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Stephen HumphreyStephen Humphrey is a freelance writer and journalist who has lived in Toronto since 1994...
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comic fandom, Comicon 2010, comics, costume contest, steampunk apothecary, superheroesSuddenly…!!
During a Q&A session with the cast and creators of Pure Pwnage, the gamer nerd web show four episodes into its first-season run on Showcase, the fire alarm begins pulsing.
“It’s like someone is using foul language at regular intervals,” says Jarett Cale, who plays the socially maladapted gamer Jeremy.
After five valiant minutes of ignoring and/or ridiculing the alarm, everyone is finally asked by building staff to vacate the room. (In all fairness, it turns out to be a false alarm.)
Suddenly the front steps of the Direct Energy Centre is milling with superheroes, sci fi villains, x-wing pilots and dressed-down comic fans.
This is a strange anthill to poke with a stick.
Like most fan conventions, Toronto Comicon offers the universe and delivers a big room full of tables. Comic artists will sign their work, sci fi TV stars chat with you, but ultimately the experience adds up to what you come in with.
When you get right down to it, hero costumes are made for conventions.
Hero outfits don’t have a long shelf life off the page. Capes, python boots, full face masks and lycra whatever were not made for dangerous, weather-prone work like actual crimefighting. They’re meant to be seen for a little bit, and then back to the day job.
And perhaps judged by a panel of peers and… Elvis?
Comicon’s costume contest was presided over by convention organizers, “Ultimate Fangirl” Liana K, from Ed the Sock’s website and three Elvis impersonators and soon-to-be participants in the upcoming Toronto Elvis Festival.
In one memorable moment the Klingon Batman spread his bat cape wide to show its full span to the judges panel, only to have his cape display returned by the middle Elvis.
“I saw this on Animal Kingdom once,” said the emcee. “Now they fight.”
The reluctant grand-prize winter was Waterloo-based costume designer Alexandra Dysinski who created her own steampunk getup.
For the uninitiated, steampunk is a fascinating genre of literature, art or whatever that imagines the future according to the 19th Century.
“I love steampunk,” said Dysinski. “No-one can tell you you’re doing it wrong because it actually never existed.”