cosplay – In My Not So Humble Opinion

Recurring themes of the Legion of Super-Heroes part 3: Yeah, that’s gonna be a “No” from me, dawg!

This is the third installment of my look at recurring plots, imagery and character-types in the Legion of Super-Heroes stories published by DC Comics during the Silver Age… and beyond.

This time we are looking at homages to one of the most iconic Legion images, the cover to the team’s first appearance in Adventure Comics #247.

Initially these homages were quite infrequent. By the 1990s, though, fandom had, for better or for worse, become a decades-spawning passion with a significant awareness of the medium’s past. This has resulted in the proliferation of homages to and parodies of Golden and Silver Age imagery, among these the cover to Adventure Comics #247.

The first Legion of Super-Heroes story in Adventure Comics #247 (April 1958) was written by Otto Binder, drawn by Al Plastino and edited by Mort Weisinger. The now-legendary cover was drawn by penciler Curt Swan & inker Stan Kaye, who regularly contributed the cover artwork to the Superman family of comics in the late 1950s.

“The Legion of Super-Heroes” saw a group of super-powered teens from 1000 years in the future offer Superboy the chance to join their club. Originally intended as a one-off tale, within a few years it would become a beloved, long-running series. Likewise, the cover image to Adventure Comics #247, with a shocked Superboy being rejected for membership in the team, would go on to be a recurring motif over the series’ history, as well as inspiring numerous parodies throughout the medium.

The earliest homage to the Adventure Comics #247 cover that I’ve located is Superman #147 (August 1961) also drawn by Curt Swan & Stan Kaye. Here we see the now-adult Man of Steel being threatened not with rejection but with death by the Legion of Super-Villains.

It’s interesting to note that this issue was published just a little over three years later, in an era when overt nods to past were rare in the comic book biz. Audience turnover was fairly rapid in the 1950s and 60s, and it would normally not be expected that current readers would be familiar with material published several years earlier. The fact that Swan & Kaye drew this cover, presumably at the direction of editor Weisinger, appears to confirm awareness by DC that the Legion was already developing an avid, long-term readership.

The cover to Adventure Comics #322 (July 1964) is again penciled by Curt Swan, now paired with inker George Klein. Although not a straight-up homage of #247, it nevertheless evokes the former’s audition format, but with the Legion of Super-Pets taking the place of Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad & Saturn Girl, and the shape-changing Proty II standing in for Superboy.

L.E.G.I.O.N. was a semi-prequel to Legion of Super-Heroes. It featured an interplanetary law-enforcement team organized by the original Brainiac’s son, the Machiavellian genius Vril Dox, in the present day. The tone of L.E.G.I.O.N. was often bleakly humorous (as any series co-starring the ultra-violent Lobo would inevitably be) but the comedic tone reached ridiculous proportions in L.E.G.I.O.N. ’94 Annual #5 (September 1994). This “Elseworlds” tie-in had the team appearing in various pop culture parodies, including this segment lampooning the Silver Age Legion.

One can only guess what Curt Swan was thinking when he was asked to draw this bizarre send-up of his earlier work! He is paired here with inker Josef Rubinstein. The script is by Tom Peyer, with letters by John Costanza and colors by Gene D’Angelo.

The cover to Legion of Super-Heroes #88 (January 1997) has Impulse, the super-fast grandson of the Flash / Barry Allen and Iris West Allen auditioning to join the Legion. Of course the hyperactive, mischievous Impulse tries to rig things in his favor! Cover pencils are by Alan Davis, inks by Mark Farmer, letters by Todd Klein and colors by Patrick Martin.

Acclaimed painter Alex Ross has done numerous reimaginings of classic comic book covers. Here is his take on Adventure Comics #247. This painting was used for one of the two covers for the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 29th Edition (May 1999) from Gemstone Publishing. This is actually a scan of the original artwork, courtesy of Heritage Auctions. The painting was unfortunately too dark & blurry when published.

Legion of Super Heroes was an animated series that ran on WB for two seasons from September 2006 to April 2008. DC published a comic book that tied in with the animated series’ continuity. Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century lasted for 20 issues. The cover to issue #16 (September 2008) has infamous Legion reject Arm-Fall-Off-Boy attempting to join the animated incarnation of the team, with equally unsuccessful results. Cover artwork is by Alexander Serra.

