What Cosplay Slideshows Can’t Show You About Comic Con
Three Hours Inside New York Comic Con Taught Me To Appreciate
Comic Con. The name alone is a Rorschach test. For some, it elicits swoons and fond memories. Others look for Purell. If you don’t know any better about, you might respond as someone close to me did:
“You mean the people who play dress up?”
Yes, if you think about it on those terms, it’s a Convention of Costume. And it’s one of The Best Places on Earth.
If you’ve never been, I understand your skepticism. If all you know is from slideshows, or the opening scene of Chasing Amy, then it’s time to learn more. Unless you’ve been to Comic Con, or Dragon Con, or any other fandom-based convention, you have no idea.
You may have wondered why projects with no relation to comic books have panels at Comic Con. I’m still trying to figure out why Jack Antonoff (musician, boyfriend of Lena Dunham, and producer for Taylor Swift’s new single) was interviewed at Comic Con.
Maybe as long as something/someone has fans, it can book time at Comic Con. Which is an extremely open invitation, and much more openminded than today’s nerd culture can seem.
You have to enter with an open mind, though. Going in as even a continuity-loving puritan will leave you as sad as you entered. Take Michael Chabon, for example. Famous for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel about the times when Supermen were being invented, Chabon wrote about a trip to Comic Con in a meditation on costume:
Now the time has come to propose, or confront, a fundamental truth: like the being who wears it, the superhero costume is, by definition, an impossible object. It cannot exist.
One may easily find suggestive evidence for this assertion at any large comic-book convention by studying the spectacle of the brave and bold convention attendees, those members of the general comics-fan public who show up in costume and go shpatziring around the ballrooms and exhibition halls dressed as Wolverine, say, or the Joker’s main squeeze, Harley Quinn. Without exception, even the most splendid of these getups is at best a disappointment. Every seam, every cobweb strand of duct-tape gum, every laddered fish-net stocking or visible ridge of underpants elastic — every stray mark, pulled thread, speck of dust — acts to spoil what is instantly revealed to have been, all along, an illusion.
…
And in the end they look no more like Black Canary or Ant-Man than does the poor zhlub in the Venom mask with a three-day pass hanging around his neck on a lanyard.
You’ve probably seen the slideshows of the costumes. This will not be that kind of post.
Chabon is then The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy, a purist, confining himself to isolation. A Dr. Doomed.
He wrote these notes in an essay for the New Yorker, probably for an editor who gave him carte blanche. It’s a sad read, as he reveals himself to be part of the problem of fandom culture, or even antagonistic towards it.
Fandom, which was first entered Urban Dictionary in 2004, is defined as:
The community that surrounds a tv show/movie/book etc. Fanfiction writers, artists, poets, and cosplayers are all members of that fandom. Fandoms often consist of message boards, livejournal communities, and people.
While fandoms have their darker sides, with obsessive stalker behavior, and angry threats sent to those running/acting within the fandom, at Comic Con, they come to life in the best way.
Sunday was my first Comic Con experience. For some reason, mostly the cost of entry, I never went. This year, though, I had a panel I wanted to see, featuring a podcaster I wanted to meet.
As it has been since its inception in 2006, this year’s New York Comic Con was held at New York’s Jacob Javits Center. Thanks to a number of trips there for my day jobs, I was prepared to breach that horrible facility, and maximize my short time there. You bring water from outside, along with a granola or protein bar, and you quickly confirm which escalators are where.
Waiting for my ticket into the building to arrive, I sat on the steps of the offices of the luxury fashion company Coach. From that angle, a mere block east of Javits, I had a prime people watching perch.
I don’t know if Chabon’s anxiety came from taking it all in at once, or maybe the quality of costumes has really risen in the last 6 years, but I was in awe.
It was amazing to watch the fandoms march west down 34th street, completely intermingled. Batman’s villain Bane (the animated version, not the Nolan version) is a dad, and he’s taking his child, the Pink Power Ranger, to what might be their first Con. A Batgirl & a Spider-Man, on the north-side, and on the south side I saw both Cardassians & Dothraki.
As I entered Javits, the scene was all encompassing. Hundreds of characters I recognized but could not name. Groot, festooned with holiday lights, posing with the rest of the Guardians of The Galaxy. Tinas & Louises Belcher on the loose without parental (or babysitter) supervision, most of them old enough not to need it. Every single Adventure Time character, in every single gender permutation. Pop culture running amok, and breaking all the rules, joyfully.
Most of the costumes were well done, and no matter their creator’s skills as a costumer. More importantly, though, everybody was ecstatic, and elated to be living their comic self. Everywhere you looked, someone was posing for the camera of a stranger, squaring off with either their nemesis or in a feud impossibly non-canonical.
Fans got to meet the comic creators they worship, get their autograph, and even sometimes a hug. Creators are genuinely amazed, seeing their characters rendered into reality. To see the level of detail that fans recreate from their characters.
When a character is rendered by an artist or make-up team, it’s a static image. It’s stuck in its confines. It is only because these Comic Con performers are human, and therefore their costumes likely imperfect, that the moment is so amazing. A living gallery of homage, reveling in its ingenuity and passion.
And I almost wanted to call Michael Chabon up and say “must be sad to be you.” Because to see Comic Con for what it is — to not even notice the flaws in the curves of Magneto’s helmet, a run in a Poision Ivy’s stockings, or wonder why Wolverine has some paunch — is to see unbridled happiness.
Which is rare these days.
In this time of fandom culture, not everything is well. A lot of it is sad and depressing, evil and gut-wrenching, and just plain horrific. The internet is an even scarier place than it used to be.
Thankfully, there is ComicCon. Where people walk in the daylight, as their proudest selves. In a costume they’ve spent months on, their rendition of a character they have a strong passion for.
That this gets to exist is a wonderful thing. Sure, the lines can be crazy, but the rest? It’s a rare opportunity, and for me, it’s beyond armchair criticism. It turns the worst venue in New York City into an alternate reality for everyone. Even those, like me, who wouldn’t think to don a cape & cowl, have a wonderful time. Convention goers are ready and eager to pose for photography. As a newbie, I felt awkward about making such a request, and unfortunately came back without any of those photos.
It’s a good thing I plan on going back next year.
