Comitia 89

Sunday 23rd August

Flyer for Comitia 89

Exactly one week after Comic Market, the largest comics convention in the world, comes Comitia. They’re in the same venue. So what’s the difference? The most apparent one was this -

Comiket occupied the entirety of the Tokyo Big Sight convention center – the six eastern halls and the four western ones.

Comitia occupied the first western hall. And in the second was a ham radio convention.

That being said,

Why Comitia is better than Comiket

Comiket is more about fandom than it is about comics. What I learnt was that in a convention that permits derivative work, the majority of output seems to be 1) fan favourite characters in compromising situations, 2) fan favourite characters being repeatedly compromised by other, same-gendered characters, or 3) anything + Fist of the North Star.

Regarding the first two, I’m no prude. I support, you know, any perversion you can name. But much of Comiket was like walking through an adult video store (which is honestly what was most worrying about there being so many kids there this year, but that’s another topic).

Comitia prides itself on being all about original comics. When you take out all the fanfiction, even going so far as to ban cosplay, the bar gets raised a little. Creators have to get a bit more serious or stay home (looks like nine halls full of circles stayed home). That’s not to say there wasn’t any erotic material at Comitia, but not surprisingly it shrunk to a minority. I guess it’s no fun when there’s no love in it.

Table for table, artwork was certainly at a higher quality. I was at a loss as to what to buy at Comiket, but this time my bag got pretty heavy pretty quickly. I got the feeling that no small amount of the artists at Comitia were moonlighting professionals selling personal projects.

I wasn’t expecting to see someone whose work I recognised – the incomparable Shintaro Kago. His work has been extensively translated by the Same Hat! blog, and he’s got a sizeable following even in English. Sadly, he seems to be primarily Internet Famous, and it was kind of strange to see him just sitting there with all the no-name folks. I spoke to him briefly and he seems like a very polite and quiet guy on the outside, which must be difficult as the inside of his head must be swarming with hornets.

I could post a picture of the interior of Comitia, but it looked almost exactly like Comiket. But despite being around a tenth of the size, and having no queue to get in, it was far more claustrophobic. The aisles were so narrow that if there would be more than one customer at any given table, it would be really difficult not to block the adjacent one. I really hope Comitia can expand into two halls next time.

The next time will be sometime in November, and I understand it happens four times a year. The cost of entry is the 800 yen event program, which is every bit as cumbersome and useless as the Comiket one if you don’t know what to buy.

I really recommend going along to Comitia if there was something, something like comics, missing from your Comic Market experience.

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