When DC briefly revived Adventure Comics starring the Legion of Super-Heroes in 2009, they published a zero issue that reprinted the team’s first story. The brand new cover to issue #0 (April 2009) is drawn by Aaron Lopresti and colored by Brian Miller.

Looks like somebody took one heck of a wrong turn at Albuquerque! The very much tongue-in-cheek Legion of Super-Heroes / Bugs Bunny Special (August 2017) was part of a series of crossovers between DC Comics and Looney Tunes. “The Imposter Superboy” sees Bugs accidentally transported to the 31st Century, where he finds himself in the cross hairs (or should that be cross hares?) of the very angst-ridden Legion. Cover pencils are by Tom Grimmett, inks by Karl Kesel, and colors by Steve Buccellato.

I avoided the 12 issue Doomsday Clock miniseries (published between Jan 2018 and Feb 2020) like the plague, but someone on the LSH: Legion of Super-Heroes group on Facebook let me know that writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank utilized the above homage to Adventure Comics #267. No idea which specific issue this appeared in.

The cover of Adventure Comics #247 is such an iconic part of Legion lore that comic con cosplayers have even taken to recreating it! I have no idea when or where this was taken, or who this clever quartet are in real life, but they definitely deserve a round of applause.

New York Comic Con 2015

I was originally not planning to go to New York Comic Con this year. Then about a week before the show my old friend Mitchell Lampert contacted me to let me know he had two extra tickets for Sunday. Thanks to Mitchell’s very kind and generous gift, my girlfriend Michele and I were able to attend the show.

As usual, I was on a limited budget, although I did manage to raise a little extra money at the last minute. Even so, seeing all of the amazing creators who had tables in Artists Alley, I did wish that I could have afforded a few more sketches. Well, there’s always the future.

When we arrived at the Javits Center on Sunday morning, I immediately headed over to Erik Larsen’s table in Artists Alley. Larsen is the creator of Savage Dragon from Image Comics. I’ve been following it from the very beginning, over two decades ago, and for the last few years it has been my favorite ongoing series. Larsen has been a guest at NYCC several times before, but somehow I’ve always missed him. I did meet him quite a few years ago, but he had a long line then, so I really did not have the opportunity to talk with him.

Fortunately on Sunday, while there was steady traffic at Larsen’s table, it never got very crowded, and so I was able to spend a few minutes talking to him, asking him questions and telling him how much I enjoyed his work. Larsen is definitely a friendly, cool guy.

I was able to obtain a couple of sketches by Larsen. He did a quick free sketch of Malcolm Dragon, and then I paid for him to do a detailed Beautiful Dreamer in my theme sketchbook. Larsen is a huge fan of Jack Kirby, so for a while now I’d hoped to have him contribute to the sketchbook. I’m happy I finally had the opportunity.

Next I headed over to see Russ Braun, a very talented artist who has worked on such series as Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Battlefields, The Boys and Where Monsters Dwell. I met Russ at a signing at JHU Comic Books a few months ago, where he did a nice drawing of Beautiful Dreamer for me. Since then we’ve corresponded on Facebook. Russ is definitely a class act, one of the nicest comic book pros I’ve ever met. It’s always a pleasure to see the new artwork he’s posting on FB.

I picked up a copy of Russ’ 2015 NYCC Sketchbook, which contains some amazing illustrations. A lot of these are pieces he’s shared on Facebook in the last few months, and it was nice to see them complied together. Russ drew a sketch for me in my Avengers Assemble book. He drew a pretty obscure character named Masque, who you might recall if you were reading the Avengers comics in the mid-1990s. I will be the first to admit that “The Crossing” storyline was a huge mess. However, there were certain characters and elements to it that I thought had potential, and Masque was one of those. Anyway, Russ did a great job sketching the character.

I was pleasantly surprised to meet Christopher Ivy, an artist I know from Facebook. He is an extremely prolific inker who has been working in comic books since 1988. Ivy had some original pages for sale. I was just browsing through them out of curiosity when I came across one of his pages from Sovereign Seven penciled by Dwayne Turner. As I’ve written before, S7 was an interesting series. This one leaped out at me because of the beautiful drawing of Lucy the cat by Turner & Ivy.

Yes, as regular readers of this blog will know, I am definitely a huge cat lover. So I immediately knew that I had to buy this page. Fortunately it fell within my budget. Michele thought it was a nice page, as well.

