The Best Costumes of NY Comic Con 2011

New York Comic Con this year had certainly fewer costumes than last year, but upon inspection of what I deemed the best of the best, I have to say that the average upper-tier costumes were a grade above what I was expecting. To that end, this year I am announcing a few categories for costumes of different types.

First the second-runner-up category, Thank You for Not Sucking. These costumes are usually so terribly done that to craft and enact one well is itself a meritorious feat.

Photo © Alex Erde

1. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Midna (imp form)

This is a costume usually performed by an overweight girl of modest stature donning a baggy, painted Lycra suit, flecking paint. Not only was this girl's headdress perfect, she had the height appropriate to an imp. She still had curves appropriate to the character, but the shape was right and so was the bodysuit.

Makeup and prosthetics were top-shelf, so thank you, Random, Possibly Asian-Looking girl, for taking an overused and under performing character and letting her shine.

2. Panty & Stocking with Garter belt - Panty and Stocking

I saw a few Stockings, throughout the weekend, but I suppose a decent number of those could have also been generic gothic lolita fashion girls, as opposed to simple, poorly executed Stocking costumes.

Panty is looking like a complete bitch who thinks she's wat hotter than she actually is, which–frankly–is perfectly in character. Considering they were also with another couple girls cosplaying related show characters, They are granted bonus points.

Thank you, Not-Sucky P&S!

3. Durarara - Celty

There were two or three Celtys in total this year, but this was the only one I saw who was the right height, the right gender, the right physique, and had both a (well-fitted) motorcycle suit and a real motorcycle helmet. Even the "ears" were made of the same material as the rest of the helmet.

Plus she had her scythe with her.

For those not familiar with the cute ensemble cast show recently airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim anime Saturdays block, Celty is a "dulahan," a Celtic faerie type that is immortal, powerful, and carries her own head around with her while riding her horse across the countryside.

Of course, Celty 'lost' her head and with it her memories, so she turned her horse into a bike and set off to find her head, wherever it went.

Thank you, Not Sucky Celty.


Extra Nerdy Awards

Photo © Alex Erde

1. Internet - Longcat

Thank you, internet, and thank you, all of you people who made a Chinese dragon of Longcat and paraded around the Javits center holding this monstrosity.

Your work and sense of humor (and camaraderie) is greatly appreciated.

Photo © Alex Erde

2. Axe Cop - Axe Cop

An ordinary cop, until he picked up a fireman's axe and became … Axe Cop.

Originally, this was a comic drawn by a talented artist depicting stories narrated verbatim by his–I think–then nine-year old cousin.

Astounding.

3. Mega Man - Cutman (vintage)

This costume is wonderful in how bad parts of it are, while other parts remain incredible: boots, gloves, and especially helmet - all awesome. Look at that, he cut sheet metal to the proper configuration and bolted it stylishly to a batting helmet. Well done!

Then again, he's out of shape–was he ever in-shape to begin with?–goateed, and is wearing a baggy, white sweatsuit.

This is what I talk about when I say that a crappy costume, meant to be crappy, can be awesome.


Best Cross-Gender Costumes

Photo © Alex Erde

1. The Labyrinth - Female Jareth (David Bowie)

Dude, I'd consider banging David Bowie in The Labyrinth and he's still technically a guy. (Though, if I may quote Family Guy, "Androgynous enough that we could both feel attracted to him and it not be weird.")

Props on the epic hair, perfect to character, the frilly blouse, vest, gloves, and the contact juggling ball. Really, the only inaccuracies here are

a) I don't think she has a penis, and
b) Her eyes are both brown. But I begrudge no one for not possessing dichromia like Bowie and I.

Photo © Alex Erde

2. X-Men - Female Gambit

First off, really cute Asian girl. Who's into comics. And has fashion sense. Thank you.

Secondly, this was by fath the best Gambit costume I saw all weekend. Thursday I saw one that might have been on-par, but it was movie Gambit, not comics Gambit.

