I’m a comic reader before I could reader: I watched only images at that age. Another Romics edition in my city. A big business because from this year we will have a spring and an autumn edition. And this time the organisers thought to add more trains for the location, the same nowhere place among ex-swamps.

I understand why I came all the times to this kind of fairs. It is not only comics or sparse game stands, it is principally about girls. Here you can watch lots of young and very beautiful females in their best age. Half-naked females with imaginative dresses. Exhibitionism is the rule. It is called cosplay… Sometimes the situation is really embarrassing. Among girls that practically wears bikinis with some fabric variously added, one of them with one D size bra on put herself on all fours on a car to show better her boobs to a crowd of males.

As I always say, this is a place where to show your costume, and your corpse. Everyone take photos of everyone, it is an infinite play of images based on fantasy worlds better than crude and monotone reality. Mine was a really fast trip, I stayed only 5 hours inside the fair on the 4 days duration. So I didn’t take lots of photos. You can find more on Flickr.

This time among cosplayers I noted more male and female homosexuals than usual. Some famous drag queens played to this costume thing too.

More sex talking. This Japanese statuette impress me. Only 110 euro to have a sex slave on a bookshelf of yours.

Something more polite and childish. My partner in the trip while is buying a Spiderman nice puppet.

In the very old times you cannot find a Gundam model, they were a chimera. Now the usual wall of models, everyone with their price tag made by post-its.

Another fair view. Some gadgets around and the upper entry of one of the 3 pavilions used for Romics.

I have to show even some comics, otherwise you could think that there weren’t comics in a comic fair. Here my partner while is buying from the author a comic that I don’t like at all about a fat panda… Instead I bought a Belgian/French school comic about airplanes in the WWII. I have got a better style of life…

The next appointment for comics is in autumn here in Rome and a month after there will be the Lucca madness. Instead, wargaming speaking, the next appointment is Hellana, this Sunday. I will be present with Ferrum et Gloria.

Today is Giovedì Grasso, one of the two major Carnevale days. So I want to propose this extravaganza about half naked gladiatrices! We are speaking about a comic by JulianApostate. Fighting women are a classic kinky topic and this comic about gladiatrices is setted in the Roman world. You can find the comic here.

From the paper to the screens. If the Avengers and superheroes have got their films so even Ultimate Gladiatrix have got a flick! This one is a 18 minutes production by Amazon Warriors, a photographer and film maker web based and specialised on fighting girls. This time his models staff fight and kill in the arena. You can buy it here. Below some screenshots to admire the technical fighting skills of these young girls.

Every year there is in Rome this fair about books. It is based on small publishers. It is the opportunity to know and buy something different from the usual, that is something that you cannot find in mainstream bookstores. So you have obscure publishers, whodunit specialised ones, archaeological ones, and extreme left and right ones. Oh, there is space for cooking, travel and poetry books too.

All this is inside a strange building from fascist era, a congress palace conceived for the universal exposition of 1942, that was build in the ’50s instead. Cold new-classical rationalism. A little freezing those days because the temperature was below the zero. And with the economic crisis in Italy the fair was less crowded than usual. The name of the fair is “more book more freedom”. But now we have “less books and less freedom”.

This time we hadn’t the usual space for publisher from Sardegna. The crisis. We had more space for ebooks, but Berlusconi – the owner of the biggest publishing and distribution companies – don’t want them, so this market is pretty close and non influential. I bought just a couple of book for me and some to give for Christmas. This was the time for a book on Etruscan origins and another one on military strategy. More to read while I’m going to the job place.

Diabolik is an Italian comic anti-hero that now celebrates 50 years life. He is a thief who steal for no real reason: it is his nature. He is even an assassin, a cold man that utilise technology in his jobs. He is a spiritual heir of Fantômas.

A couple of Diabolik exhibitions were in Lucca, one inside the Comics Museum and the other one inside an ancient church! It was weird to see the king of the thieves with his dagger in this context!

This comic was very anti-conformist when it was published in that years. Bigoted people and authorities saw in this character a dangerous menace to moral. In 1967 this cover with a girl who wears only a bikini was sequestrated as a porn publication.

Some years after, some bank coined small gold ingots with Diabolik covers as an economical investment…

After a psychotronic film directed by Bava and a childish tv cartoon series, now is the time for a glamorous video series. Sign of the times, during a long 50 years story.

After 5 days in Lucca Comics & Games I needed some sleep. I was among thousands of staff people and 180000 paying people. I worked heavy at the Ganesha stand but I succeeded to take almost 250 photos, so you have to wait a little to watch a full report in thematic posts on this web. However now I’m offering you some official videos to understand what is this fair. Enjoy!

The Roman convention about comics, cosplay and games: Romics. This time I was together with Andrea Sfiligoi in the quest for Japanese giant robots miniatures. He want to use them with Samurai Robots Battle Royale rules. I spotted the gashapons, Andrea bought them! I’m an hardcore comic fan since my early childhood, before I learned to read. So every year I’m here to buy some comics and gadgets, spending some time in this really exciting atmosphere. Oh, I almost forgot, and to view beautiful girls too.

Speaking about the buyers view I could say that in the current world of comics the most important things nowadays are the gadgets (t-shirts, costumes, bags, figures,…). Comics – and anime – seem to have a secondary role. However these two things live side by side, helping each other, as you could see here. Instead the game sector was marginal in this convention: this is not a place for gamers, there are too many people who are looking for other things. In spite of this there were Games Workshop demo tables, game vendors, a boardgame area cured by Reindeers, Magic card players.

