SODA CITY COMIC CON
GAME ON Isaac Childress, above, of Columbia teaches Braylen Manigault and his mother, Brittany, of Charleston how to play the game King of Tokyo in the game room while Faye Kelley, 14, of Columbia acts as the dungeon master for a game of Dungeons & Dragons. INTO THE COMICVERSE Banks Robinson offers an impressive selection of vintage comic books to shoppers. SEE YOU NEXT YEAR Organizer Steve Powell and his wife, Rebecca, shown at the 2019 Soda City Comic Con, are looking forward to post-pandemic life and the August 2021 con.
THE PAYOFF Lamont Artybridge of Columbia put in 500 hours creating the costume of “Nightmare” from the video game Soulcalibur. He would later be announced the winner of the 2019 cosplay contest.
ball game. You can participate with comics in the same way.” Across the room, comic bookstores and independent dealers offer colorful, enticing shelf displays of rare (read: pricey) comics intended to lure buyers. “You have to really want to find a comic book any more,” says dealer Banks Robinson. “When we were growing up, comics were everywhere. They were in the drugstore. They were in the doctor’s office. Barber shops. Every store was just inundated with them.” One of his regular customers and clients, Ted Gunderson of Charleston, agrees. An eclectic collector of comics, vintage toys, and military objects, Gunderson says comics remind him of his childhood. “It was a better time,” he says. “Back then we escaped into a different world, a different universe.” Such nostalgia is why he’s always on the hunt for something new and special. He nods at Robinson and says, “He might shoot me an email saying, ‘Hey, I got a Spidey #1.’ I’d have to take a second mortgage out, but …”—he laughs—“but I’d do it.”
The gaming room Down the hall, in the Firefly Toys & Games Arcade room, a group of explorers sit at a table, plotting a quest. Durnan The Wanderer, the Masked Lord of Waterdeep, has gone missing in the dungeons below the Growling Groghouse. Their job, according to the dungeon master, is to find him. So begins “Last Orders of the Yawning Portal,” a part of the Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer League Series, a major attraction at Soda City Comic Con. Part role-play, part 16
SOUTH CAROLINA LIVING | AUGUST 2020 | SCLIVING.COOP