This one is badass, appropriately tailored, and altered only in so far as the costume needs to fit a woman's frame instead of a Cajun man's. It is faithful to the comics, the '90s cartoon, and about 837,000 fanboy fantasies now, I'd suspect.

Photo © Alex Erde

3. Iron Man - Female Tony Stark

Again, Asian girls just seem to have more technical prowess than us white boys.

Alex dragged me over to get a picture with my counterpart to the costume I wore last year.

Alright, I had a real beard, but my chest piece was a Tap Light© covered in gorilla tape and strung around my neck with twine.

This girl built a fully working Arc light prop from internet tutorials and glued it in place with bandage tape.

Oh, and she's currently working on the Mk III "triangle" piece.

Most impressive.

Photo © Alex Erde

4. Conan O'Brien - The Flaming C

Brilliant.

Obscure, accurate, flamboyant, and–like all good Rule 63–perfectly altered for depiction by the opposite gender.

Girl even had a hand-made jai alai scoop!

Also, epaulets are totally in fashion right now. Women's clothing really picked up on the men's military dress trend.

5. Deadpool - Deadpool in a German Bar Maid Dress

To be fair, I don't think this was a woman.

I took a look just to be sure, and those boobs were not exactly in the proper placement and orientation for real boobs, nor did they possess a natural form as (s)he walked. Also: almost no hair.

Based on gait and physiology, I had to surmise that this was a man wearing a Deadpool costume, who then donned a beer wench costume.

Why?

Because Deadpool, that's why. Of course he would do that. I'm sure it even made sense. To him. For like a second at least.

Nice gams.


Adventure Time Awards

 I am giving an aware to everyone who wore awesome Adventure Time costumes.

1. Manliest Finn


















2. Most amazing  Fiona.

Not only did she nail the costume, she had a sick Cake the Cat, and her friend there was dressed as the male version of Marceline (canonically called "Marshall Lee," a name a refuse to acknowledge in favor of "Man-Celine).

Manceline even has a hyper-sweet reproduction of Marceline's battle "axe."

They were amazing and I love them both forever.

3. Best Cake the Cat

This was a crocheted backpack critter type thing. I don't think it held or did anything, just hung around this girl's back.

I felt like a total skeever taking this picture too, because the girl was like 15 but I couldn't resist such a sweet, sweet crochet job.

4. Most accurate Princesses

Alright, Princess Bubblegum I could take or leave. She was well done here, but honestly, if not for her voice actor in the show, I don't care for the character. Too easy.

Lumpy Space Princess, on the other hand, that is an impressive costume.

That's a ballsy move for the little girl inside that big, purple cloud shape. All hot and gross inside, suffering for her comedy.

Because make no mistake, the only reason to go as Lumpy Space Princess when you could be Bubblegum or Fiona, or anybody else, is it is hilarious.

Photo © Alex Erde

5. Best Universe-Shattering Slash Fiction

Him: A Finn cosplayer

Her: A Fionna devotee.

Together: The most adorable couple's costume at the whole con.

Somewhere, Pendleton Ward just sat down after experiencing a great disturbance in the Time, as if thousands of voices suddenly cried out in cheer on the internet and began furiously typing up fan fiction, then were suddenly never silenced ever.




Just Awesome Costumes:

(In no particular order.)

Photo © Alex Erde

X-Men - Archangel

Blue face paint is a commitment.

Giant steel wings that must weigh a ton and could probably really hurt someone or at the very least impare your mobility in a crowded convention center:

That's some semper fi marine shit, right there.

Photo © Alex Erde

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Casey Jones

Yeah, I'm ignoring April O'Neil here.

I'll tell you why:

First: she's not that good. I saw a much sexier, much more cartoon-accurate April on Thursday, and if you remember the cartoon, you remember that girl had some Barbie-doll level of impossible proportions on her. And Thursday's April met them. Pretty sure she was even a natural redhead.

Secondly: Casey just kicks ass here. Ratty old golf bag full of five-irons and hockey sticks? 2000s accurate cartoon mask? Hell, by that iteration of Casey, even the sweat pants, sneakers, short shirt, and ties/wraps are accurate. Plus, he brought an entire girlfriend as an accessory, and she has her own accessories. She's like a Ken doll, to stretch the previous analogy.