I don’t want to bore you with piles of dusty old comics or with phantasmagorical superhero covers. I told you that the place was full of comics and it is enough. Comic conventions are cosplayers crowed, so now is better to show something more coloured.

Cosplay is the main reason to go to a comic convention by now. As a matter of fact a third of the space available was dedicated to a cosplay theatre. It is a new form of expression generated from comics. Some people show their love for this world becoming a comic – or anime or magna – character.

These two guys stayed a lot of time three meters above the ground in this position to draw attention to their costumes. The cosplayer hard life.

A nice nun with gun: cosplay is for men (!) too. I saw many men who challenged the weather temperature to show their muscles, and sometimes they were dressed only with their underwear and little more to create a costume. Well, however I prefer girls.

Every time I see lots of Catwomen, Lara Croft and Lamù. Cosplay is a way to give vent to female exhibitionism too. Human females always compete each other with methodology employed to increase sexual attraction towards human males. So a comic convention is an arena where they can show their beauty increased by costumes.

Even this time I censure myself. Some crazy girls without shame were throwing at you their asses and boobs. I can’t publish photos of extremely undressed women, sorry. I just give you an image about these tits-pads to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome. I own one, it works.

It’s always the same old story. The convention closed at 19 and we left at 18.30. Then we tried to reach the railway but some railwaymen stopped us at the bottom of the stairs of the unsafe bridge that take to the platform roof. It was overcrowded. So we had to wait under a storm. We spent an hour here, in a queue toward that stairs, squeezed by people and water. Umbrellas were our canopy. We were freezing due to rain. The railwaymen allowed us to reach the platform roof after the passage of a couple of trains. After we had to wait another hour. Two trains didn’t stop at this station because they were only for upper class travellers. When the next train arrived with a 25 minutes late, it was assaulted by the crowd. Andrea’s bag was ripped when he got up the train. No wounded people, a miracle. So he lost a couple of gashapons. We could leave at 20.30, other people left only with the next train. 40 minutes more for them. This is the only public transport to reach the fair buildings of the capital city of Italy, a fair in the middle of nowhere, near only to swamps and fields. Commuters live similar situations every day.

In the photo you can view the platform roof as soon as we could reach it. More people were arriving. You can view, lighted by neon lights: a half-naked cosplayer wrapped up with a borrowed sweatshirt; another girl who wears the boyfriend’s jacket; a girl consoled by a boy; people eyes that reflect their powerlessness. Italy…

As I said before, there are some things that are almost the same year after year, some periodic appointments that you can find on this blog year after year. So we have another Happy Model, the big edition before Christmas. I was there the last year, as you can read on this post. It is a national market for railway modelling and even for other related stuff. Here you can see a scene that recreate the railway near my house.

This year I found a large quantity of soldiers for collectors. I’m amazed from the quality of this delicacies. They are still little soldiers but you can show a lot of details. It would be a great thing to play with these soldiers but they cost a lot and you need bigger tables.

In the following photos you can see materials for thousands of euros…

…and a joy for the eyes!

The madness is always the same: I could buy only a bunch of them for a little skirmish, they are so beautiful,…

…but after rationality come back so you are free of absurd thoughts.

The real danger: play my Ferrum et Gloria with 54mm!

These times are even those ones for +Libri +Liberi, the national market for small publishers. Last year I was there. You can find pile of interesting books but you cannot find enough space at home to store just a couple of them. I found various titles but I restricted myself to only two book. The first one is an edition of Opera Nova by Achille Marozzo, a guide written in the XVI^th century about sword fighting. A great document about techniques that you can find in those years but even for all that regards fight with hand weapons. I hope I find some ideas for Ferrum et Gloria.

The latter is a book about the months from the landing of Anzio and Nettunia to the invasion of Rome. This time watched from an Italian perspective! I’m tired of reports written by winners, history is another thing. The fairy tale told to us is about US soldiers (and the other people didn’t exist at all!) who wanted to give us liberty and only bad Nazis slowed them. So this one is another view, with Italians in it! I reenact every year the landing from the bad guys side, as an Italian paratrooper. You can read it on the last year post.

Let’s start with a view on stands around.

Here my friend Narciso frozen among comics. There were a lot of old and new comics. Too many for a life.

I wonder if a human being can have the space to store all this stuff inside his house. And I wonder as mini-skirt change the way we perceive the world.

Manga ARE the comics. They are read by boys and girls, when other type of comics are read only by males. It was a great thing when girls started to read comics. It will be a great day when females start to play historical wargames.

A smart and funny comic about boys, girls and sex. Great drawings too.

A comic about William the Bastard. Well done. Here the author while was signing my book with a sketch.

Personalised prints by Frezzato, a great comic author.

Gay Zombies in Vatican City! This diy comic went sold out.

Ashley Wood paintings for sale!!! I’m a fan, I like his robots very much but I cannot afford a painting for 3000 euros. I have them printed in a book. I will continue to see them on a book and not on a wall.

Ashley Wood, Jamie Hernandez, Jack Kirby, Crumb… where is my bank account?

Linings for long pillows to hug. A sexy help from Japan to lone male geeks. Exists the same thing for females.

Mouse pads with tits. I bought that one down on the right. I have problems with my wrist so this can help.

Tanto Cuore (a lot of heart) is a card game about Japanese maids. Yes, it is weird as it seems.

T-shirts that hailing to bisexuality. However in the fair there were a lot of manga about homosexuality. I don’t know why.

Diabolik is the Fantomas or Arnesio Lupin of Italy, the king of thieves. Only that he is more dark. Since some years they lunched a line of gadgets. The note says:”Steal from Diabolik stand cause misfortune”.