Convention a festival of pop culture

BENDIGO’S own Comic-Con like event, Bendi-Con, is back for another year.

With more than 2000 people attending the 2022 event, founder and organiser Peter Pascoe said he expects even more at the August celebration of all things pop, comic, gamer cultures, and more.

Along with stalls selling comics, toys, and memorabilia for fans of popular franchises like Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Disc World, there’ll also be artists selling their work at the one-day event.

Mr Pascoe said in the past fans have mainly come from Victoria, but some have travelled from all over Australia, and this year for the first time there’ll be a special guest who’ll be heading in from the UK.

“We’re flying down a guest from Sydney, who’s a comic book creator, and is into the comic book community as well,” Mr Pascoe

“Gary Erskine, he’s from Scotland, he’s a comic book artist, has worked for all of the companies really, for Marvel, DC, Image, IDW, and 2000 AD.

“He’s got a long history, came into prominence probably the late 80s, 90s, and has been on and off employed in the comic book industry since then, so we’re very excited about having our first international guest at Bendi-Con.”

Mr Pascoe said a favourite feature of the event is a cosplay contest for the best-dressed fan and said he expects to see characters from the new movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

“I’m possibly anticipating a few variations on Spiderman and Spider-Gwen,” he said. “You can generally spot a Deadpool or two running around.

“It all kind of depends on what’s hot at the time.

“The Flash movie’s just come out as well and generally there’ll be a few sort of anime characters as well from Japanese cartoons.”

Bendi-Con 2023 will be at Red Energy Arena on Sunday 27 from 10am to 4pm, and tickets to the event can be purchased through Ticketek.