Comic-Con Pune: 8th March 2025

As I sat at my desk in the office on the morning of 24th January 2025, probably raising an MR, I got a message from my sister's husband asking "Comic Con mein jaane ka mann hai kya?"

 

Immediately I replied with with "Kab? Kahan?". Since I was in front of a screen already, I did a quick web search about this and knew the date, time, and place before he could even reply. 8th and 9th March 2025, Balewadi Stadium, Pune.

I knew that from the past few years, Comic Con happened in India, but it was the first time happening in Pune. This meant I could actually go! I am fortunate to live mere minutes away from the Balewadi stadium, which made it feel like an unavoidable temptation. We decided to go for only one day as two days was not required and booked the tickets.

Now the real question came to mind. "Should I wear a costume?" Although not strictly required, but either the Comic Con and the idea of dressing up go hand in hand, or I have watched a lot of The Big Bang Theory.
I didn't know how many people would be dressed up. I didn't want to look like a clown there (more on this later). I reflected on it for a while, but ultimately decided not to act hastily, choosing instead to sleep on the decision.

 

Fast forward a couple of weeks later, I started giving it some thought. I am not very tall. Certainly not tall enough for most of the characters that I like in multiple fandoms. Also, making a full costume takes time, skills and money. If I were to do it, I would certainly not half-ass it. Since I was going to a convention for the first time in my life, I decided to go without a costume. See how it is. See how many people actually dress up. Assess the situation.
However, I extended this idea a bit and decided to carry a prop. This was good enough for the first time and is kind of a hybrid between the 2 ideas.

 

At this point you might already know that I'm obsessed with The Lord of the Rings franchise. It has so many cool items and there are lot of DIY build videos for those items on YouTube. Finally, I decided to make the staff of Saruman - The White.

It's black, symmetric and slim. It would look amazing and having a staff by my side would be helpful, especially when I needed to walk for longer distances in the convention halls. For references on how to make it, I watched Odin's video on how to make one.

He used wood but I wanted to use PVC pipe as it's easier to work with. Since the staff was supposed to be a little over my height, making it as a one big piece would be impractical.

I designed it in a way that would allow me to connect 2 pieces of pipe together. This would make storing of the staff easier after the convention.

 

The entire staff, costed me Rs 200 to make as I only had to buy the PVC pipes and their connector. I already had the poster-board, hot glue, black & silver spray paint and a Cadbury Gems ball.

On the day of the convention, we reached the stadium's parking and as I was walking towards the main entrance, a small (but steep) slope blocked my way. With the staff finally complete, I grasped it firmly and used its support to climb up easily feeling strong and confident. It was already being useful and I hadn't even entered the main venue yet.
An elderly guy about my father's age, walked past me and gave me a big smile and a thumbs up. No exchange of words and yet I knew from his face that he identified exactly what I was carrying. I too responded with a thumbs up.

 

We verified our tickets, got the free goodies (a tote, a Solo Leveling poster and a comic book) and proceeded towards the main hall. Upon entering, we were greeted with many fist-bumps and high-fives from the volunteers. 

It was a good crowd, not overly crowded but not too empty either.

 

We approached the first stall we saw which was a t-shirt and poster stall and immediately, a jinx's poster caught my eye.

 

 

It was too early to start making purchases so we decided to re-visit that stall later. Next was a books and manga store which had quite a collection. But again, no purchases. 

 

Then we came to a stall of boredgamecompany. We enquired about various games that can be played between 4-6 people and the two that we shortlisted were codenames and exploding-kittens. Codenames was too expensive so we bought exploding kittens. The stall also had original Pokemon Trading Card Game packs (Rs 1400 each) as well as collector's edition tins (Rs 14,000 each). The guy also had binder that had individual cards also, which he was selling at Rs. 250 a pop.

 

I thought for a few moments to buy the one that I like but it won't do me any good. It will just BE there. Having a collection makes more sense but in India, Pokemon TCG packs are very expensive so I skipped on the idea altogether.

 

This had me wondering if I open a stall here and start selling my Pokemon Jenga cards that I made in 2023, mine could be the highest grossing stall in the whole event. I'm not even exaggerating here. Those cards truly are a treasure. If want to know what I am talking about here, read one of my previous post: A Nostalgia Remastered.

