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Get your Geek on - READ The Kung Fu of Fan Expo San Francisco: Anime Katanas Rising by Gene Ching
[QUOTE=GeneChing;1325812]Get your Geek on - READ The Kung Fu of Fan Expo San Francisco: Anime Katanas Rising by Gene Ching
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One is more likely to find a historically correct katana than a Chinese Dao or Jian at those shows. So much so, that I just buy anything that looks remotely close to a Chinese sword then grind it down to shape…
Our latest con coverage
"…right out of a comic book!’ READ The Kung Fu of Comic Cons – San Diego Comic-Con 2024 by Patrick Lugo and Gene Ching
Our latest con coverage
Return of "…right out of a comic book!’ READ The Kung Fu of Comic Cons – GalaxyCon San Jose 2024: Plus Michael Dorn on Klingon Martial Arts by Gene Ching
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The ABCs of Comics - READ San Diego Comic-Con 2024: One-on-One with Gene Luen Yang by Patrick Lugo
I was just at San Diego Comic-con last weekend and as I was preparing coverage, I realized I never posted the last fan gathering we covered. And that’s still available on the temp site.
[URL=“https://www.kungfumagazine.com/web-articles/2024/danny-trejo-on-fan-expo-sf-tyson-vs-paul-and-doing-his-own-stunts”]Danny Trejo on FAN EXPO SF, Tyson vs. Paul, and Doing His Own Stunts
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READ The Kung Fu of Comic Cons – San Diego Comic-Con 2025 (Outro: Shaolin Abbot Arrest) By Gene Ching
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https://www.kungfumagazine.net/forum/martial-media-culture-and-other-arts/off-topic/66554-comic-cons
https://www.kungfumagazine.net/forum/wai-jia-the-kung-fu-forum/shaolin-kung-fu/40469-abbot-scandals
READ The Kung Fu of Comic Cons – GalaxyCon San Jose 2025 By Gene Ching
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San Diego Comic-Con and the Anthropology of Kung Fu Cinema[/B]
By Patrick Lugo
Read The Kung Fu of FAN EXPO San Francisco 2025 by Gene Ching
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Looks like there was not much kung fu weapons in the “kung fu of fan expo”. There’s a huge variety of
replica Green Destiny jians and Disney Mulan Swords sold on the internet. Why none at these expos? And where’s the conspiously absent merchandising wings of kungfumagazine and their friends promoting Wuxia?
CTHD was 2000. Mulan was 1998 (although there was that live action in 2020). That was a long time ago in Con years. I posted a pic of the Mulan sword in one of my SDCC reports (Not sure if that one has been updated and I’m not going to look for it right now). But you’ll notice that there’s not much Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones swords either. There used to be a lot of those (I think I posted some pix in my Wizard World coverage but I can’t remember - that was a long time ago).
As for KFM, I was there obvs, but there hasn’t been enough support from the KF community for us to justify the expense of having a booth. It’s a two-way thang - gotta have enough fan base support to make your gate, ya know? That’s kinda what all my Comic con reports have been about. There is a martial presence, but you really have to look for it. I like to think it’s growing, but that’s just my personal bias… or hope. There’s always hope…
I’ve noticed there’s a lot of Americans on Tiktok into Chinese costume dramas which are full of swords, knives and fans. Have even seen people at the gym watching them while on the cardio machines. Maybe someone’s got to put the chicken before the egg, setup a booth and see what happens. Whats a booth cost these days?
Depends on the con - anywhere from a few hundred to up in the thousands for the big ones.
Unfortunately we don’t have the staff or the budget to man a booth at this time. Many many moons ago, Patrick Lugo and I did a table for Kung Fu Tai Chi back when we still ran Patrick’s comic Tiger’s Tale. That was fun. But we don’t have the bandwidth now.
There are also weapons (props) regulations at cons. MartialArtSmart only sells a small number of items that will pass most cons (FXSF is one of the more permissive). Uniforms wouldn’t sell - not the right market. Back issues probably wouldn’t sell enough to make gate.
I hear you on the popularity of wuxia TV dramas nowadays. I’m hoping that’ll spill over to cons soon. But even the martial K-dramas have yet to arrive. That’s partly why K-Pop Demon Hunters is so significant. I’m hoping that’s a gateway show.
Time will tell.