[ fight and fear ]: BARAPALOOZA

Monday, November 20, 2023

BARAPALOOZA

A blog entry!!! This time around is not about art of mine but about an event taking place here in Mexico; a Barapalooza, the first bara convention of the country. Something like that was just a dream 20 years ago, a place to enjoy all things bara and meet artists about the subject, finally away from the clutches of yaoi.

Tough since quiet some years ago we been having yaoi conventions as well as furry conventions. The furry conventions are specially lush and expensive....and i had my doubts about a bara convention and this Barapalooza confirmed them: there is very few artists in Mexico drawing bara....and the few they are arent very well organized, not like the furry fandom that works like a clockwork or the yaoi that have theyr strengnth in numbers. Bara is still a niche genere despite its boom on twitter.

Barapalooza took place in a tiny space and it was more like "Furrypalooza" since it had lots of furry artists. The line that divide furry and bara is soo thin and blur soo i guess its OK, many of this furry artists had really amazing art and very high quality merch i really enjoyed!!

There was also some "yaoi" artists and sadly, theyr places were pretty empty since all public went directly to the bara sections. I guess this was to be expected but like i said, theres not that many bara artists in Mexico to fill each space, at least not this time since the convention didnt had too much time to organize.

All artists were soo nice, a true pleasure to meet them and i finally see after a long time ago old friends like Kerainen or Le Bara Illustree or really classics like Pirate or Dualsiders. There was really pro artists but also newbies who are starting to let theyr art be known on the internet and i like that a lot, theres a lot of talent and ilusion on them and i am glad they have a space to show theyr art outside of the internet.

My only regret is that i wasnt able to support as many artists as i wanted to. I spent much more than i was expecting and try to buy merch to as many artists as i could, but still there was some pretty cool products i had to let them pass and i am thinking on contacting this artists to buy theyr stuff later.

Overall this event was small and could use much more bara into the mix, but it was really fun and interesting and is a great start for something big someday. Deffinetly a first step for the 20 years old dream of a bara convention.