Or maybe this should be "Doctors [plural] Octopi." You figure it out. But this is about cosplayers. There were a lot of them at WonderCon and each time I left the main hall and headed for my hotel room, I tried to spend a little time watching them. Most were in an area outside the convention hall, posing for photos and videos. Some were putting on little performances. There were some concrete benches in that area and I'd park myself on one and just watch the passing show for a little while.
Science-fiction fan conventions predate comic book conventions and there were always cosplayers at the first s-f cons even if the word "cosplayer" had not yet been coined. A masquerade show with all the costumed folks parading before judges was (usually) the most-attended event and it was held (usually) on Saturday night. The costumes ranged from the elaborate to the effortless, the latter exemplified by the inevitable clown who'd enter in his street clothes and call his presentation something like "Man from Planet Zord-7 disguised as an Earthling."
Also simple was the occasional lady who'd parade around nude and call her "outfit" something like "Visions of Love." You could see the folks who spent months and fortunes crafting their costumes resenting the hell out of the attention the naked ladies got.
And I suspect that the best costumes from those days at s-f cons — and the best ones from the first few decades of Comic-Con — would be ranked as the lower end of cosplaying I viewed this past weekend at WonderCon. The A+ ones from then would notch about a C- today. Some of the work is stunning. A lot of it does not look like the work of amateurs, though I'm sure most of it is.
(And before someone asks about this: We don't have naked women "cosplaying" at comic book conventions but if we did, I doubt they'd attract all that much attention.)
A lot of the best costumes are original designs. A lot of the ones based on pre-existing characters are especially astonishing when you consider that someone is replicating a design done by a comic book or animation artist who never dreamed for a nano-second that anyone would ever actually make that costume…but someone did.
Case in point: A lot of costumes designed for comics probably seemed impossible to bring to life and none more than Doctor Octopus, the popular villain who debuted in the third issue of Amazing Spider-Man. Once upon a time if you'd told me someone would build a reasonable facsimile of that gear and wear it to a convention, I'd have bet you a vast sum you were wrong. Not only has it been done by one person but at WonderCon, I counted four Doctor Octopuses or Doctor Octopi or whatever the proper plural is.
(And again, before someone asks: The original look of the Bad Doctor was probably designed by Steve Ditko, who drew the first Spider-Man comics. I say "probably" because Jack Kirby told me that he'd designed some of the early Spider-Man villains and Mr. Ditko agreed, though neither man could tell me for sure which ones Jack did. Both men were more than imaginative enough to come up with something like that.)
Seeing four Doc Ocks made me think of the old cliché about the woman who buys an expensive designer gown for a swanky public affair, gets there and is mortified to see that someone else is wearing the same dress. Imagine spending months building a Dr. Octopus suit, crafting those impossible tentacles that they did via CGI in the movie but you had to really build them and not with the budget and tech crew of a major motion picture. Even if someone is now selling parts you can use to fabricate your costume, it's a helluva lot of work.
And then you get into the get-up, which is probably not the most comfy thing to wear but you figure it'll be worth the time, effort, money and pain because of all the attention you'll get. And then you walk out into the area where cosplayers play and pose…
…and there's another Doctor Octopus. And another. And another…
I managed to grab photos of what I think were the two best. I suspect one other fellow whose simulation wasn't as good disappeared because of how badly he was losing The Arms Race. But I definitely spotted four and since I only passed through Cosplayer Central now and then, there might have been even more. There were others (like someone dressed as another Spider-Man foe, The Scorpion) that were equally as elaborate but I only saw one of each of those.
And of course, there were simpler costumes in mass quantity: Quite a few Disney-style (or specific Disney) princesses. A whole bunch of Supermans, Supergirls, Batmen, Robins, Wonder Women…even a Groo. I was asked to pose with a group re-creating the regular characters on the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series. And speaking of "drag," as everyone is these days, there were a lot of ladies as Captain America, Spider-Man, The Flash, et al. Since comic book companies have discovered the merchandising potential of female versions of male characters, I'm not sure if a female Thor counts as cross-dressing.
It was a wonderful assemblage of creativity and artistry out there. I still have the occasional problem with cosplayers who pose and/or swing swords blindly where others are trying to walk but most of 'em are wonderful.
And there's one other thing I noticed which may be helpful if you find that comic book conventions are too crowded and you can't get through the throngs of people. If so, try dressing up as Doctor Octopus. Most people seem to get the hell out of their way. Maybe that's why there were so many of them.
