainbow Nations Comics, a black-owned comic book and publishing company established in 2018, the Dibodu brothers were born and bred in Rustenburg, known as ‘platinum city’, in South Africa’s North West province. 



Far from their hometown, the duo were in the big city for
the event, showcasing their creations to an adept audience – people dressed as
superheroes, cyborgs and zombies – who crowded around their stand and were as
colorful as the comic books they were thumbing through. 



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“Wow, that looks cool, who is Young Nelson?” asked a curious
bystander.



Phemelo was ready with his answers even as his brother
assisted with more queries.&nbsp; 



“Young Nelson is a proudly South African black comic book inspired by the late Nelson Mandela,” responded Phemelo.



In front of him, on the table, a large poster of Young Nelson, featuring a young black male with the South African flag over his shoulders and a gold-colored map of Africa emblazoned on his shirt.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="960" height="960" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/70915590_2143969049237836_5672567550701993984_n.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42307" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/70915590_2143969049237836_5672567550701993984_n.jpg 960w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/70915590_2143969049237836_5672567550701993984_n-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/70915590_2143969049237836_5672567550701993984_n-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/70915590_2143969049237836_5672567550701993984_n-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/70915590_2143969049237836_5672567550701993984_n-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/70915590_2143969049237836_5672567550701993984_n-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/70915590_2143969049237836_5672567550701993984_n-80x80.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" /></figure>



This day saw the launch of the very first issue of Young Nelson titled An Act of Kindness, for R20 ($1.3) a copy.



Phemelo, the writer, and Omphile, the illustrator, say they
were inspired by Mandela and some of their own life experiences growing up.



“I think I wanted to pay tribute to the old man in a way
that it would hopefully inspire others to look at him in the way that many
South Africans see him,” says Phemelo to FORBES AFRICA.



In the story, ‘Young Nelson’ gets his nickname when he volunteers at a local boxing gym. The people watching him witness his skills and ability to solve problems, so they equate him to the young Mandela, who was famously a boxer in his youth.



“[The lead character] doesn’t like the nickname at first but
once he sees the significance of it and his heroics, how they are taken up by
the community to represent who they are, he takes the name and rolls with it
and that’s his superhero name going forward with the series,” Phemelo explains.



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Young Nelson’s real name in the comic is actually ‘Thabo Mo
Afrika’, inspired by South African president Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded
Mandela.



“ ‘Mo Afrika’ is a generic surname [which] translated into
English is ‘an African’. So I wanted to see every African seeing themselves in
Young Nelson,” Phemelo adds.



The young writer’s plan is to take his product to bigger markets, but for now, the African comic industry is a tough market to capture for lack of any funding.



“Imagine getting paid for what you are doing. That would [make a] big difference. Once people realize that their art can be compensated, more of us will actually start creating content the world would want to start reading,” he says. 



Bill Masuku, a speaker at the Comic Con event and who is
also a digital artist, shares the same sentiments.



“In Zimbabwe, where I am from, it is pretty grassroots.
Everyone is self-publishing and if you don’t really have a passion for it, the
book won’t come out,” says Masuku, who has been a part of the African comic
industry for over three years. He is the founder of Enigma Comix Africa, and
creator of Razor-Man and Captain South Africa. 



“As much as new creatives are coming out every day, what
really makes the comic book industry is distribution. And seeing that [Young
Nelson] has such widespread potential really makes me hopeful for where we are
going,” says Masuku.



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For comic books to thrive on the continent, they need a big
financial push from publishers, distributors or investors, unlike any other
medium.



The Dibodu brothers were fortunate to have been sponsored by
the Rustenburg Herald, a weekly local newspaper in Rustenburg.



“The problem with creating by yourself is that you can only
create at a certain rate and you do burn out. So you find people who have been
making comics who have three or four issues out and it’s easy to forget about
them as a consumer,” he adds.



Globally, platforms like Weekly Shōnen Jump in Japan make it
easy for Japanese creatives to publish their work as the comic book and manga
industry is thriving there, making it one of the best-selling magazines. Weekly
Shōnen Jump has sold over 7.5 billion copies since 1968.