Chris Claremont, the writer of Sovereign Seven, had a table in Artists Alley. I brought the page over to get his autograph. Claremont was pleasantly surprised by this, and he appeared genuinely happy to see it. I always thought the series had a great deal of potential. Even though it was published by DC Comics, the characters were owned by Claremont. I told him that I would enjoy seeing him write them again, if not in comic books then perhaps in a prose novel. I get the feeling that given the opportunity Claremont would like to revisit his creations.

I spent most of the day in Artists Alley, mostly because it looked like the main floor was very crowded. Around 3:00 Michele and I decided to give it a try. And, yep, it was completely packed! It was almost impossible to move in places. I felt like we were on the NYC subway during rush hour.

After elbowing out way through the crowd and making our way from one end of the floor to another, we finally arrived at the Action Labs booth. Unfortunately by that time the creators of the Hero Cats series had left for the day. Well, maybe next year!

Inching our way back the other was, Michele and I came to the Papercutz booth. Paris Cullins was there to promote The Zodiac Legacy, the new series he’s working on with writer Stuart Moore. Cullins asked if I would like a sketch. He then proceeded to draw Michele and myself! I think that I look sort of weird, but the drawing of Michele was of course beautiful. It was a very nice gesture on Cullins’ part.

I met a number of other creators at NYCC. Among them were Joe Staton, Bret Blevins, Jan Duursema, Tom Mandrake, Joyce Chin, Mike Lilly, Bob McLeod, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Joe Prado, Fernando Ruiz, Jamal Igle, Jim Chambers and Joe Martino. I hope I’m not forgetting anyone.

There were, of course, some really amazing cosplayers at NYCC. Michele took a whole bunch of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites…

Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham

I really admire many of these cosplayers. They obviously possess a great deal of talent to be able to create such amazing costumes, as well as the self-confidence to wear them at huge gatherings of fandom.

I’m happy that Michele and I were able to go to New York Comic Con this year. It was fun. At the same time, I’m glad that I only went one day. Any more than that and I would have been completely worn out!

Saturday at the East Coast Comicon

For the last few months I was trying to decide if I should attend the East Coast Comicon that was going to be held on April 11th and 12th in the Meadowlands Exposition Center. It sounded like it would be a cool show with a lot of great guests. Unfortunately my finances were shaky, so I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I should skip it.

Then a few weeks ago 13th Dimension, who were organizing the show, announced a contest for free tickets plus Planet of the Apes action figures. I entered the contest and then promptly forgot about it, since I was busy stressing about work and personal stuff. That is until April 2nd when Dan Greenfield from 13th Dimension e-mailed me to let me know that I was one of the winners. Okay, so I guess that meant I was going to the show after all!

Michele and I went to the convention on Saturday. Due to that aforementioned “personal stuff” both of us were exhausted and got a late start. And once we got to the Port Authority the bus to the Meadowlands was running a half hour behind schedule. So we didn’t get to the show until 3:30 PM, which gave us two and a half hours to try to take in as much as possible.

One of the first people we saw was cartoonist Rick Parker. He is a really cool guy with an insane sense of humor. I’ve met him at a few shows in the past, and we’re also friends on Facebook. The last time I actually saw him in person was May 2011, when he was generous enough to give me a ride from the train station to the Hawthorne High School Comic Con. I’m happy that I got to see him again after all this time.

Rudy Nebres was another guest. As I’ve mentioned before, I am a big fan of his work. He was at the show with his family. He and his wife are always friendly. This time I also met his son Mel, who I’m friends with on Facebook. It’s always nice when you get to actually meet FB friends in person.

One of the guests I was really looking forward to meeting was Arthur Adams. I’ve been a fan of his work for years but I’d never met him before. Adams’ work is amazing. He puts an absolutely insane amount of detail into his art. Michele wasn’t familiar with Adams, but once she some of his work she was instantly impressed.

I brought along a few comics for Adams to sign, along with The Official Godzilla Compendium, for which he contributed a number of illustrations. Adams is a lifelong fan of Godzilla. He also really enjoys drawing gorillas. Given those two passions, I mentioned to him that it was too bad Toho Studios does not like to have their Godzilla character appear in crossovers, because he would be the perfect guy to illustrate a graphic novel version of King Kong vs. Godzilla. Adams actually responded that in the mid-1990s when he was involved with the Godzilla comic published by Dark Horse he pitched a “Superman vs. Godzilla” crossover. DC Comics was all for it, but Toho had zero interest, and so it went nowhere. Too bad, that could have been amazing.

