There are rants and there are RANTS. This one falls into the catagory of "rants", but its funny and i like funny. Tony Harris, of Starman and Ex Machina fame, launced into a rant about cosplay girls on Facebook that Valerie Gallaher quotes in here article in The Beat. At the risk of being redundant, go read Tony's comments there and come on back if you wish.
You know, I blasted comic conventions in the 90's when it became popular for Playboy Playmates to come and sign centerfolds of themselves to the typical "Simpsons" comic conventions: fat unwashed men with no social skills and a distinct odor of permanent virginity about them, partly because i thought "that this is how low we've sunk?", partly because i thought that there is no way we can get girls and women in to comics if this is the environment that they have to come into", and partly because it simply didn't have anything to do with comics.
So now Tony is upset that we have hot, sexy cosplay girls. And while i'm not into cosplay, I just don't see how its a bad thing. Yes, some of them are serious comic geeks getting lots of attention playing their fave characters, and lots of others are just getting attention, but man, it just doesn't bother me. I don't care why they're there. I don't think you want to cosplay unless you want attention, unless you want someone to actually get your costume. (I saw one kid dressed as the gluttonous spirit from Miyazaki's Spirited Away and went over to tell him that i loved that he dressed up. His comment? "Finally someone gets it!!" so, yes, if that made his day, then great.) I've seen plenty of Power Girls and sexy Catwomen. Fine with me. Not because I like oogling sexy women in skin tight lycra and neoprene but because, well, they care enought to show up and get into the spirit of things.
I mean, c'mon, comics were dying in the 90's, and now we're pop culture, finally. Again. And women are part of the equation. Thank god. Now, Tony does way more cons than i do, and perhaps he has simply been put upon by too many women dressed up as sexy Catwomen or the Mist and he's totally over it. Perfectly legit. But for all the girls love this stuff, and want to dress the part: great, let them enjoy themselves however they want. I can't hate on anyone who has decided, for however many reasons, to show up in an intricately detailed costume. I'm just glad that they're there and into it. Not because i'm dying to see yet another "Slave Leia" but because that doesn't take away from my con experience.
Oh dear, its going viral. Can't Rob Liefeld do something now to take the heat off of Tony?
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