Hellblazer - John Constantine

Perfect costume, with "lit" cigarette (think it was an LED), and the schtick of following around other obscure comics heroes and skulking in the background of their photo opportunities?

That's John, for you.

Darkwing Duck - Darkwing Duck, Morganna Webb, and Megavolt

… Just … I-

Simply amazing. So freaking funny, accurate while also more realistically anthropomorphic, amazing accessories for everyone, and, I don't know if you can see this so I'll give you a little close-up:

Those duck feat are made from three pairs of Converse All-Stars painted orange and white.

They used the same technique in the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle "Theodore Rex."






 

Photo © Alex Erde

X-Men - Hank McCoy

Speaking of blue before, here's some commitment for you:

Dressing like a giant nerd at a convention of nerds nerdy enough to know how big a nerd you are for pretending to be a specific giant nerd.

Who is also blue.

And dressed like an associate professor a at state school.

Epic facial hair, though.

Marvel Comics - Luke Cage (1970s)

Okay, you can't really tell much scale here, but this guy was, no lie, not shorter than 6'10". He was just enormous. People were walking by him and grown men stopped at his collar bone.

Plus the costume was 100% comic book accurate. Forget all the She-Hulks in "4" leotards I saw all weekend, Luke Cage is my favorite substitute Fantastic Four member from this day forward.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Master Shake

Asked if he had anything to say after the costume contest, Shake had only this to utter:

I should have been in the contest.

Marvelous.

That straw's a giant foam pool noodle, by the way.

Photo © Alex Erde

Another giant man.

This one dressed as The Rhino, from Spider-Man, complete with latex chest pieces and headgear, and just generally gargantuan arms.

The feet are a nice touch, to grab attention away from the mamoth sweat pants.

Batman Forever - The Riddler (Jim Carey iteration)

This is another bold move.

Both for the leotard on someone so gangly, and the hair, but in-character both work perfectly. He was also flappy and jaunty and doing a lot of physical stuff Carey did in the movie.

It's also bold since that was a terrible movie and the worst version of The Riddler. I'm not saying it was Batman and Robin bad, but it was the next thing over.

This kid pulled it off, though.

A Nightmare Before Christmas - Jack Skellington

This guy actually won the costume contest. Amazing tailoring, and if you couldn't tell, the walking stick is because in order to look appropriately freakish and lanky, this guy was walking around on stilts.

Batman - Bane

This is the guy I was actually rooting for to win the costume contest.

Paul, as I found out, says,

"I have never seen someone as Bane who was in shape. They were all either fat or wearing a muscle suit. So I worked out like crazy and dieted for 6 months lol.

LoL, indeed, Paul! Not only was his costume spot-on, he pulled out all the stops with matching shape and having poses and a full act handy, where he would drag Batman around all day by the limp ankles of neck, and then "break" him over his knee with a lumbar-twinging floppiness anyone familiar with the comics is ecstatic to witness. You can see a sweet pictorial and write-up of it here.

Paul doesn't have a website, but if you're interested in seeing his other work, he has a Dark Knight-styled short film giving the Nolan treatment to the origin of Harley Quinn over on YouTube.

Go Get A Roomie! | Chloé C. talks comics, art, and digital distribution

I tend to pick up a new webcomic to follow every few months. This far outsrips the rate at which comics I am already following end or otherwise go on indefinite hiatus, but complaining of that would literally be complaining about having too much good reading material.

One of my most recent fixations is Go Get a Roomie, by Franco-hippie artist Chloé C. From what I can gleam of her personal details, Chloé was born and currently resides in France, educated in the U.S., and has many fascinating adventures sometimes involving tasing and always involving alcohol in Belgium. She is also two years my junior.

I found her work fascinating, in part for simple aesthetics but also for her philosophical vantages: New World educated, Old World raised; modern American culture, Western Europe location; art of of a creator, fervor of a fangirl.

