News

HallyuCY


Cyprus Comic Con is delighted to announce that HallyuCY, the ever-growing local community dedicated to the spread of South Korean pop culture in Cyprus, will be returning once again to CCC19!

Last October, HallyuCY celebrated its 7 year anniversary since the group’s creation in 2011 and after a series of successful events leading up to the new year, its team is currently working hard at preparing a very special program for this year’s comic con!

HallyuCY organise an array of local events and gatherings throughout the year, which include cozy Korean film nights, K-pop dance tutorials, Random Dance Challenges, Korean cooking lessons, K-pop Karaoke nights, Trivia Quiz events and other competitions, Hangul (Korean alphabet) learning, as well as arts and crafts sessions! In the online Facebook group, members can post about their favourite K-pop music, K-drama and films, share and exchange knowledge about different aspects of South Korean culture and generally bond and form friendships with like-minded individuals.

In 2017, HallyuCY collaborated with Cyprus Comic Con and co-organised the biggest K-Pop and K-Hiphop club night that Cyprus had ever seen, which took place at Club Teez in Nicosia and featured guest DJ Ping from Young Bros, a well-known K-pop party team based in the UK.

2018 was another great year for the community, marking their first collaboration with K-Cineplex Cinemas nationwide, for bringing not one, but *two* K-pop themed movies on the big screen in Cyprus, featuring the global phenomenon of the immensely talented group of BTS. The two events brought together hundreds of ARMY and K-pop fans across all of Cyprus and featured exclusive footage of BTS, including their full live concert in Seoul which was part of their 2018 ‘Love Yourself’ world tour.

HallyuCY’s future goals for 2019 and beyond, include further growing their local community in Cyprus, to continue to inform and educate interested individuals about South Korean culture and hopefully one day be able to organise even bigger events, such as a Korean Cultural Festival!

So, what does ‘Hallyu’ mean?

‘Hallyu’ (which literally translates to “flow of Korea”) also known as ‘The Korean Wave‘ is a neologism referring to the increase in popularity of South Korean culture in the rest of the world since the late 1990s. Some aspects of South Korean pop culture that have contributed to its popularity, include K-pop musicK-dramas (TV-series), the Korean language and cuisineanimated comics and filmstechnology.

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K-Pop Dance Events Schedule for CCC19

Dance Performance by SAD-G

➤ Saturday 20/4 — 15:30

Location: Outdoor Festival

Random K-pop Dance Challenge

➤ Sunday 21/4 — 14:30

Location: Outdoor Festival

HallyuCY’s Booth at CCC19

HallyuCY will be screening K-pop music videos throughout the whole weekend at Comic Con, so make sure to visit their booth for a taste of South Korean pop music! K-pop fans will be able to choose from a large selection of low-cost K-pop merchandise*, including posters, postcards, calendars, silicone wristbands, masks, keyrings, transparent cards and more, featuring all their favourite K-pop idols! In addition, HallyuCY will be selling their famous homemade delicious pepero (also known as pocky in Japan), a jumbo version of the popular chocolate-covered biscuit with various toppings, individually wrapped for you to enjoy at the convention, or to take home.

*All revenue at HallyuCY’s comic con booth every year is used to fund the group’s upcoming events as well as cover the community’s running expenses.

This year, HallyuCY is proud to feature the arts and crafts of Fotini Georgiou (fotinieonnie), who will be selling her handcrafted keyrings, coasters and other creations, as well as prints of her illustrations of popular K-pop groups.

HallyuCY’s Dance Team: SAD-G

In 2014, a small number of HallyuCY members came together to prepare a K-pop dance performance for the very first Cyprus Comic Con! They were nervous, completely self-taught, but eager to show just how much they loved K-pop music and dancing. Today in 2019, the group has since changed, expanded and evolved!

As its goals solidified, it was time to give this new and exciting project a name. The name ‘SAD-G‘ (Super Awesome Dance Group) came up right after the end of Cyprus Comic Con 2016, when the members decided that it was time to let more people in their group and further develop their dancing skills! Now, the team consists of six core members, with more joining at every practice session depending on which choreographies they are interested in learning.

Even though originally the team was formed for the sole purpose of performing at Comic Con, their focus and determination led them to performing at various other events, such as Random Dance Challenges, dance covers, and dance tributes to K-pop groups.

For the last couple of years, SAD-G have really been working hard on their Instagram and YouTube content, where they frequently upload videos of their dance tributes and performances, as well as fun bloopers from filming!

SAD-G is a multi-fandom group that doesn’t favour girl groups over boy groups, or vice versa. They cover a variety of choreographies, ranging from bubblegum pop such as Twice and Red Velvet, to more electronic and hip-hop sounds such as BTS and NCT. This progress has been possible through the expansion of the HallyuCY community – and of course the many K-pop fans they meet at Cyprus Comic Con every year!

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Tia Maree Tattoo (Georgia Maree)


We are delighted to have the brilliant tattoo artist Tia Maree Tattoo (Georgia Maree) join us for CCC19 Artists’ Alley!

Georgia is self taught artists and she currently works as a resident tattoo artist at ”Endangered Species” tattoo studio. She recently started graffiti as a hobby and collaborated with some graffiti artists for a few of her projects. Her inspiration comes from anime, comics, animation and graffiti. Her future goal is to create and tattoo a unique new school style that hasn’t been brought to Cyprus yet, based on comic style with fantastic characters, cute monsters, etc.

Follow Georgia’s Instagram and Facebook to see more of her outstanding tattoo designs!

Elias Neophytou


Cyprus Comic Con welcomes back Elias Neophytou to its Artists’ Alley for CCC19!

Elias is studying Graphic Design at Cyprus University of Technology (CUT). He aspires to be a comic book artist which was his entire goal ever since he can remember. He was interested in drawing from a really young age and everything he knows, he taught himself how to do it (from the several influences of other creators and artists of course).

