Cosplaying - dressing up in homemade costumes - and LARPING - living as another character for an entire weekend - are cool because it is now "hip to be geek". Geek culture is growing in South Africa, with comic-book stores reporting more buyers and geek conventions drawing big crowds.The rAge expo, which attracted 31,000 people in Johannesburg last year, is now opening a Cape Town leg - in March.What does it mean to be geek? These are people who are "passionate" about interests not mainstream, says Les Allen, of the Geek XP website.Typical geek hobbies - such as playing board games, role-playing in full costume or collecting action figurines or comics - are much more acceptable now."Geek is chic," he says."I know a CEO of a large marketing company who LARPs (live action role plays). He puts on elf ears and runs around a forest pretending to be another character for a whole weekend."There is a lot of money to be made selling computer games, limited edition figurines depicting action heroes or comic character merchandise."Geeks, often children of the 70s and 80s, tend to have disposable income and rabid loyalty," he says.Kasia Jadrzemski, who runs the Dark Carnival.co.za website, said: "Geeks get a bad rap, but we are not all pasty-faced virgins sitting in the basement playing games."Owner of Cosmic Comic Karyn Brocklebank, which opened in Johannesburg 13 years ago, has noticed a change in the clientele."When we started, 99% of customers were white males. But now we have a lot of women visiting, a lot of black high school children come in, which is amazing. We have a large coloured and Indian fan base," Brocklebank said...