A gaming website and two individuals have been banned from Cyprus Comic Con, in a social media war that has culminated into death threats, it emerged on Friday.

The two are Manos Gryparis, owner of GameWorld.gr and comic book artist Ilias Kyriazis. The former is accused of aggressive behaviour and the latter of creating images alluding to paedophilia. Both of them together with the news site have been “permanently banned” from attending Comic Con, the organisers said.

The issue first began earlier in the week, when Cyprus Comic Con (CCC) scrapped GameWorld.gr as its communications sponsor. The collaboration was short lived as the deal sank on Wednesday, days after it was announced.

A CCC representative told the Cyprus Mail that GameWorld.gr, through 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.”

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 a written statement on Wednesday announcing its decision, CCC 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,”

Subsequently, the owner of GameWorld.gr moved to accuse the organisers of siding with comic book artist Ilias Kyriazis, whom he claims is a paedophile.

This is because the specific artist, who participated in the event in the past, had earlier critisised the GameWorld’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.

After this information emerged, CCC said both Gryparis and Kyriazis were “permanently banned” from attending Comic Con.

“Any mention of their past attendance has been removed from our platform,” CCC noted, clarifying that previous participation of Kyriazis contained no “insulting or immoral” content.

They said the decision was based on their “irresponsible behaviour on social media, leading to harassment and online attacks”.

But meanwhile, 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”.

The situation escalated to the point where organisers kept receiving various death threats over social media, emails and phone calls.

Asked whether they would file a police complaint CCC responded “the death threats have come from all corners, are ugly and have caused a huge amount of distress for all of us”.

Meanwhile, CCC publicly denied any accusations of promoting paedophilia, and said they were unaware of the disturbing images of Kyriazis that recently surfaced.

“We have never featured such content at out convention,” they said, noting that it would have been more appropriate for him to privately address his concerns about GameWorld.gr.

They added that it was disheartening, backbreaking and “extremely disappointing that people have come out against CCC and questioned its character”.

As for Gryparis and GameWorld.gr, CCC explained that they joined them through our participation form, where independent influencers, media outlets, and others can gain event access in exchange for coverage. This is typically called a “media sponsorship”. No money is involved.

“If we had been aware of the presence of political, moral, ethical, and social content on their gaming website, we would not have accepted their participation.

“We are committed to improving our due diligence efforts to prevent such situations in the near future. As a small team of volunteers, this can be challenging, but we will strive to do better,” CCC said.

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.