But the African comic industry has a long way to go.



Kugali, a digital platform founded by three entrepreneurs
and friends from Nigeria and Uganda, is designed to help people find and share
the best African narratives and comics. It is an entertainment company that
focuses on telling stories inspired by Africans, offering much-needed exposure
to young creatives such as Masuku and the Dibodu brothers. For now, the
reception the Dibodus are receiving give them some hope.



“It’s been awesome and inspirational. I didn’t know people
felt the same way as me. It’s amazing when people are [reading] the story of
the character and people are saying ‘you know what, that’s what we need’,” says
Phemelo. At the end of Comic Con, they managed to sell over 300 copies of Young
Nelson.



“People are catching onto the culture. I think it might even
grow bigger than the American industry only because I think we are a very
artistic community… Whether you look at the hieroglyphics in Egypt or the cave
paintings by the bushmen in South Africa, we draw,” he says.



He also plans to sell his comics to local book stores in the country.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="1018" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster-1024x1018.png" alt="" class="wp-image-42306" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster-1024x1018.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster-300x298.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster-100x100.png 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster-600x597.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster-150x150.png 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster-768x764.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster-1536x1527.png 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster-80x80.png 80w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Young-Nelson-Poster.png 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



The team is currently working on their next creation – a
black African female superhero called Imbokodo.



“We are looking for new creators we can partner with and
create our own justice league, our own Avengers, to actually have young kids in
South Africa look at their heroes the same way Americans look at their heroes
in the Comic Cons to come.” 



Young Nelson is a refreshing reminder that not all heroes wear capes.

RNC – Phemelo Dibodu (left) and Omphile Dibodu (right)

