Okay I promise not to spend he next four weeks analyzing NYCC ’13, but here are some relevant and/or amusing posts.

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§ Mashable had the best cosplay gallery with Who Wore it Better? 9 Comic Con Cosplayer Fashion Faceoffs

§ A site called Castles and Cooks has a good Winners and Losers . Among the winners, great cosplay, Einhorn’s Epic Cookies and Jhonny Star Wars. Among the losers:

Loser: Clearing the show floor
Every evening at show’s end, the crowd disperses from the Javit’s Center and the exhibitors wait to lock up their booths, clean a bit and get ready for the next day. Of course, none of that can happen till everyone leaves. For whatever reason, whenever closing time rolls around at NYCC there are no announcements, no flashing of the lights, nothing. People loiter around and continue to walk the floor, and it usually isn’t till 30 min later that anyone comes around to make formal announcements that yes the hall has been closed for half an hour and it’s time to leave. At other conventions announcements are made, something NYCC might think of doing in the future.


I’m not sure you can make announcements at the Javits, one of its many epic fails. For more crankiness 5 Issues With NYCC That Make It Suck.

§ And finally if you missed this headline during the show, The NY Post managed to make a stink about the usual congoing advice to shower daily.

§ Gary Tyrell was on the webcomics beat, as always.

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§ Reclusive actor Macauley Culkin decided he had spent enough time “home alone” and showed up at the Robot Chicken panel wearing animal ears.

§ Speaking of cosplay, you have probably already seen this story: My embarrassing picture went viral — a photo a larger fan posted on her own Facebook page of her Lara Croft costume got picked up everywhere and she fought back.

Next, I began the monumental task of sending out copyright violation notices to the websites hosting the image — I would have to issue hundreds of them. My work as a paralegal had given me some training in this regard, but it was tedious, like pulling weeds out of the planet’s largest garden. I had to seek out each instance of the image and sift around until I could find contact information.

I got a fair number of them taken down, but once something like this spreads, it’s out there forever. Friends still send me emails asking if I know about this, and I can hear the anxious balancing act in their voices, trying to be a good friend and alert me to this danger while still trying to shield me from the hurtful attacks. I still go through the less tasteful side of the Internet monthly and issue take-down notices for new instances, but it’ll never be completely gone, which is part of why I decided to post the image in this story. On my own terms. To own it again, without shame this time.

PREDICTION: Cosplay is going to get bigger and bigger as it goes mainstream. These kinds of stories are going to get more and more common. Many of our precepts are going to be challenged as we decide between the empowerment of dressing as a beloved character and the embarrassment of inappropriate fashion. If an out of shape person (whatever the cause) person goes out rocking shorts and a tank top that are not flattering, we all make a mental note. When it’s a costume, it’s seen more as “owning” the look. And it’s true, when I see people who are showing body parts that they shouldn’t on the street I become alarmed; when I see them on the show floor, I understand that they have made a conscious decision about their appearance and it can indeed be empowering. More adjustments to come.

§ Headline of the day! Sparks man is the brain behind Pickles comic strip

Each morning, Crane grabs the day’s newspaper from his porch and reads it with his daily breakfast of oatmeal and raisins, blueberries, apples and brown sugar. After a short nap and some miscellaneous work, Crane then begins brainstorming ideas for his comic strip, Pickles, which for the past 23 years has been brightening the day for readers each morning.

§ Red Giant is adapting Blue Caprice, the movie about the Baltimore Sniper, into a graphic novel.

Red Giant’s plan is to launch Blue Caprice as a webcomic in the next few months as the first issue of a new true-crime series tentatively titled Public Enemies. A collected graphic novel will follow in print. Red Giant boasts over 50M readers since it launched offering daily and weekly digital comics for free on their ad-supported platform, says CEO Benny Powell. The publisher has several other film, TV and licensing deals in development out of their comics library, including the vampire saga Katrina and the mythology-based sci-fi Wayward Sons.

2 COMMENTS

  1. That’s an interesting comparison you make, between people on the street vs. people at a con. In a perfect world, we’d never mock anyone. But it’s going to take a good bit of development in human nature. The radio station I listen to in the morning plays pranks on people. I generally turn it off at that point – I’ve never thought pranks were funny. But in a world where we find it funny to mislead and embarrass others, how long will it take for us to not find it funny when others do odd things of their own volition?

  2. The problem with an adult engaging in cosplay is that he has to expect people to react to his appearance. A child can look “cute” but an adult can’t. If he looks ridiculous, people will think that, even if they don’t say it. It doesn’t matter that he’s at a con, or expressing his affection for a character. He can still look ridiculous, just as actors in TV shows wearing costumes can look ridiculous in spite of their best efforts.

    SRS

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