This was the first piece by Chloé, or "Nana" as she goes by on DeviantArt that I came across:

I was looking for art of Delirium from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. A friend had cosplayed for New York Comic Con just nearly a year ago, and with the right keywords it's easy to Google her costume, but rather difficult to find much high-quality fan art as Death here tends to take up most of the fandom.

However you can see the attention to, not quite detail, but truth of character with which Chloé imbues her art. Death has her smirk, but Delirium, the universal embodiment of broken madness, has her fishnet bodysuit, her leather jacket, single vintage sneaker, and her swarm of flower petals/butterflies/animate flying fish/rainbows.

She had my attention.

The more I browsed her page, the more I found Chloé to identify herself as a fan of many shows I too grew up watching, of at least was aware of if not directly involved with, and she shared what I guess would be the emotional impetus behind specific fandoms–somewhat derogatorily–referred to as "shippers," proponents of relationships between certain pairings of literary, cinematic or otherwise artistically created, fictitious characters.

It doesn't hurt, either, that her leanings tend towards the Sapphic pairings in 1990s/2000s media culture:

• Xena/Gabrielle
• Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy
• Kim Possible/Shego

I'm sure this helps page views on a … er, basic level, but I choose to believe in a world where most readers are legitimately in it for a little confirmation that the non-heteronormative inklings and vibes they were picking up in shows like Batman and Xena and essentially anything popular made by the Disney channel that weren't their own imaginings, but subtle nods by the shows' creators and animators towards a more diverse culture of viewers.

The final product of all thise, besides some amazing fanart, is Go Get a Roomie, a strip fundamentally about taking those subtle vibes and teases, and placing them center stage for everyone who's already in on the joke to laugh at. A lot.

For the record, I'm ecstatic she agreed to talk with me about these issues. I've gotten a chance to speak with some bigger names and some new names, but this is the first time I've been able to ask these questions to someone from outside the American culture of comics making and see how the same thoughts and issues affect the rest of the world's art community.

What have your experiences been like with using Twitter to talk directly with your readers? I've noticed you even solicit them for suggestions to improve your art via Formspring. Do you think it's something like the next-step in having comic forums, or is it something separate?

I'm on several different websites that enable me to talk directly with readers, such as DeviantArt, Twitter, Formspring or Tumblr. It's a great to share your thoughts, questions, and art with everyone else, and I use it also to have feedbacks from my readers. A comic artist can easily get stuck working in their closed world and think they don't need the advice, but I will always look out for feedbacks and helpful critics to encourage me to improve in my art and story-telling. I'm positively amazed at how well the comments and feedbacks go!

Comic forums can be a great way to share your thoughts on one specific comic. But you'd need to have a strong fan-base to get them to come over to the forum exclusively for your comic. Websites like dA, Tumblr, ect, makes [sic] it easier to share your art and comics, and is a great way to start gaining popularity with.

What are your thoughts on webcomics that offer free updates but rely on or at least supplement those with "premium content" for paying subscribers?

I think it's a great way to start making money out of your webcomic. If there's enough popularity, and a general kindness with the readers, then most definitely use supplements for paying subscribers. I've just created a 'donate button' over on my website, so that people who generously give any amount to help me out, receive in exchange a few comic strips I've worked on just for them. It's a great way to boost the artist to continue making the webcomic free, and accessible for all.

You draw a lot of fanart yourself: Avatar, Kim Possible, Batman; how would you feel drawing these characters for their parent companies? Would it be the best world ever?

It would most definitely be. But if I'd have my word on the ultimate best world evah, I'd love working for them, but have time to work on my own comics. Fanarts is great, and I always have fun interpreting the characters and story in my own way, but you also need time to create your own universe and characters to share your story with.

Do you personally buy single-issues or trade comics from DC or Marvel, or any other "Big" publishing house?

Yes, when I can. Unfortunately, living in France means finding american comics translated in french, and I'm very picky about that. Original versions are always the best, and it goes for comics as well. So when I DO buy DC (and sometimes, Marvel, or Dark Horse as well), it's mostly on amazon.com. Why, last week I just started buying "Strangers in Paradise" by Terry Moore. Some comics are a must in my library.