Colors For Mandela

It was imagination and young obsession that became a business. Brothers Nizar and Mahdi Abrahams spent their childhood scouring stores for secondhand Batman and Superman comic books. It helped them transcend the grey backstreets of their home in Athlone, Cape Town.
Twenty eight years later, this childhood obsession has built a thriving business. It is a comic book shop poised to surf the growing wave of interest in the industry. In 2015, comic book sales hit their highest levels ever, $1.03 billion in North America alone, according to The Comics Chronicles. In Africa, interest may be small, but thanks to movies it’s picking up.
Comic books are a surefire bet for the multi-million-dollar movie industry; they come with a readymade fan base and familiar storyboards. Of 2016’s 10 top-grossing movies, six were originally comic books. Top of the list was Captain America: Civil War, which made $1.153 billion, according to Box Office Mojo.
“It’s a quick pitch to somebody, because the visuals are there&#8230; Comics are one of the cheapest ways of getting your ideas out there. It’s not like a movie that requires a producer and cameramen. It can be a one-man project. It’s how many artists got their names out there,” says Nizar.
For the Abrahams, it started out as a way to make pocket money for burgers and chips. The brothers sold their secondhand books at a stall in Greenmarket Square in Cape Town. They found comic books that sold the fastest and opened their own store, Readers Den, in nearby Long Street. Like Clark Kent it was only just getting out the telephone booth.
“Our first shop didn’t even have a till&#8230; The comics must have been speaking to us. We weren’t even thinking about it being a viable business. We knew if it didn’t work we could always go freshen up on our studies and get a ‘real job’. It’s like 25 years later and we are still having a [blast],” says Nizar.
Multi-million-dollar movie deals are as distant as the top of Table Mountain for African writers, but that doesn’t stop any of them from trying. Before getting there, you have to go through the frustration of writing for small audiences on scarce platforms.
“There are South Africans that are working at international standards and struggle to find work. It’s on the fringes. You could produce the best artwork, the best comic books, but if you don’t have a publisher or a distributor it’s pointless, that is critical to make the whole thing work,” says Mahdi.
The brothers say the shop was around the size of a closet when they opened its doors, on Long Street, in Cape Town’s business district. On their first day, more comic books sold on one table than any other goods in the store, says Mahdi with a hint of pride.
The 1990s market saw a boom; collectors were beginning to make millions from selling vintage comic books after holding on to ‘mint’ – that is pristine – editions. It brought a new generation of artists to the fore.
“It was a superficial understanding of the market. People thought you buy up the latest comics and keep them in mint condition, whereas the real investment in comics is the genuine vintage comics,” says Mahdi.
A glut of comic books forced many stores to lower their prices, lose money, and close. The brothers survived and out of the ashes, in the last decade, they rose. TV series, like The Big Bang Theory, and the growing gaming industry also helped to usher in the age of the geek.
“When we started, we used to get those judgy looks. Now it’s become normal,” says Nizar.
Collectors who treasured their comics now see returns in the millions. In 2014, Action Comics #1, which first featured Superman and lays claim to the birth of the superhero, sold for $3.04 million on eBay. It cost 10c in 1938.
This is a world away from the Abrahams brothers. For them, it is not the vintage comics that are the big sellers, but graphic novels. With a catalogue of over 4,000, they bank on selling 100 a month.
Is it no surprise the next big thing to hit Africa will be nerd conventions. Les Allen, founder of GeekXP and the owner of ICON, a comic book convention held in Johannesburg since 1992, has seen this firsthand. When he started out, his convention ran at a recreation center in Sandringham, with, at best, a couple of hundred hardcore fans showing up.
“Conventions are now serious business, and the truly successful ones have a range of activities and attractions, including local and international guests. ICON 2016 took that jump, inviting best-selling fantasy author Raymond E. Feist to be our guest of honor, and hosted over 40 different panels and workshops to entertain and educate,” says Allen.
“These are things we wouldn’t have been able to do if we’d stayed at a rec center. Our 2017 plans are already underway, with one international guest already confirmed, and we’re negotiating with two more.”
Allen believes growth in this industry is down to the mainstream success of movies based on Marvel Comics and television shows based on DC Comics.
“There are also shows like Game of Thrones which have massive followings, a large portion of which haven’t read the books which started back in 1996. These people can be considered ‘fantasy geeks’, but wouldn’t know, or possibly relate, to the tag.”
Conventions are an easy way for companies to connect with fans, just ask Allen who has been a geek since he was nine years old.
“It’s interesting to note that San Diego Comic-Con now touts itself as a ‘pop culture’ event, rather than a comic convention, which reflects their expanded event offerings, even though the original comic book industry is still a large part of it.”
“At a convention, a new fan is exposed to a rich history that they may not have been aware of (remember, Superman first appeared in 1938), which can move them to pick up the comic books and graphic novels.”
“At ICON 2016, our first at Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand, in Johannesburg, we had a number of first-timers – people who’d never been to a geek convention at all. Our 2016 attendance figure more than doubled our 2015 number, which was a combination of old-time attendees returning, but also new fans looking to experience things for the first time,” says Allen.
“You can point to rAge as being one of the trailblazers when it comes to geek culture conventions going large in South Africa – it’s now a staple for hardcore gamers and the casual fan alike, and has helped make the idea of a geek convention acceptable.”
Back in Cape Town, the Abrahams brothers are also getting into conventions with their own FanCon and Free Comic Book Day.
“When we started [Free Comic Book Day], which was in 2002, we were lucky to get one or two artists. There was zero interest for the people that attended, they literally would sit there. Eventually we started getting an uptake and we get about 30 to 40 artists a year,” says Nizar.
By contrast, FanCon, held at the V&amp;A Waterfront, drew in 4,000 last year. Fans arrived from as early as 6AM to book their spot in a queue that stretched for hundreds of meters, hours before the convention even started. The turnout was unexpected.
“At some point we even went out to calm people down,” says Nizar.
These events are now bringing in international guests to Africa and are a big chance for local talent to leave an impression.
“Overseas the standard is very high with A-list celebrity appearances and fans camping for days outside the venues. It’s huge money. I think the comic book guys understand we are small,” says Nizar.
The local numbers may not be as big as international conventions, but the demand is growing. Annual events like rAge and ICON which maybe catered for 500 a few years ago are now bringing in tens of thousands.
“Twenty five years as a comic shop. It’s glory days for us, it’s time to go out with guns blazing. We’ve had so much fun reading these comics, it’s about time we brought our heroes to South Africa. This is the best part; these are our heroes, the guys we would never meet. Now we get to meet them face-to-face and pick their brains,” says Nizar.
“You need to remember in the 1940s, when comic books first started, authors didn’t even have their names published with their work,” says Mahdi.
A childhood spent pouring over the pages of heroes to an industry growing into a world of celebrities and lucrative deals.

