As a child, many people dreamed of becoming superheroes from comics and science fiction movies, save the Earth from alien invasion, by clinging to the skyscrapers nets like Spider-Man. However, children’s dreams slip away, and a stack of comics with a figure of their favorite superhero goes to the boxes to the new little owners. Geeks refuse to say goodbye to the interest in comics and superheroes movies.
Geek — person profoundly interested in the movies and TV series, especially fantasy and sci-fi, as well as games, comic-com superheroes comics, and anime. Geek culture is actively developing in many countries, like Japan, USA, France, Brazil, Russia. Every year in the United States one of the largest festivals in the world — Comic-Con is held. More than 100 thousand fans from all over the world annually come to San Diego for the four-day festival, which includes anime, video games, stands with comics of different types and for different ages, press conferences of TV series and movies actors, writers and comedians.
A place where would be all artifacts from universes of comics, movies, anime and video games was the childhood dream of twenty-year-old Alikhan. Alikhan is one of the founders of the first geek-store in Astana «GEEK MARKET», which has a lot of artifacts from various movies, comics, anime, and TV series. Since launching a small boutique of geek and anime products less than a year, the store opened new «GEEK MARKET», and the old one was renamed to «ANIMARKET». The main purpose of the two stores is to develop in their directions, by offering a possibility to see and select products related to the series, anime or comics in the there.
In August 2018, the first «GEEKCON» festival was held in the Palace of Independence in Astana, which brought together all geeks of the city and the country.
Alikhan shared with us his plans and ideas for the near future: «I want to give a boost to the geek culture. We could have famous bloggers, actors to come to our festival, even from neighboring republics. Unfortunately, we can’t make everything, and we can’t become comics artists and filmmakers, but we can give an opportunity to hold events at our festival and in the promotion of creativity. Like any festival, the main goal is to gather as much as possible participants, who could show the creativity, whether it be cosplayers, or comics artists and animators. We will promote domestic producers and develop the geek culture», — shares Alikhan.
The festival «GEEKCON» involved cosplayers, music groups, creative teams, and speakers. Speakers and participants shared with the festival guests how to release their own comic book or cartoon. «Plans for the near future are to open another store in a large shopping center of Astana. The main aim of that store is to purchase geek products with a unique atmosphere, which only «GEEK MARKET» has. Also, we’re going to have the annual geek festival as «GEEKCON», which will be an impulse to the development of geek culture».
Diana Temirova
