Ten Ballsiest Costumes At New York Comic Con 2010

Runner Up #1: Guy dressed in authentic Sailor Moon costume



















Walking around with his friend at Anime Fest on the lower level. You've got balls, but you knew you weren't ugly enough to make this anything less than a good joke.

Runner Up #2: Fat Black Haruhi Suzimiya

What does it matter that you're cosplaying a Japanese high school girl? You've got  character you like and you ran with it. Honestly, you'd make the main list if all of the other kids in anime costumes weren't equally depressing.

10. Poka Fett

Everyone hates polka, but everyone loves Boba Fett. Street performer who knows which nerds will be at the Javits Center on 34th St and when, you are ballsy.

9.  Sexy Fidel Castro

Congratulations, Sexy Fidel Castro, you have managed to take a sexy girl and make her into something I don't want to have sex with. You could have gotten laid with ease at Comic Con (and probably still could, really), but you've significantly reduced your chances. In fact, I'm really just assuming this is a woman from the clear skin and lack of proper saluting procedure, but this could just as easily be, like, Justin Bieber or some other young boy. Sexy Fidel Castro, that was pretty ballsy.

8. Sexy Dalek

There you go. You know how to try and get laid at Comic Con, don't you? However you went a dangerous route, Sexy Dalek; you went with revealing, easy access, and so remarkably geeky and recognizable that it's probably a good idea to keep a stick around to beat nerds off with. Although that sounds pretty sexy too. Sexy Dalek, you are definitely ballsy.

7. Pedobear(s)

Pedobears, you stand the greatest chance of getting parents to have you pose with their kids. You also knowingly stand the greatest chance of being arrested for posing with children. It' an incredible joke with a frightening outcome if things go wrong, and how can they not go horribly, horribly wrong? Pedobear(s), you are ballsy.

6. Trollface

From the same web origins as Pedobear, "GTFO OF HERE" Trollface was accompanied by his friend "FFFUUUUUUU Guy" Rage Face. You two go all out but stay in the lamest medium of cardboard, cementing your place as nerds in a room full of nerds, and as complete newfags in a room full of, well, even more newfags, but I'm sure there's a few oldfags mixed in there as well. Every time I look at you, Trollface, I want to punch you in your real face, and I don't think anyone would think ill of me. Trollface, you are pretty ballsy.

5. Dark Phoenix Mom

Dark Phoenix Mom, you are ballsy and a little disturbing. Why? Because your son is dressed as Scott "Cyclops" Summers. You are dressed as your own son's character's lover. I don't even want to think about whose idea this was. Dark Phoenix Mom, you are ballsy and possibly a little pedobear, yourself.

4. Guy Gardner



















There was a guy dressed as Guy Gardner, dead-on and with an officially licensed replica power battery. It was an awesome Green Lantern costume. However Guy Gardner is generally perceived as an even worse Lantern than the squirrel guy, undeserving of his ring and so loathed that DC brought his predecessor back from the dead and kicked him out of his own comic. He's still around, somewhere, being under-appreciated. To embody such a character so thoughtfully, Guy Gardner Guy, you are extremely ballsy.

3. Ben Reilly

Everything I said about Guy Gardner? Apply that to Ben Reilly and then double it. Then triple that and raise it to the power of Jason Todd. A Peter Parker clone who coopted the Spider-Man identity repeatedly around donning this low-rent leotard. Emphasis on "tard." Ben Reilly's hated up there with Jason, Guy, and Jar-Jar Binks. For your commitment in the face of great suckage, Ben Reilly, you are super ballsy.

2. Black Mage (Final Fantasy)

Black Mage, you are ballsy because for three days I thought you were He-Man's Orko and I wanted to kill you. I am sure many others thought the same thing, and I did not see a single other person more openly inviting their destruction while walking the halls of artist alley. Incredibly ballsy.

1. Neil Gaiman's Delirium

Oh- Oh God. Geez. Um, yeah. I can't see them, but you've got to have some pretty big ones to dress like this around 100,000+ geeks. God bless you, ballsy girl. You have the Ballsiest Costume at Comic Con.

On Meeting Your Heroes 2: The Heroing

Photo courtesy David Andrako. Follow him on the Twitters @daveinbrooklyn.


Generally, hero worship leads down a pretty bad path. Invariably someone young idolizes someone older whom they wish to emulate, then get in trouble for emulating that person in an inappropriate setting.
As far as Hollywood has informed me, this person will either meet this person immediately and then have their fragile perceptions dashed (The Incredibles, My Name Is Bruce, Fivel Goes West), or they will constantly have their faith tested, always enduring and, with perhaps a smidge of divine encouragement at their darkest moment, overcome and finally meet their hero, seeing it is just as awesome an experience as they'd imagine (Mallrats, Wayne's World 2, That kid who caught Mean Joe Fraiser's jersey in the Coke commercial).
However,the way it usually works out is this: you worship someone for one aspect of him/herself (say Morrissey), from afar, but at some point realize s/he is just a person (he actually does have sex sometimes). If you ever do meet your hero, it is likely in a very artificial environment and anything of intimate value you have to tell them is invariably awkward to say in public.
When I was maybe eleven I met Steve Sansweet. Sansweet was then and is still some kind of huge big shot in the world of Star Wars, not for doing anything important, but for essentially being the biggest fan in the world, to such an extent he was put in charge of fan relations and creative development of expanded series. The guy literally wrote the book on Star Wars, and by 'book' I mean 'encyclopedia,' by which I mean both the original and expanded volumes.

Dude's big. And I shook his hand when I was eleven. Honestly? The guy was just a guy, you know? Except he honestly thought he could pull off a brown trench coat.

