Comic Con ends collaboration with GameWorld.gr as allegations of homophobia, paedophilia fly

Cyprus Comic Con convention has been accused of supporting paedophiles after deciding to end their collaboration with an online media portal for misusing their platform.

Following an announcement earlier this week that GameWorld.gr would be a communications sponsor for this year’s Cyprus Comic Con (CCC), the annual multi-genre convention said on Wednesday that the site will not be involved in the event.

The CCC said the reason behind the decision was a violation of the organisation’s terms and conditions.

Asked about their decision, a CCC representative told the Cyprus Mail on Thursday that the specific site, through their owner Manos Gryparis, expressed aggressive behaviour on the Cyprus Comic Con Facebook website. Without going into details, they said they received complaints from several people.

Posts by Gryparis against LGBTQIA+ rights also played a part in the decision, the representative confirmed. “He gets into a personal confrontation with people,” they noted about the site’s owner.

In one of his videos of what he calls Woke Fiesta series, he praises a man who shoots and sets fire to a vehicle with pride colours and said it was embarrassing that another company made a post saying “Love is Love”.

In the same video he also showed some paintings by Cypriot artist and teacher Giorgos Gavriel. Those included one where a man is peeing on Grivas Dighenis, a controversial Eoka leader who fought in the struggle against British colonial rule, which he appears to find insulting and asks “At which school is he teaching?”

CCC in a written statement announcing its decision, said: “GameWorld.gr will not be a communications sponsor and will not have a booth at Cyprus Comic Con – neither will any other organisation or individual that intends to misuse our platform no matter the topic or issue; social, moral, political or otherwise.

“Cyprus Comic Con’s primary mission is to provide a safe, secure, and pleasant family environment. We have always supported everyone no matter their way of life,”

They ended the announcement with “we love you all”.

But the owner of GameWorld.gr has accused the organisers of siding with comic book artist Ilias Kyriazis, whom he claims is a paedophile.

This is because the specific artist, who will not be participating in the convention and does not seem to have any official capacity in relation to the CCC, had earlier critisised the site’s participation in the event. Tagging Cyprus Comic Con, the artist had posted on Facebook that owner Manos Gryparis “sells racism and homophobia”.

To that, Gryparis posted two 2004 controversial drawings of Kyriazis’ which, as he said, allude to paedophilia and incest. One of them shows a naked man next to a little girl with pigtails saying “do you want an ice cream to get rid of the taste” and the other shows a mother penetrating her son with a strapon.

As a result, a social media war was initiated with supporters of Gryparis trying to ‘cancel’ Cyprus Comic Con.

“Just like you cancel[ed] GameWorld.gr, we in turn will cancel you”, a commentator wrote on Twitter. Another wrote “the paedophile spoke and like good little children you listened to his orders.

“It shows who you are with these moves.” Other comments called the convention a “a gathering of paedophiles”.

Meanwhile, CCC publicly denied any accusations of promoting paedophilia, clarifying that its aim is to provide a “safe, secure and pleasant family environment”.

In response to another netizen who asked, “is your purpose to promote paedophilia” CCC responded “of course not” and clarified that they are not taking any sides. The organisers have not promoted the controversial artist.

Gryparis recently had his Twitter account suspended, while on Instagram and Facebook he wrote that this social media profiles “respawn”. Twitter suspends accounts that violate its rules, in cases a user posts content that contains, inter alia, violent speech, child sexual exploitation, hateful conduct and non-consensual nudity.

According to their official website, GameWorld.gr has offices in Greece and in Cyprus.