 

Next was a book stall bigger than what we saw previously. We went in but it was so congested that we had to come out due to the extreme proximity to people and heat.

Next was a comic book stall, the one that I was waiting for. It had big long boxes of comic books exactly same as Stuart's comic book store in The Big Bang Theory. There were various titles like Spiderman, Daredevil & Punisher, Star Wars, Superman, Batman, and many many more. This was the stall on which we spent most of our time. These are the titles that we collectively bought for Rs 200 each and I have read all of these by now:

 

 

 

I came across a cosplayer who was cosplaying as Zhongli (from Genshin Impact) and I clicked a picture. When she saw the staff, she asked me "What character are you playing?" but I told her that it's just prop.

 

We then reached the biggest stalls of the hall. It had various wooden katanas, collectibles, action figures, keychains, and Harry Potter wands!! for Rs 800 each!!!
Certainly not cheap, but I have not seen them below Rs 1200 anywhere so I went with the impulse and got harry's wand. Not just the wand, I also got a small Bulbasaur figurine that I always wanted. I already have a Squirtle that I purchased in Bangalore, but only because Bulbasaur was not available there. I guess I'll give this Squirtle to a friend of mine now.

My sister's husband, got a number one dragon ball from the same shop.

Squirtle (left) and Bulbasaur (right) figurines

 

Dragon Ball

Harry's Wand

 

I met another girl who was cosplaying as Kim Possible. She wore emerald green lenses which looked electric in person. She was nice.

 

We noticed that there was a side podium on which some card games were being hosted. Speaking of cards, there was also stall for Bicycle playing cards as well, but I already have the ones it had in my collection 😎

On the center stage, there was a formal interview being conducted with someone who created various characters of Amar Chitra Katha. Comedians Ravi Gupta, Rohan Joshi and Sahil Shah were scheduled to appear in the evening around five, but we had already decided that we won't be staying till then.

Shame because as an AIB fan, I really wanted to meet Rohan Joshi.

 

There was another cosplayer who came as Pennywise - The Clown, and was doing a pretty good job of scaring the kids.

 

There was a big photo booth where we spotted a couple cosplaying as Jesse and James (Team Rocket from Pokemon). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a picture with them. I do have a picture of them from the back though.

 

Then there was a guy cosplaying as Captain America. He was wielding his shield and Stormbreaker. Of all the people I met who were cosplaying, he had the most accurate costume and props. More so he had the right build for captain. That's an important factor while cosplaying.

 

 

Another guy was dressed up as Wolverine. I also spotted someone who was dressed as Green Goblin from Spider-Man 1, but I was getting exhausted at this point. So we decided to skip that and I regret it now. Green Goblin is an all time classic spiderman villain and it would have been nice to have a picture with him.

 

As we moved into the next hall, there was a noticeable difference in the temperature. It was hotter probably because it was full of top of the line, high end gaming equipment. RGB lit cases everywhere. Gamers playing games like Fortnite, Valorant, CS-GO and what not. There were multiple racing simulators also and a couple of animatronics robots. A complete heaven for any gamer. 

Some people were making vlogs too as I heard phrases like, "like, share, subscribe" etc. multiple times during my visit to both of the halls. We visited a couple more stalls like souledstore, entertainment-store. My sister's husband got a Rick and Morty t-shirt form Redwolf's stall.
After gulping down a couple of water bottles, we came out the same way. I noticed that during all this time, the crowd had nearly doubled. The parking lot was also packed with more cars now. I saw guy entering the venue fully dressed up Tanjiro from Demon Slayer complete with Hanafuda earrings and the mark on the forehead.

 

After about a total of 3 hours, we were back home and began obsessing over the things we bought. Clicking and sharing pictures with others. Making some people jealous 😈
 

Overall, I enjoyed the entire event. For me, it wasn't an event worth getting a two day pass for, but that varies and depends on multiple factors.

I can be sad about the things I missed or be happy about the things I got to see. I choose the latter. I'm planning on increasing my stamina this year so that when I go the next year, I wouldn't miss out on things due to lack of energy. Just like the Numismatics exhibition, now that I know what Comic Con holds, I will be more prepared next year. What titles of comics to look for. What katanas to buy. What costume to wear. Getting more pictures with other cosplayers and who knows, maybe you and I will meet there?

Looking forward for Comic Con 2026.