Up,Close with Chhota Bheem

With about 50 stalls set up by comic houses,it was not just children but several grown-ups as well who went ahead for a bite of their favourite comic books. A 58-year-old man,for instance,happily volunteered for a competition where he held out a sword posing like John Carter for six minutes without moving his hand.

Publication houses such as Diamond Comics,Marvel and Random House enjoyed a large amount of traffic to their stalls. It was a perfect opportunity for merchandising as well. By afternoon,Buzzingaa,a stall selling T-shirts and posters of famous cartoon characters from The Simpsons and Spiderman,was running short of Batman T-shirts. Responding to the popularity of Kolaveri Di song,merchandisers came up with “Kolaveri T-shirts” to woo Dhanush fans. There was also the Kathputlee 3D Chitrakatha stall,displaying a series of 3D story books,where children sported 3D glasses while browsing through graphic books. Besides,there were other exciting features at the event such as best costume competition,videogames,tattoo competitions and cartoon games that kept everyone entertained.

Pallavi Chattopadhyay is a student of Express Institute of Media Studies