Cosplay Linkspam, 19 October 2011

I’ve got a math problem for you, fellow cosplayers. Let’s see if you can work this one out:

Full time job + 2 (part-time theatre work) + occasional need to sleep = ?

If your answer was “No time to blog”, congratulations, you officially understand my life. But never fear, friends! For I have not abandoned you, and, today, I bring you many shiny links from across the interwebs.

First of all we have two very different but equally epic costume contests happening:

For you nerdcore fans (and really, who doesn’t love nerdcore?) Sabine thinks you should know that, “mc chris is running a cosplay contest on his latest tour, picking a winner from every show. The winners so far have been pretty epic. Updates can be had at his facebook:”. Geek rap and costuming, all in one place. Sounds like a party to me.

I may be showing my age, here, by I used to LOVE watching the old Tintin cartoons on... was it PBS? Anyway, I’m super excited about the new film, and so is star Jamie Bell. He’s so excited, in fact, he’s inviting fans to send in pictures of their Tintin cosplay and offering the winner free tickets to the London premiere of the movie. Unfortunately, the deadline is 19 October, so I kind of dropped the ball on that one. Still, it’s a cool thing to know, and hopefully we’ll get to see pics from the contest, later. Fingers crossed that this will inspire a new wave of Tintin love at next year’s cons.

Speaking of which, if you’re a parent, you probably strive daily to fill your children’s lives with the kind of quality geekery that will help them grow into tasteful, well-adjusted adult nerds. Tintin cartoons are that kind of geekery, this Catwoman costume is not. Weep for that child, my friends. Weep.

Another good example of doing right by your geeky family, is dressing them all up as post-apocalyptic zombie hunters for family portraits.

And, as The Venture Bros. Blog shows us, cosplay can also be a way to bond with that special someone.

If, by the way, you’re planning for a Venture-tastic con, The Venture Bros. Blog (Gods bless Marc Ilagan, for serious.) has
a brand new cosplay guide, to which they are steadily adding tutorials and pictures. Especially useful to those who are relatively new to cosplay.

Some folks are more devoted than others. Like
this guy, who is undergoing several cosmetic surgery procedures in order to look more like Superman.*

Finally, I’d like to give two shout-outs to some of the most bad ass cosplayers at this week’s New York Comic Con.

First, let’s give it up for this fantastic Spider Jerusalem cosplayer, who perfectly exhibits all the hallmarks of great cosplay:
A character who’s distinctive and recognizable (to comics fans) without being done to death.
A costume adapted to to the wearer that still hits those iconic points. (Painting the tattoos onto a flesh-colored shirt? Genius.)
Attitude.

Last, but not least, you’ve got to love the two guys who dressed as Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick. Because, when cosplaying characters just isn’t hardcore enough, you cosplay creators. (The best part of that image is the “mind=blown” look on Jackson’s face.)

That’s all I have for you, today, fellow cosplayers. Stay tuned for more sporadic and incoherent updates on the wide world of cons, cosplay, and costuming.

-shadowen


*I want to make it clear that I’m linking this article as a point of interest, not to snark. Body image and the personal appropriation of media images are serious-face subjects, and we at Frenemy Cosplay maintain a 100% judgment-free zone. (Although, to be fair, I’m still judging that kids’ Catwoman costume so hard.) So, if that guy wants to be Superman, then, godsdamnit, he can be Superman.
That being said... And this is random and still non-snarky... There was an episode of some sit-com, I wanna say in the late 90s, that took place at a Star Trek/SF-F convention, wherein George Takei briefly played a Trekker who had gotten cheek implants in order to look more like George Takei. The phrase “iconic cheekbones” was used. Does anyone know what I’m talking about, or did I dream this?