Bent Con took place on December 3 – 4, 2011 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The convention that celebrates LGBTQ comics and entertainment was in their second inaugural year. Prior to finalizing the location, Bent Con organizers had to keep finding a location that will be easy to host over 70 dealers and artists. Alas, they found their home in the basement of one of downtown Los Angeles’ premier hotels. Bent Con explores all aspects of the alphabet soup.

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Bent Con was relatively small. We only attended for one day. The event comprised of two panel rooms, a dealer’s hall, and a film festival. The film festival showcased independent films with gay characters at the forefront. As a former publicist for Frameline 2006, I thought this was a nice addition to the programming track.

We attended a few panel s that piqued our interests. The first panel we attended was Drawn This Way: Gay Male Erotic Comics. Belasco (Boo), Patrick Fillian (Class Comics), Wendy Pini (Masque of the Red Death), John Macy, and Jeff Jacklin hosted the panel. It was interesting for the artists to talk about past work and present work. It was also insightful for gay artists to talk about the hilarity that is yaoi, or gay themed comics aimed at girls. The artists expressed how much their fans praised them for their anatomic details that yaoi seems to lack.

We also attended the Gaymers panel. This panel featured folks from The Silly Frags. Additionally, they also made the panel a live podcast. The gaymers, as they like to be called, talked about homophobia in the online gaming community. They talked about their experience playing MMORPGs and running into typical gamers who throw around pejoratives demeaning one’s orientation. Additionally, they also talked about heteronorms in video games and how awesome it would be to have a same sex choice. More importantly, they also highlighted how women, people of color, and gay people are underrepresented in the gaming industry.

The last panel we attended was the It Doesn’t Get Better: You Do panel. The title of the panel quickly caught my eye. In this day and age, we were exposed to the “It gets better” phrase. A handful of artists, including the founding folks of Bent Con, hosted this panel. What was insightful was this panel was about empowering victims of bullying and how can comic book artists can promote that in their work. Northwest Press has made a free comic book for GSA’s and schools to use as an educational tool. The panelists agreed that young people who find themselves entrapped should look at the hero within themselves to face their perpetrator.

At 6PM, the Fanboys of the Universe hosted their Cosplay Catwalk event. This took place in one of the panel rooms. This certainly attracted a ton of people to sit in and checkout everyone’s costumes. The event was essentially a walk on and pose; exactly what the event title states. A costumer would go up to the MC. The MC would ask them questions about their costume and character. Sometimes, the MC will even flirt with the costumer. For example, our copy editor, Jared, was dressed up as Captain Jack Harkness. “So you like the dicks and the pussy?!” the MC asked ecstatically. If you were in the contest, you had to prepare yourself for the most embarassing non-vanilla questions.

Shortly after, the winners were announced. The top three costumes were named. The Fire Lord (Avatar), Grell (Black Butler), and a scantily clad cyber punk chick made the top three. A dance off between all three was made to determine the winner. The cyber chick took the top prize of a Kindle Fire.

The event was already winding down by the time the Cosplay Catwalk was done. It was a pretty good event for its second year. While cuddly bears seemed to dominate the programming, it would have been nice to have more programming and artists that are lesbian and bisexual based. A few of the costumers felt that craftsmanship judging should have been done for Cosplay Catwalk since all you had to do was sign up and show up. We were also quite surprised that there were hardly any yaoi fangirls at Bent Con. One Bent Con cosplayer even said that the Cosplay Catwalk event was much more lively and entertaining that the Yaoi Con masquerade.

Otherwise, this was a pretty fab event. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in LBGTQ themes in entertainment. I also found it to be a very friendly environment. People were easy to talk to and people were willing to make conversation with you. It’s definitely a drama-free safe space for people who need it. I do see potential for this event taking over the Westin Bonaventure. Give it some time and I am sure Bent Con will eventually find its nightlife. The Scarlet Rhapsody team is very thankful that such a convention that promotes underrepresented people as heroes and protagonists exists. Bent Con is what a big gay family is all about.

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