Comic Con Africa (2022). Cosplaying Identities

The four-day Comic Con Africa festival was billed as the ultimate pop culture and gaming experience where conventioneers can immerse themselves in the worlds of their superheroes and comic artists. Visitors participated in a variety of physical, augmented, and virtual interactive experiences. This essay relates the author's immersed experience of day four, when he was monitoring a particular stand in the context of the whole exhibition at the Rand Show Grounds, Johannesburg, South Africa. The research method was participant observation, involving brief informal discussions with some exhibitors and conducting an impressionistic tour of the whole exhibition area. A description of some of the exhibitor guidelines frames the author's observations of the conduct of conventioneers when examining one particular comic. Drawing on post-phenomenology, some thoughts are offered on how new media technologies shape browser behavior and media reception. The exhibitor's interactions with conventioneers visiting his particular booth reveals some pointers on delegate interactions with technologies of representation.