Glory Days For Geeks

It’s a typical Johannesburg day in the suburbs. People are walking their dogs and men sell feather dusters on the sides of the road. A big story here is when the garbage truck comes late. But knock on the door of number 26 Heathfield, Fairlands, and out comes a married couple fully clad in pink and bone armour and ready to battle dinosaurs or gigantic monsters should they threaten this fair land. On a scorching Johannesburg summer’s day, this was the meeting of Jeanine-Dee and Clint Hartog, a graphic designer and salesman, just two of the many devotees of cosplay.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29877 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-245x300.jpg" alt="" width="245" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-245x300.jpg 245w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-300x367.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-600x733.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919-768x939.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_8919.jpg 837w" sizes="(max-width: 245px) 100vw, 245px" />
Cos What?
Cosplayers are the following who dress as their favorite characters from the ever-growing gaming, anime and comic book industry.
“If you think this is bad, try walking around the whole day at KinCon. Clint sweated so badly people were afraid to go near him by the end of the day,” says Jeanine-Dee.
Cosplay is an idea born in Japan, but took off in America at comic book conventions. The gaming characters rarely fail to turn heads.
“I think it’s becoming a character that you’re ideally a fan of. Mainly cosplayers go to conventions and it’s to connect with other fans that have the same love of games or an anime character. At the end of the day you are a cosplayer,” says the 27-year-old game fan Jeanine-Dee.
“It’s fun to be in the life of that character for that day,” says Clint.
The Hartogs are not your average married couple; their home is like entering a temple to the gods of gaming. Piles of DVDs ring the lounge. Boxes filled with colored materials reach the ceiling and a spare bed is littered with Pokémon plush toys. The crowning glory is the couple’s two TV sets, enshrined by PS3s and gaming gadgets.
“For me, it’s improved my confidence. I used to be very shy. It’s improved my creativity. It’s something that if you are interested in dressing up like Dr Who, then do it. You don’t know where it will end up,” says Jeanine-Dee.
Their custom outfits, made from 3mm to 10mm thick EVA foam, was painstakingly moulded into Helms, Plates, Gauntlets, Waists and Leggings as per the game. In Monster Hunter, ‘Kali’ and ‘Squall’, as they are known in the PSP game, are bounty hunters that take down the monsters to earn rewards.  The couple are such big fans of the game they even run their own guild, where they link with other fans on weekends for multiplayer game.
“You can make your outfit from scratch. Or you can buy your costume online or you can even get a seamstress to make your outfit for you. Creating this armor was like a puzzle. We dissected each armor piece and then worked from there. There are basic patterns like for a kimono or a jacket. But basically you have to go from there to make it suit your own character,” says Jeanine-Dee.
The armor took two solid months of breaking their backs on their lounge floor. It’s a common night for the pair to crawl into their bed with burnt fingers from their glue gun called Grimer, a goo-like Pokémon; covered in layers of paint; and their eyes square from playing games.
For the Hartogs, the blistered fingers and long nights sewing armor were all worth it. At the August KinCon convention, held in Edenvale, Johannesburg, Jeanine-Dee’s outfit won whilst Clint’s placed third in the gaming category.
“It’s nerve-wracking. Normally you have to do a two-minute skit. Basically you have to become the persona of your character; you have to show yourself as that character. When you enter you have to give a reference picture to the judges so that they can see where you are from and if you have the correct detail…Some rules only allow you to enter a cosplay outfit once. At another competition you would have to make a whole new one,” says Jeanine-Dee.
“A lot of guys struggle with their first time. We encourage people to just try it once, even if you just go as a casual cosplay. Just try it once and see if you like it. We look at our first cosplay pictures and we think to ourselves why did we wear that? It was so terrible. But we’ve grown our skills since then,” says Clint.