His style is heavily focused on as realistic representation of anatomy as possible, with his own personal touch on it. Elias likes the use of all the usual tools (pencils, pens, brushes, etc) and enjoys to colour traditionally with watercolours, although lately he has been trying to improve his digital skills. His current project is still the comic series he has been working on with one of his friends.

You can follow Elias’ Facebook page to see more of his work!

Colto Comics (Babis Ioannidis)


We are thrilled to have Colto Comics (Babis Ioannidis) back for CCC19 Artists’ Alley!

Babis  was beamed in Thessaloniki sometime during the glorious golden decade of the 80’s. Right after kindergarten he studied Economics in Hannover and Tibetan zoography in the Himalayas. He worked abroad and in Greece, both in private and public sector. His relation to books, is tight – almost an addiction. Besides his Greek mother tongue, he speaks, reads and writes in English, German, French and several other fictitious dialects. Occasionally, he draws comics and sometimes he is funny too!

 

You can have a glance at his work on his website and Facebook page!

LarLarLar Comics (Andreas Michaelides, Valia Kapadai & Pavlos Pavlidis)


Cyprus Comic Con welcomes back the team of LarLarLar Comics (Andreas Michaelides, Valia Kapadai & Pavlos Pavlidis) to CCC19 Artists’ Alley!

LarLarLar Comics is a Greek, multilingual (Greek, English and French) creators’ collective, originally formed by Valia Kapadai, Andreas Michaelides and Pavlos Pavlidis. There is a whole lot of story behind the name and it does have something to do with their logo, but details are best discussed face to face. After the three of them became frequent collaborators, since 2014, they decided it was more practical to self-publish their work under a common name. Together they have put out a number of projects in a range of genres, such as mythology (Nekyia), science fiction (Last Flight of the Swordbreaker) and historical fantasy (Iasis).The creators of LarLarLar Comics have vastly different tastes in comics, but a common enough ground that they can (usually) walk the fine line of synergistic storytelling. After all, comic books are just that: another form of storytelling, deceptively close to the art of its oral predecessor. Each one of them also pursues their own projects in the written and visual arts, be it writing, graphic design, poster artwork, editing, translating and everything in between.

Visit LarLarLar Comics’ website to see more of their work!


Valia Kapadai

Valia Kapadai is a full-time dreamer and a comic junkie. Currently working as a graphic designer at the University of Athens in the morning, she shifts into a watercolour thirsty creature by night, drawing comic pages, whenever her ghosts allow it.

Since 2008 she has been involved in various anthologies (for IDWInsomniaAccent UK, BLC, Dapshow PressAyeSaw ComicsMarkosiaICCWΕκδόσεις του Κάμπου and more), while six graphic novels she has illustrated or (water) coloured have been published by A.R.Sobati, Fotorama PublicationsMarkosia, and Comicdom Press.

She also enjoys self-publishing mini comics. She loves spending her little free time with beloved people, reading (comic) books, listening to music and dancing. Usually lost inside her own messy little bubble, she can also be found wandering through the web.


Andreas Michaelides

Words are the one true love of Andreas Michaelides – what they mean, the way they change, the stories they tell. Born in Greece in 1982, he has worked as a columnist, journalist and photographer; he has written detective stories and surreal tales which have been published in various Greek anthologies and newspapers.

For the past ten years, he has worked as a translator for Greek publishing houses, such as AlexandriaPolis and Metaichmio (having translated in Greek anything from popular science and history books, to Andy Lane’s The Adventures of Young Sherlock Holmes series, George R.R. Martin’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and Joe Abercrombie’s The Shattered Sea Trilogy – among others).

In 2010 he entered the world of oral storytelling, as well as writing fables for an adult audience. His first two solo books were published in 2016: Tales From the Anvil of Songs by Mamaya and Love in Fhtagn, the first novelette in The Addiction of Christian Ambrose series (Nightread imprint of Ars Nocturna).

His relationship with comic books has been as wacky as his personality: from 2003 to 2006 he put out a Greek fanzine called Mangaijin, in collaboration with artist John Dalkides. In 2005 he started writing articles about comics as a member of the Comicdom.gr team. In 2014 he started writing for comics per se: from 2014 to mid 2015 he co-created and wrote BOTCH! with artist Maria Kouloubaritsi – a gag comic and webcomic presenting the (mis)adventures of a group of gamers.

He is also a founding member of the Greek Club of Crime Writers, as well as the Storytelling Cooperative, “Mythologion”.

He is currently involved in a number of projects, from translation, to writing – both for comics and not -to storytelling performances, mystery games and educational workshops which combine literature with science.


Pavlos Pavlidis

Pavlos Pavlidis is a comic creator interpreting the world through a black and white perspective. He likes to create scary, disturbing and dystopian images, touching on political and more personal themes. He loves his pentel brush with a passion and to him it feels like an extension of his hand!

He has self-published seven comics to date (Unstrung!Fixed!Such A Waste..!Full BloomJust One Fragment…and after this WHAT?Don’t Shoot, I Am Already Dead). He is also the co-creator of Somewhat Damaged (with Valia Kapadai), Lamda (with Lee Grice and Valia Kapadai), Futuria (with the Hippo Theatre Group and Valia Kapadai), Last Flight of the Swordbreaker and Tit Quest of Uknown Cuntath (both with Andreas Michaelides), as well as Iasis (in which both Andreas and Valia were involved).

His work has also appeared in the pages of the British Something Wicked magazine (“Shambling Towards Bethlehem”, story by Sam Varall in issue #09 and “Plug”, story by David McCluskey, in the 2016 issue).

Currently he is working on various projects of his own and in collaboration with others.