Stumbled across a banner that promoted a ‘charity
fundraising’ event in the guise of a ‘geek con’ recently. I was immediately
intrigued and decided to do some fact-finding about the organizers because I
sure heck haven’t heard of them before in my geek life here in Malaysia. What
the heck is ‘A.C.T.’ anyway? A quick consultation with Dr Google revealed that
it stood for ‘Awareness & Care Together’. Suddenly an epiphany hit me as I
began to have imageries of cool random rare el cheapo stuff being sold by unsuspecting
people. Right, maybe it’s worth to check the event out.
As usual the family and I would hit our favorite Sunday flea market haunt first before we decided to go anywhere else. Managed
to get some flea market finds (more on that later) and then we collectively
decided to pay that ‘ACT’ event a visit.
The ACT geek con (wasn’t even called that in their
banners but I’d like to call it so for easy reference….charity event sounds so
bland to my ears) was held in a new shopping mall in town. We parked our car
and literally ran up to the venue anticipating lots and lots of cosplayers and
such running about with their costumers and such. But really, the con was
really more towards hosting an anime/manga singing contest so the booths were
playing more of accompanying roles rather than the main attraction.
A male fan in a female anime suit with skirts (for
the love of God I don’t even know any of the characters) was crying his/her
heart out to belt a supposedly fan favorite anime song judging from the
thunderous applause. Notwithstanding the very noisy atmosphere we decided to
troll along the booths hoping to find some decent stuff at reasonable prices.
The booth participants were a mix of action figure
sellers, a comic book seller, a couple of Star Wars cosplaying clubs and a slew
of sellers selling Gundams and other anime-related stuff. You probably can
guess on where I’d spent most of my time here.....
Yup, the comic booth. I kinda know the booth owner
as he previously set his booth at another flea market before. The dude
reiterated that he could recognized me a mile away as he can instantly recall
me rummaging through his stash of comics back then.
Hey, some Star Wars cosplayers! Cool.
Plus some.....err....Power Rangers...
I kinda like the upgraded LEGO Ghostbusters
Firehouse HQ.
I find more Marvel Universe figures than my
preferred 6" scale Marvel Legends on sale. There's this one particular
booth manned by a very enthusiastic collector/seller who pretty much resembled
the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. I regretted not taking his picture.
Can’t say that I was really stoked with this event
as I didn’t really find anything that sparked any real interest in me. I’m sure
that some people might find this event much better than I did. The organizers
did a good try though to mask the very anime/manga-heavy event by inviting
people from other walks of geek faiths to open up their booths.
The damage:
Alright. Confession. I only got that Gotham Central
issue #13 from the comic seller dude and the rest was snagged from our usual Sundayflea market. But you get the drift. These are the kind of Sundays that
mark a very good ending nonetheless to the week. Finding cool stuff at dirt
cheap prices. Heh.
What do I think of the event?
Good effort A.C.T. but I'd probably give you 2 and half stars (out of 5) for the event. I think it can be better the next time around.
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