Another creator I was happy to see at the convention was Ann Nocenti. I’ve reviewed some of her work on this blog before. Nocenti is one of the most distinctive writers in the comic book biz. She brought with her unique sensibilities and an unconventional outlook when she began writing for Marvel Comics in the 1980s, which led to a number of memorable stories. I look back very fondly on her run writing Daredevil in the late 1980s.

I’ve actually met Nocenti before, a couple of years ago when she was doing a signing at Jim Hanley’s Universe. But that was pretty crowded, and I didn’t have much of a chance to talk to her. At the East Coast Comicon there was much more of an opportunity to share my thoughts about her work and ask her some questions. Nocenti was definitely very generous with her time.

Also among the guests who Michele and I got to meet were underground cartoonist John Holstrom, current Heathcliff comic strip creator Peter Gallagher, the amazingly funny Fred Hembeck, longtime Marvel writer & artist Bob Budiansky, and Ren & Stimpy co-creator Bob Camp. There were a bunch of other guests there, as well, but we just didn’t have enough time to catch everyone.

I was glad that at towards the end of the show I did have a few moments to stop by Eric Talbot‘s table. Talbot has a long association with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book. I was a huge fan of the series back in high school, and I fondly remember his work on it. Most of my collection is packed away in storage but I was able to bring along a few issues of the more recent Tales of the TMNT anthology series that he contributed to and have those autographed. I wish I could have afforded to get a sketch from Talbot because he was drawing some amazing pieces at the show.

Fortunately I was able to obtain one sketch at the convention. Rudy Nebres drew a beautiful pencil head sketch of Vampirella for me. I’ve really enjoyed his work on the character in the past so I was happy to be able to get this.

Actually It’s been a while since I’ve been to a convention and gotten more than one or two pieces of artwork, anyway. I guess nowadays, with my finances being more limited, I’m concentrating on quality over quantity.

There were a lot of cosplayers at the convention. Some of the costumes were fantastic. Since we were rushing around Michele unfortunately didn’t have the opportunity to take too many pictures. As we were on our way out, though, she was able to take a great photo of this “Spider-Family.” From left to right that’s Venom, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Woman aka Spider-Gwen and the original Spider-Man.

Oh, yes, one last thing… Michele is a huge fan of Planet of the Apes. Last year she rented all the movies from the original series and we watched them over a five day stretch.

In addition to winning two tickets to the convention, I also won two Planet of the Apes action figures. One was Charlton Heston himself, Colonel Taylor, who wishes those damn dirty apes would keep their paws to themselves. The other was a gorilla soldier who looks ready to hunt down some of those pesky humans. Sadly neither figure came with a half-buried Statue of Liberty, but despite that deficiency they are still very cool. Of course I gave them to Michele, who I knew would appreciate them.

Despite only getting to the convention for less than half a day, and being on a really tight budget, Michele and I both had a lot of fun. Hopefully we will be able to make it again next year.

A big “thank you” to 13th Dimension publisher Cliff Galbraith for organizing the East Coast Comicon. By the way, that’s his artwork on the cool banner up top of Darth Vader cosplaying as Doctor Doom.

(All photos are courtesy of Michele Witchipoo and her wonderful smartphone.)

New York Comic Con 2013: a convention report

I really had not planned to go to the New York Comic Con this year. But at literally the last minute, i.e. Wednesday afternoon, Michele surprised me with a ticket for Thursday. I knew that once again I was going to be on a really limited budget. So I decided to just pick up a handful of comics and maybe a couple of sketches. Mostly I brought along comic books I already owned to get autographed. And I took a few photos. My digital camera went bust a while ago, so I had to rely on my crappy cell phone camera.

The first person I went to see in Artist Alley was Joe Staton. I actually did the exact same thing last year. What can I say? I’m a huge fan of his work. This time around, I really wanted to pick up a copy of the E-Man trade paperback that reprinted the Charlton Comics stories from the 1970s. This collected edition actually came out in 2011, but the last couple of years when Staton had it for sale at the show, I just didn’t have the money to get it. So I decided that this year it would be the very first thing I’d purchase. I ended up breezing through the book, it was such a fun, entertaining read. I’ll probably do a post about E-Man sometime in the near future.