*Note: AMAZING comic. Also one where Vol. 3 is about 837 times longer than Vol. 1, so be in for the long-haul.

Do you have any thoughts about DC and Marvel selling digital copies of their monthly titles? Price-points on-par with single issues, proprietary file formats, subscription fees, that sort of thing?

I wasn't even aware of this. I guess it's a predictable move. The virtual world of internet plays such a big part in our daily life now, medias are taking this to their advantage. I personally wouldn't buy digital copies. I've read a bit of scanned comics on the computer, and it's just not the same as having the real thing in your hands. Call me nostalgic.

How to you feel about "Comics Piracy" as a concept and practice? Downloading scanned issues and trades that aren't freely available online?

Well there you go. That's how I read a few scanned comics. I can tell you exactly which they were: Sandman by Neil Gaiman, and again Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore. It goes back to what I was saying before, how I can't find the books in OV in any library or bookstore. But I was so keen on reading them, that I downloaded the pages, most illegaly. On a side note, both are comics I greatly admire, and so I can't do otherwise but save money to buy the whole series. Sandman the first in my must-have list.

So basically, piracy will always exist, but if it's to get to know a comic that you can't get in your country, then there's an excuse. Once you see how great it is though, it's a matter of respect to purchase the artwork.

With the shift from Comic Books to Webcomics, where do you see newspaper comics fitting in? Do they serve a purpose or are they something of a hold-over from 'days gone by' papers with cartoons and a crossword puzzle?

Haha, I know I couldn't read a newspaper without any comic strips in it. No, I don't think the quality has anything to do with the format. Be it comic books, webcomics or newspaper comics, each has its specific rules and a chance to make it a brilliant work of art.

Webcomics seem to have picked up a reputation for being less legitimate because the artists also sell merchandise, even though I can pull a Batman shirt out of my closet and no one says a word. Do you think this is because webcomics are generally independently run? Is monetizing the same as "selling out"?

I guess the concept of "webcomics" is the idea of total non-profit in any way. And I understand that, in fact, this is why I decided to start a webcomic of my own. I loved the whole community around webcomics, it seemed so open to everyone, a community that shares, and sometimes debate, but an overall kindness and good sport. I especially loved how the artists interacted with the readers, thanking their fans whenever they received a fanart, and so on. The webcomic community just seems more human. And it's a nice change to see artists who show they care about their readers. They want to share their skills and humor with them, and offer it to them on a golden plate. It's free, for crying out loud!

But you have to realize how much work they put in regularly updated webcomics. I update three times a week. Artists like Danielle Corsetto update every day of the week. Giz from Ma3, has three different webcomics she works on, with Dave's help on the scripts. It's alot of work! Webcomic artists spend hours of their time just for the readers' entertainment. Selling merchandise is one of the few ways they can actually gain money out of all their hard work. I think it's completely justified. On the other hand, it also depends on how they sell it. I wouldn't want an artist screaming at me to buy their tshirt because I'd live miserably otherwise. But in my experience, I've never encountered that before. It's always been done with kindness and modesty.

Finally, do you see major comic houses like DC, Marvel and Dark Horse surviving the next 20 years and if so how? Could they change or will they just cling in desperation until the last paper mill is demolished by iPad-driven bulldozers powered by cloned whale oil?

I have absolutely no idea! But it's a great question we'll just have to discover in the years to come. If they want to survive though, they'd maybe have to start with getting a closer look at their plots and character reboots. Last I heard, their last issues with Catwoman and Starfire did not bode well...

GGaR updates M-W-F and is adorable. Again, follow Chloé's DA page and Tumblr for other art. Most of it is work-safe, but you probably still wouldn't want your boss to catch you reading it over lunch. Highly recommended comes anything involving Marceline-Princess Bubblegum of Adventure Time.

Adventure Time!

Happy Sunday! I've been wanting to do this ever since I came across "Adventure Time with Fiona and Cake," and thought I kind of like it better than "Adventure Time with Finn and Jake."