Competing fandoms: Philadelpha Comic Con vs. the World Cup

RB Silva & company at Philly Comic Con

Sometimes fate conspires to pit two interests against each other. Since June 13 I’ve been watching every soccer match in the undisputed king of world soccer tournaments — the World Cup. But even beyond the matches and surprises (Ghana matching Germany? Costa Rica beating Uruguay and Italy?) is the spectacle of fandom, and the creative ways it shows its love and support for the national teams. There’s been everything from face-paint to full-on costume, and I love it.

On Saturday, June 21 there were three World Cup matches: Argentina vs. Iran (1-0); Nigeria vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina (1-0); and the aforementioned Germany vs. Ghana stunner (2-2), and I didn’t see even one match. That’s because I was at another event that is all about the spectacle of fandom and creative ways to show love and support for  the world of comics, sci fi/fantasy/horror and gaming — Philadelphia Comic Con.

It’s funny, because there is probably not a whole lot of overlap between the two fandoms. In fact, the individuals involved in each often hold deprecating views of each other — the antagonism between geeks and jocks is standard in television shows and coming-of-age literature and films. And yet, the expression of fandom is indisputably the same.

Marvel’s Ironman fan vs.  Spain’s La Furia Roja fans

Ironman at Philadelphia Comic Con

La Furia Roja fans before Spain's second match

Nintendo’s Attack on Titan fans vs. Japan’s Samurai Blue fans

Attack on Titan cosplayers at Philly Comic Con

Japanese national team fans at the first match

Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier fans vs. Chile’s La Roja fans

Two sets of Captain America: The Winter Soldier cosplayers

Chile's La Roja fans before the second match

Dr. Who fan vs. Costa Rica’s Tico fan

Dr. Who cosplayer at Philly's Market East station.

Tico fan at a friendly preceding World Cup play

Marvel’s Captain America fan vs. United States’ Stars & Stripes fan

Captain America cosplayer at the PA Convention Center

U.S. national team fan in face paint

Sometimes, of course, the twain do meet in more ways than costume amd custom.

At the Philly Comic Con booth of artist R.B. Silva, who draws DC’s comic book Superman, we talked about the stunning Brazil and Mexico draw of last week. Silva is from Santos, Brazil, and we did a little trash-talking — me extolling El Tri’s vigor, Silva and his cohort minimizing everything but Mexican keeper Memo Ochoa’s ability to shut down Brazil’s prodigious striker Neymar.

And, on the way home from Comic Con — on a train with tired fans full of Dr. Who and Captain America: The Winter Soldier cosplayers — the first thing I checked? The scores of the fantastic three games of the day.

We are all part of communities within communities within even larger communities.

For me, much of the joy of attending an event like the Philadelphia Comic Con or following the World Cup, comes from the unpredictable and the wonderfully predictable. No matter who we are rooting for every four years, or dressing in tribute to every year, we come to celebrate our affections — creatively and unabashedly — together.

Cosplayers at Philadelphia Comic Con

Tokyo in Philadelphia

My daughter is in love with all things Japanese: kimonos and manga, onigiri and pocky, picnics beneath the cherry blossoms and cosplay.

Her interest has taught us a new vocabulary -- otaku, j-pop, mochi (among many others). It’s also taken us places – Sakura Sunday in Fairmount Park (those are my daughter’s photos from Sakura Sunday two years ago at the top of this post) and the East Coast’s largest Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya, in New York City to name just two. It has not yet, alas, taken us to Japan itself.

Her enthusiasm for the culture has even prompted her to choose to study Japanese in her first year of high school. Now, in addition to watching Hayao Miyazaki’s films together, we spend time as a family trying to figure how our names should be written in hiragana and katakana.

It all kind of makes my head spin.

A few days before the new school year started, my daughter came into Philadelphia with me for a half-day of school shopping. In addition to getting clothing you just don’t see at suburban malls, I planned to take her to lunch at a little Japanese eatery on Chestnut between 17th and 18th (the Tokyo of this post’s title and photo here) and to introduce her to Philly’s touristy-but-still-alternative South Street. Despite the rain that cut short the South Street portion of the day, it was great fun.

It was also an eye-opener.

I’ve commuted into Center City five days a week for the past five years -- the details of the trek have long ago faded from my notice. But I was with a fresh pair of eyes. Those eyes took in the pair of young violinists playing at the train station during the morning rush hour. They noticed a lush little park tucked between buildings I’d overlooked every other time I’d been down that street. Her eyes registered the artistry of the julienned vegetables garnishing her lunch and the beauty in dozens of things I’ve seen daily without noting them.

Hmmm. Is this something my daughter has picked up because of her love of a culture that seems to attend to the moment? Or is it her own artist’s temperament that makes her more observant? Or both?

But maybe those aren’t the questions I need to ask.

When did life start to move so fast that I can’t observe its little beauties?

When did the noise of tasks that need to be completed, and places I need to be, drown out the music played as both gift and petition?

When did I stop noticing?

It is a gift to spend days with one for whom the moments are still full of art.

It’s a gift to have a daughter with fresh eyes.


Morning-misted street …
With white ink an artist brushes
A dream of people.

-- Buson (Japanese poet and painter of the Edo period.)