Scott Hanna was also at the show. I think he does really great work. He is one of those embellishers who usually attempt to stay faithful to the style of whatever penciller he is working with. As such, I think that his contributions to the finished art are not as readily identifiably to the casual eye. Nevertheless, as I’ve mentioned in my Thinking About Inking post, there have been instances where his impact is demonstrable, and always in a positive way. At NYCC I purchased a page that he did for the miniseries Avengers: Celestial Quest, inking Jorge Santamaria’s pencils, which features one of my favorite characters, Mantis.

Two other people who had a table in Artist Alley were Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani, the creative team behind Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures, as well as their self-published Aw Yeah Comics. I think their work is so cute and funny and adorable. Yeah, I know, I also like very dark and serious stuff, as well. But the thing is, I’m into a wide range of material. If everything in the comic book biz was grim & gritty, it would be extremely boring. Diversity is the spice of life. I got several comic books signed by Art & Franco, as well as sketches from both of them. Art drew a cartoony version of the Teen Titans’ demonic foe Trigon. Franco sketched a funny Darkseid vs Streaky the Supercat piece.

The one other piece of art I got at NYCC this year was a really nice sketch in my Beautiful Dreamer theme book. It was drawn by Derek Fridolfs, whose work has appeared in Justice League Beyond and Batman: Li’l Gotham. You can view it, and the rest of the art I picked up, in my galley at Comic Art Fans.

While I was at the show, I also had the chance to see several other creators, among them Bob Layton, Steve Ellis, Alex Saviuk, Amy Reeder, Brandon Montclare, Tim Vigil, ChrisCross, Jim Salicrup, Vito Delsante, and John “Roc” Upchurch.

Before I knew that I was going to be at NYCC, I had decided to get a ticket for a related event on Friday night which was being organized by Barnaby Edwards of the Doctor Who New York fan club. Colin Baker, who portrayed the Sixth Doctor on Doctor Who, was doing a question & answer session and signing at the Stone Creek Bar on East 27th Street. Also present was writer & actor Nicholas Briggs. In addition to being heavily involved in the Big Finish audio plays, directing many of them, Briggs has famously voiced the Daleks, Cybermen, and various other aliens, both for Big Finish and on the television series itself. I was really looking forward to meeting both gentlemen. There was a third, surprise guest, as well: director & producer Jason Haigh-Ellery of Big Finish. For someone such as me, a huge fan of the Doctor Who audio adventures, this event was a real treat. I think that Baker has done extraordinary work reprising his Doctor at Big Finish, and both Briggs & Haigh-Ellery have really brought extraordinary levels of professionalism to these productions. It was also a great opportunity to meet in person several of the people I know online from Facebook and WordPress.

Of course there were some amazing examples of cosplay at NYCC. This is where I wish I had a proper camera, so I could have taken more pictures. I even saw someone dressed as Walter White from Breaking Bad. I was wondering if anyone was going to do that! Anyway, here are a few photos of fans in costume that really stood out for me.

It’s always interesting when you see somebody cosplaying as a somewhat more obscure character. This guy was dressed up as the supervillain Clock King. In addition to a super-authentic costume, he actually had a working clock on his mask. Now that is what I call attention to detail!

Here is a lovely lady who was turning heads on the main convention floor, dressed up as a steampunk version of G.I. Joe villainess the Baroness.

NYCC 2013 Steampunk Baroness — Steampunk Baroness

And for this one I really wish I had been able to take a much better picture. Here were three gals cosplaying as the most famous female agents of SHIELD, namely the Black Widow, Sharon Carter, and Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine. Jim Steranko was at NYCC, and I wonder if he had a chance to see his creation, sexy spy Val Fontaine, brought to life. Sorry for the blurry quality. Trust me, this trio looked fantastic in person.

NYCC 2013 Agents of SHIELD — Black Widow, Sharon Carter, and Val Fontaine

I had a good time at this year’s New York Comic Con. After she got out from work, Michele joined me at the show and we hung out there for a few hours. But, at the end of the day, I was exhausted and kind of broke, so I’m glad that I was only there for one day. Anyway, thanks again, Michele, for the surprise ticket. I really appreciate it.

