During the just-concluded Qingming Festival, the first large-scale Comic Con of the year in Guangzhou, the COMIC UP Spring Special, was held grandly in the D Zone of the Canton Fair Complex. From April 4th to 5th, approximately 150,000 anime enthusiasts attended this spring anime extravaganza.
COMIC UP is the largest Comic Con in China and the second largest in the globe. This time, it joined hands with the newly opened D Zone venue of the Canton Fair Complex, bringing together over 3,000 fan booths, over 120 special zones and streets, while holding the special exhibition of the fan-made art collection "I Am What I Am",and the joint exhibition of COMIC UP comic books. Leading IPs in the industry, such as "Honor of Kings,""For All Time," and "Persona," were also presented, creating a splendid anime feast.
Multiple innovative works created by participating Chinese artists were also showcased in the exhibition. Additionally, the special exhibition of the fan-made art collection "I Am What I Am" was grandly held. It is a collection of fan-made artwork for the animated film "I Am What I Am" featuring dozens of high-quality art pieces, which has received favorable reviews from both the official team of the movie and hundreds of fans, instilling the lively charm of the lion dance, a cultural symbol of Lingnan area, into the hearts of young people.
The Comic Con was highly valued by anime enthusiasts, who have made prior arrangements with their "comrades" to visit the exhibition with a series of plans: visiting the official website to create a "wishlist," identifying the booths of their desired artists, and splitting up upon entry to queue up at different booths, discuss their love and thoughts about the works with the artists in person, and gain a sense of fulfillment through these interactions.
Why did COMIC UP choose to settle in Guangzhou? Xianggu, the planner of the COMIC UP Exhibition, explained that Guangzhou had an early initiation in anime culture as one of the birthplaces of the domestic anime industry. Today, a large number of original comic artists are based in Guangzhou. As the largest fan-made exhibition brand in the country, COMIC UP hopes to establish Guangzhou as a cultivation base for creative culture, providing an environment for artists to exchange ideas and publish their works, and a path for the development of Guangzhou creators.
Since 2021, COMIC UP has hosted six events in Guangzhou, with the number of participants and artist booths gradually increasing. This time, the exhibition area reached 80,000 square meters, with around 3,000 artist booths per day and over 120 fan zones/streets, setting a new record for the previous editions in Guangzhou.
"Our Con features creative exchange, primarily focusing on paintings and comics. We aim to discover emerging creative talents, helping them to integrate with the cultural industry, so as to support the development of cultural IPs, telling good Chinese stories to the world," Xianggu told the reporter. In the future, in addition to hosting exhibitions in Guangzhou, the organizers will also support outstanding artists to publish their works, while opening authorized merchandise stores and comic bookstores in Guangzhou, creating more spaces for cultural exchange.
Source: Yangcheng Evening News