When I was twelve I got to go to the very first officially sanctioned Star Wars Celebration. (Are we sensing the theme of my childhood yet?) Incredibly, in a room full of people, I got to ask Jake Lloyd something during a Q&A. You may remember Lloyd as the little boy who ruined Anakin Skywalker before Hayden Christensen.
The problem was I had nothing to ask him. I was so focused on trying to beat out hundreds of flailing adults for the chance at a microphone and an opportunity that I never considered the possibility of winning. Worse, I had never put any thought into what I would ask the soon-to-be washed-up actor. Being twelve, speaking to a ten year old, I think I fell back on, "Hey. So, uh, like, where do you go to school?"

Obviously inappropriate in retrospect. However, it shows how unaffected I was by the gradual, humbling shuffle of a mediocre life. I was a kid talking to a kid he was kind of impressed with. I didn't think smalltalk was inappropriate, even with 300 people in attendance and one party on stage as Anthony Daniels points a microphone in the other's face wondering how an incredibly effeminate British man got stuck playing Ryan Seacrest to a chipmunk-cheeked prepube.


Which brings me to a point: I met Chuck Klosterman tonight. (Or "Kloe-sterman," as is apparently the proper pronunciation. The first new upset to my worldview.)

I met my favorite non-fiction author and I shook his hand. I also learned that we share incredibly similar views of internet culture, Twitter and even MTV's The Jersey Shore, though thankfully my thoughts on the matter seem to go a bit farther than he was willing to let on about in a 90-minute interview/Q&A. (This bodes well for getting him to buy a copy of my book.)

I wondered what I should say to him when I got up to his desk. I read enough from internet artists to know basic autograph protocol, I know what they actually find endearing, I know how to be a decent human being and rise above the tide of accolades and blind worship to instill that deeper, personal note in even a brief encounter.
Except I froze up. I wish I could tell you otherwise. I'll obviously lie and say that I couldn't think of anything worthwhile to ask. This will be mostly true. "Did being in magazine and newspaper publishing for almost two decades play a big part in getting your first agent and book contract?" (Obviously.) "How often do people ask you how you feel about getting married in lieu of having once written that no woman will ever satisfy you and vice verse, adding that you would eventually be asked this and respond with a cheesy falsehood, just to see if you say the same thing?" ("Not nearly as often as people ask me that question," seems too obvious. I'm going with, "Never, because it was a fucking joke and everyone gets that, including you. Stop being cute.")
So, no. No, I couldn't think of anything to say to this man that was worth it. Every line of praise would be wasted in public. This man–and to a lesser extent his friend and associate of the evening, Rob Sheffield–not only shaped how I write, but are the very reason I am writing the book I am writing. I can't tell them that; they deserve better than run-of-the-mill "dick riding."

With the girl ahead of me focusing her attention on Mr. Sheffield and Chuck starring at me as I hold up the line behind her, I caved. I passed on telling Sheffield I enjoyed his first book, even though I'm sorry his wife had to die for him to write it and I'm not buying his new book either, but he did teach me what an empire waist is in omen's fashion and that gave this very blog a joke last week. I forked over my old, dogeared copy of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs for Klosterman to sign, to the title page as instructed despite my desire for a big "C.K." Sharpie'd on my book's cover and was able only to eek out a soft, "Thanks," as I left. Again, I wish I could say my silence and quiet gratitude stemmed from a dearth of anything valuable to say and an inset desire to make his life a little bit smoother and easier.

But sometimes you meet your heroes and they are just as awesome as you've always imagined and you can do nothing but remain steadily awestruck.

Even if they sound eerily like Professor Bunsen Honeydew.

Seriously, North Dakotans must train their kids to talk in a higher pitch or something.

Of The Times and Whether Or Not They In A State of Flux Or Static Equilibrium

(1971) (2010)

Seriously, something's happened to us as a culture in the last thirty years.


And I don't just mean us getting along with the blacks.

On Meeting Your Heroes

I think I spent upwards of four hours today trying to track down a specific favorite quote that's been coming up in conversation a lot recently.

The line in question came from my favorite non-fiction writer, Chuck Klosterman, and went something to the effect of this:

"If you want a date with a single woman, you have to seem better than not only every other man she knows, but every man she could potentially meet between now and your date. If you want to date a woman who is already in a relationship, you only have to be better than one."

Now, I don't necessarily ascribe to this theory. Obviously.

However, that doesn't prevent me from admitting that this is absolutely, 100% true and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It's true. It's brilliant. It's one of the few a priori statements in the dating world. It is an axiom undeniable in itself but terrifying in its implications. The things someone completely amoral could do with this kind of knowledge are the stuff of brutal Nordic drinking songs.


And after four hours this was the actual quote I found:

"If you are a weird-looking dude (which I am) and you want to date exclusively beautiful women (which I did), the key is to pursue beautiful women who are already in relationships. Let's say you live in Omaha, and you meet a hot single woman who is actively dating lots of different guys. In order to win her affection, you have to be more desirable than every other single guy in Omaha. It's you against everybody. However, let's say you meet a hot woman who is dating Kenneth, a hard-working Nebraskan haberdasher. This situation is way, way easier; now, you merely have to be more desirable than Kenneth. It's you against him. However, what I've slowly come to realize is that I was not convincing these women to like me, which is what I thought at the time; I was merely convincing them that staying faithful to Kenneth (or to any person) was unreasonable. I wasn't seducing them in any real context. I was simply eroding their morality."

Granted, it's funny in a different way, but it's still funny. However it's also long-winded, employs hypothetical leaps and contains a moral denunciation of utilizing the strategy for personal gain.

But the real kick in the teeth is it's not the quote I thought it was.