The myth of the fake geek girl

The last few months on the Internet, one of the more interesting, as well as controversial, debates has revolved around the notion of “fake geek girls.” One of the major aspects of this has concerned the phenomenon of attractive women cosplaying as sexy female comic book characters at comic book conventions. There has been a lot of back-and-forth about whether or not these ladies are “real” fans. I’ve had some general thoughts about this percolating in my mind for a while now, but I didn’t really take the time to organize them into any coherent form.

Then a few days ago on Facebook, someone posted a rather humorous image. Someone had created a meme featuring a girl cosplaying as “steampunk gender swapped Joker in a Willy Wonka hat,” stating that this lady was “trying too hard.” Right next to it was a screen capture from a message board where someone else astutely pointed out that this gal was portraying an actual comic book character, Duela Dent, and that the next time someone accused someone else of being a “fake geek” they ought to do their research first.

I think my initial reaction to this was along the lines of “Oh, shit, the guy who created that first meme got totally pwned! Ha ha!”

(Credit where credit is due department: I just learned that the responses on the right, and the final image epically putting down the ill-informed douche who created the original meme, were assembled by Lizzie Taz Scism, a cosplayer herself and a friend of the lady who was garbed as Duela Dent.)

So I was at my temp job today, doing a whole bunch of data entry. My mind began wandering, and it somehow conjured up the memory of the above image. This started a whole row of mental dominos tumbling for the next couple of hours, leading to this blog post.

Please keep in mind, in addressing the “fake geek girl” controversy, I really do not want to make any sort of sweeping generalizations concerning any aspects of fandom. That is why, as with my other recent post, Old vs new: fan wars and Doctor Who, I am attempting to frame this solely from my own individual perspective and experiences. I think a lot of people have been dancing around a certain aspect of the reason why these accusations occur, so I’m just going to come right out and confront it head on. If I offend anyone, I really do apologize.

When I was growing up, I was painfully shy and socially awkward. I had few friends and mostly kept to myself. When I wasn’t busy reading science fiction novels or comic books like Captain America, Batman, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I was watching reruns of Doctor Who and Star Trek, plus innumerable cartoons. I had a hell of a lot of action figures. In other words, I was a major geek. And the other kids at school knew it. Throughout most of my public school years, I was taunted on a daily basis, repeatedly called a “nerd.” I was fortunate enough to avoid getting beat up most of the time. But, as some people observe, words can be just as painful as physical blows. And a few times in high school I did get punched in the face. Once, someone even hit me in the head with a football during gym class.

Significantly to my young self, a great deal of the taunting and mockery seemed to come from the girls in school. I don’t know, maybe it was my young imagination, but practically every single girl I went to school with seemed to find it especially enjoyable to torment me with those mocking cries of “nerd.” And when I hesitantly attempted to befriend any of those girls, or even tell them that I thought they were pretty, well, that just encouraged them to redouble their efforts to make my school life unbearable.

By the time I was in high school, it appeared to me that most of the popular guys were the ones who played school sports, or who were in the band or orchestra. And they were also the guys who always seemed to be going out with one cute girl or another. I couldn’t think of a single kid I knew who was into stuff like sci-fi or comic books and who had a girlfriend. The girls seemed to automatically gravitate to the jocks or the musicians.

In my college years and my twenties, I began to gradually come out of my shell. Even so, I really did not date much. Most women still seemed to be attracted to the athletic type, or guys who were in bands, or just plain “bad boys.” I did befriend a few comic book artists who I ran into regularly at NYC comic cons. Hanging out with those guys at parties and bars, I did notice that a lot of women did think that it was really awesome and cool if a guy was an artist who made their living drawing comic books. But if you actually read the damn things, well, the ladies still found that pretty unappealing.

Next person to say I'm not a real fan gets decapitated! — Next person to say I’m not a real fan gets decapitated!

So, yeah, in the last several years, when I’ve started to see female cosplayers become more and more prevalent, attractive women dressing up in sexy superhero costumes, there is a part of me that cannot help thinking “What the fuck is going on?!?” I mean, it seemed like every single cute girl in school made it their mission to inflict as much misery upon me on a daily basis, and that they found guys like me completely unappealing. So what the hell were all these women now doing hanging out with all those “nerds” and “geeks” that they had derided years before in their teenage years? Why were they at comic book conventions dressed up as Wonder Woman and Power Girl and Black Widow and Witchblade, when based on all the evidence of my experiences they ought to be on the arm of some jock at a football game, or swooning while their hard-living musician boyfriends belted out tunes on the stage of a trendy nightclub? And there’s inevitably that extremely paranoid, neurotic, irrational part of my thinking that ends up concluding that the reason why these women are cosplaying as sexy superhero babes is for some sort of ulterior purpose.