If nothing else, Jeanine-Dee and Clint are dedicated. They have been fans of cosplay for several years. The couple even went as far as taking a road trip to Port Elizabeth (PE), a 1,000 kilometer journey, for a convention. The drive down was an unusual affair as Jeanine spent most of the trip embroidering their outfits. When they emerged from the parking lot, their cosplays nearly blew away in the city’s notorious gusty wind, a hazard for any want-to-be cosplayer.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29878 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Hiccup-Toothless-how-to-train-your-dragon-9626221-1600-680-300x128.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="128" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Hiccup-Toothless-how-to-train-your-dragon-9626221-1600-680-300x128.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Hiccup-Toothless-how-to-train-your-dragon-9626221-1600-680-600x255.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Hiccup-Toothless-how-to-train-your-dragon-9626221-1600-680-768x326.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Hiccup-Toothless-how-to-train-your-dragon-9626221-1600-680-1024x435.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Hiccup-Toothless-how-to-train-your-dragon-9626221-1600-680.jpg 1023w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“We were the only ones from Jo’burg, so when people were asking us where we were from, we would start by saying ‘we’re from a game called…’and they would say ‘no no no, like where are you from in South Africa’ and we would say Jo’burg. They were really excited. We were the only guys who said we would go and we actually managed the distance,” says Clint.
“I suppose you could say we will go the distance for cosplay,” says Jeanine-Dee with a cheeky smile behind her Rathian Heart U armor.
In the meantime, the couple has lots of work to do. Plans for an outfit that will show in Cape Town in the first Saturday of May have already begun.
“Clint and I have done a lot of gaming characters this year. A lot of people say we are gaming cosplayers, so next year we are going to spice things up. It might mean a female Loki popping up,” says Jeanine-Dee.
Their neighbors will surely be on the lookout to catch a glimpse of the couple on their next adventure in the ever-safe suburb of Fairlands.
Growth of Gaming
rAge is a small drop in the ocean for the gaming industry that’s worth R2.4 billion in South Africa, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) South African entertainment and media outlook: 2014 – 2018. By 2018, it is expected to grow to R3.7 billion. Nerds worldwide are also making millions in eSports. Twenty million people tuned in through online streaming to watch The International  2014 finals of DotA 2, a strategy game where two five-man teams face off in a head to head to destroy the other’s base. The winners of the finals, Chinese team, “Newbee”, pocketed $5 million for first place, from a prize pool of roughly $10 million.
Expanding Audiences
&nbsp;
By far the largest cosplay event of the year is hosted by Legion Ink at the Really Awesome Gaming Expo (rAge) held in Johannesburg. There were 98 cosplay competitors at rAge in 2014, but well over 200 more were dressed up for the event according to Ray Whitcher, a Lecturer in Multimedia Design by day and Legion Ink Cosplay organizer by night.
“Cosplay is ever-expansive and constantly growing, with the hubs being Jo’burg and Cape Town. If you look at SA’s biggest Cosplay Group, Cosplay SA, they have 1, 485 members, but we’re quite sure there are more than that. Its growth over the past 10 years has skyrocketed. We used to see all of 10 people at most events, and the same people at that, but now there are hundreds in each city. I’d go so far as to say that a lot of conventions pull audiences because of cosplay. There’s something about the uniqueness, the expression and the exoticism within the hobby that has a constant pull on audiences.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29876 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/221331-bleach___271___large_26-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/221331-bleach___271___large_26-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/221331-bleach___271___large_26-600x337.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/221331-bleach___271___large_26-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/221331-bleach___271___large_26-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/221331-bleach___271___large_26.jpg 1023w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“It’s also a way of celebrating a love of a character from pop culture, be it Star Lord from the recent Guardians of the Galaxy film, or Hatsune Miku from the Volcaloid music series instead of simply  consuming merchandise or YouTube videos. Then, of course, there’s the international proliferation of cosplay, with shows like Heroes of Cosplay bringing the hobby into mainstream entertainment.”
“Interestingly, not all of the demographic revolves around teens and those in their early 20’s – we’re seeing quite a large group of over 30 cosplayers joining in too, as well as pets, younger children and everyone in-between.”

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