Like Peter Parker, Brady lost his parents at a young age and was raised by his aunt and uncle. Both men wear a spidey suit, though Brady’s is accessorized with large spider-shaped bling and a white puffy vest. Instead of spinning webs, Brady’s superpower is spitting rhymes.
“I’m a battle rapper,” Brady said Sunday at the Indiana Toy and Comic Expo in Bloomington. “I just love Spidey, and there’s not a version like this, so I thought I should keep it as fresh as possible.”
Brady was not the only hero in the crowd of about 2,000. Many people arrived in costume for the competitive “Best Hero” contest, which Brady won. The Indiana Ghostbusters carpooled from Jasper, Indiana, in a fully equipped Ghostbuster van, and Star Wars Jedi strolled through toy booths with lightsabers in tow.
Stephen Laquire sported his $900 TIE Pilot Star Wars suit. Though he sometimes attends up to 12 conventions a month, Laquire said he’s always happy to step out in the heavy black outfit. Security once escorted him from a Walmart for shopping in full fighter pilot gear.
“There’s a fellowship here,” Billy Cooper, the event’s founder, said. “I think everyone’s like-minded. We’re all nerdy about something.”
Cooper started the event three years ago in Indianapolis. This is the first time the convention took place in Bloomington.
“Indy got really crowded and wasn’t fitting our mindset,” he said. “Bloomington has an art-based, independent, free-thinking community where everybody steps up. It’s been really great.”
Cooper himself has a collection of more than 2,000 toys. His favorite is a 1978 Shogun Warriors Godzilla.
“I look at toys as an art form,” Cooper said. “The sculpting and the creativity can be as elaborate or as simple as you want.”
Many of the pieces displayed around the Bloomington Convention Center were indeed works of art. Vendors sold things such as colorful images of characters like Pee-wee Herman painted onto vinyl records along with intricate charcoal drawings of characters from “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones”.
Shoppers looked at every kind of Lego character imaginable, paintings of their favorite comic book characters and a giant yellow rubber duck much too large for any normal-sized bathtub. Fluffy, multi-colored monster toys were also available for snuggling.
“They’re all one-of-a-kind so you should probably get one if you like it,” Chloe Ceqoui, a 9-year-old dressed as a peppermint queen, said of her new Bearmojo stuffed toy. “You can get some pretty cool stuff here if you bring money.”
For Cooper, seeing the children’s responses and costumes is his favorite part of the event. He said he likes that parents can use superheroes to teach their kids morals.
Standing amidst the colorful booths and costumed friends, Cooper seemed confident and comfortable when discussing his hobby. Outside of conventions like this one, however, he said he tends to keep his passion for toys to himself. He knows there’s a stigma against this community.
“People still think they’re basement dwellers, they’re mouth-breathers, they’re uneducated,” he said of the stereotypes toy-lovers often face. “It couldn’t be farther from the truth. We’re normal people, with a different kind of hobby. Some people wear a Colts jersey on Sundays, we’ll be in a superhero shirt at the new Marvel movie.”