I am sure some of you are wondering, what sort of underhanded motives could possibly cause a woman to dress up in a revealing, skin-tight spandex outfit? Well, let me put it this way: there are a lot of comic book and sci-fi fans who have a lot of money. I used to work in downtown Manhattan. There was this one comic shop that was literally two blocks away from Wall Street. And every Wednesday, aka “new comic book day,” at noon, like clockwork, a whole bunch of businessmen & stockbrokers would come flooding in and spend a ton of money. Even more telling, many people I know in the original comic art hobby will regularly drop several thousand dollars on a single piece of artwork.

Let us say, then, that you had a childhood similar to mine, full of awkwardness & insecurity, marked by a lack of friends, especially female friends. And from all of your experiences in the past, it seemed like every girl you came across regarded comic books and sci-fi as things only a loser would be interested in. Now you are an adult, still a fan of those same things, and suddenly there are all these hot babes parading around in sexy, revealing outfits at comic book conventions. Perhaps it doesn’t seem like such a stretch to wonder if maybe some of these women are in fact “fake geek girls” who are looking to sink their claws into a well-off, socially inexperienced guy and milk him for all he’s worth. It is probably not a logical reaction. Hell, as I said, it veers dangerously into paranoia. But from a certain perspective it makes sense that some guys are afraid of this.

Even after all this time, I still haven’t overcome a lot of these types of fears. I mean, I’ve been in a relationship with Michele for five years now, and a lot of the time I cannot help thinking to myself “What the hell does she see in me?” I mean, she’s attractive, outgoing, funny, intelligent and clever. She’s also a talented artist who has been published nationally. Guys seem to flirt with her all the time. She could probably have anyone she wants. And I’m a depressed, moody, neurotic, short-tempered geek who suffers from mood swings who spends half the time either acting like a crab-ass or isolating from people. So why is she still with me?

Pondering all of this, I have to conclude that two major factors come into play (and, yes, here I am going to risk engaging in generalizations). The first is that that, after all these years, many adult comic book fans, myself included, still suffer from insecurities that linger from their childhood. Sometimes those traumas aren’t easily overcome.

The second is a fear of female sexuality. Let’s face it, not just comic book fans, but the majority of men, at one time or another, have done their thinking with their crotch and not their brains. Men can do extremely stupid things when motivated by lust. And so there are plenty of men (again, not just limited to geeks) who worry that a sexy woman is going to take advantage of that and use their eroticism to control them.

On that later point, I think that ties in with society’s misogynist desire to sexualize women yet, at the same time, control them, turn them into non-threatening objects. But that’s opening a whole other can of worms, and you could write entire books on that subject.

Anyone who accuses Harley Quinn of being a “fake geek girl” gets a mallet upside the head!

You may well ask where the hell I am going with all this. Well, my point is that, growing up, many of our peers, because of their narrow-minded views & biases, prejudged and labeled us, put us down as unworthy of their respect. I believe that when we as adult comic book fans allow the baggage of our pasts to influence our perspectives, to judge a wide swath of female fans as “fake geek girls,” we are doing the exact same thing that was previously done to us. I realize now that just because you didn’t happen to go to school with any girls who were into comics or sci-fi doesn’t mean that they weren’t out there.

Fandom is full of diversity. It is made up of an entire spectrum of fans that enjoy many different things. It is a mistake to offhandedly dismiss any one of those groups simply because of our own preconceptions. And, yeah, that includes female cosplayers!

UPDATE: Here is a link to an extremely intelligent article by Laurie Penny of New Statesman that actually addresses some of what I wrote about above.

http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/on-nerd-entitlement-rebel-alliance-empire

I wish I had been able to read this a year and a half ago when I first wrote this post. Perhaps then I would not have made assumptions that had little to no basis in reality, and would have had a better understanding of an alternate perspective on this issue. But I guess that is the important thing, that you learn from your experiences & mistakes and going forward don’t repeat them.