"Everyone's a superhero, everyone's a Captain Kirk!"

[jack_babalon]

"Silence filthy human... we do not want to hear about your 'Blog'!"
Dragon*Con 2007
~Rob M.

Well I just got my tickets for Fanboy Mardi Gras '07, Atlanta's annual cross-genre mating ritual for the self-alienated and socially awkward. It wasn't always like this though. What once began as a very modest gaming/comic book convention has evolved over the years into a one-of-a-kind dionysian fringe festival, one celebrating Summer's twilight with a gathering of Bradburian "October People". I believe this has to do with fandoms own unique chrysalis over the years, emerging slowly from a cocoon of self referential isolation into a kind of sexually charged anything goes sense of play. What they call "Geek Chic" now a days.

I have a theory about how this might've happened (but then again who doesn't?). See as stupid as it might sound, I believe we can thank the Role Playing Game(RPG) for this evolutionary step in the Western Otaku. It's the RPG that taught us, through a process of character creation and operation, that identity itself can be interpreted simply as a game strategy, an interactive tool often maleable to the situation it finds itself engaged in. In time I believe the RPGer learns to apply this principle to social scenarios that exist outside the perimeter of 'The Game'.

At first there's this stage of pure emulation. For example, you remember that one kid who thought he was 'Wolverine' in school and you'd wince when he crouched down in some absurd fighting stance right before having his ass handed to him by the local goonery. That's bad emulation there and yeah this is often the kid who grows up to be 'The Comicbook Guy' on The Simpsons. Then there's a second stage of integration, where fashion and musical correspondences are found to synchoronize with the individuals personal pop culture zeitgeist. Perhaps the Punisher/Batman fan has found something in the Korns/P.O.D.'s of the world while the Neil Gaiman reader develops a taste for the etheral/seductive ala Tori Amos. A lot of folks get stuck here. You see them at Little Five all the time or trying to make standing in the corner of a club an impressive act of iconoclasism*. But there's a third stage of realization, in which the rules of social interaction are no longer seen as a terrifying if not mysterious ordeal but rather as an opportunity to find others who share similar a love of similar eccentricities. Here i'd like to use the Orgista's of the fetish community i've met over the last ten years as an example, who to me seem as familiar with safe words as they are secret identities. Dungeon Masters of two very different but not mutually exclusive worlds you might say (funny though how both have a very important need to be the arbitrater of rules). Here we see character classes divided into a dichotomy of dominance and/or submission rather than by alignment (lawful good and chaotic evil with all those funny little shades of gray in between), but what i'm trying to get at is that both can be seen as tactics of inducing a desired social (inter)reaction from those around us.

But anyway this event has become as important as most of the major holidays to me. An invocation to those transistional powers of Autumn, which like her crowning holiday - Hallowe'en - celebrates the stripping of the ego mask and the donning of the costume that seems to represent not who we are but more importantly who we want to be!


*-Myself very much included.

Comments

[dj-spider.livejournal.com]

All hail the Coming of Con!

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Look forward to hearing you spin again.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

And lo, do we Live For This Shit.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Tartan?

*whistles innocently*

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

On somebody, anyway.

Re: *whistles innocently*

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

You know actually I think the tartan corsets a great idea in and off itself. I picture it as this old school ska vintage burlesque hybrid. Something Lily St.Cyr would wear while doing a cover of The Specials Gangsters or while dancing to a big band cover of One Step Beyond.

Re: *whistles innocently*

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I'm totally on board with the concept. I just don't think I can manifest it in the next three weeks. My costuming skillz are somewhat less than mad, and I'll be doing well if I can pull off the Promethea this year. Maybe next year tartan corsetry. It'd have to be predominantly red though, so I could wear it with my red velvet Doc Martens. Maybe a short black tulle skirt. I'll be the rarely-sighted DragonCon ska fairy.

Re: *whistles innocently*

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

I didn't think D*C per se, but as an "out clubbing" kinda thing.

Funny I was thinking of going as Greyshirt this year (if I can find a decent cane & bowler). Maybe we'll find a Tom Strong & Cobweb to team up with.

Re: *whistles innocently*

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Ah, clubbing. I remember clubbing. Why, back in '9x, before I moved to the Heart of Nocturnal Boredom.... Anyway.

I've not seen any of the America's Best team at con before... which is odd, because it seems like Tom Strong particularly would be an easy costume to pull off. I suppose if you're built like that, you want to do the Barbarian thing, though. Less shirt, more showoff.

Re: tartan corsetry, of course, one can buy most of the outfit I was contemplating putting together on EBay, but not in any size combination that will fit on my weird self. Corsets simply do not naturally occur in sizes that fit me, which is why I have never owned one. I am filled with despair. Or something.

Re: *whistles innocently*

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

That's okay, i've never owned a corset either;)

Yeah Tom Strong would take some serious gym time. I might try and talk my theatre friends into doing the Venture Bros, but something tells me we're gonna see a lot of them this year.

Re: *whistles innocently*

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

That's okay, i've never owned a corset either;)

That's a shame. I have strong opinions about men in corsets.

Re: *whistles innocently*

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Not this one you wouldn't, trust me. Though I do have impressive man-breasts ("mamomans" as they say here in "BEAR COUNTRY"):)

[catwalk.livejournal.com]

is that some kind of borg collective-erotic-asphyxiation ritual or something? ;-)

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Nope, just one of the countless thousands of lifeforms (the cybernetically enhanced included) who wish i'd just shut the hell up:)

[daucus-carota.livejournal.com]

I've been awaiting your costuming ideas for me??? So, now that you bring it up...

?raey siht sa og I dluohs tahw

xxx

Off the top of my head?

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Actually yeah I have. There's a new comic book out called Madame Mirage. I'll quote you a review.Superstar writer Paul Dini (Detective Comics, Lost) makes an explosive return to Top Cow in 2007 when he brings brand new character Madame Mirage to the Top Cow!

But who is this beautiful woman who appears out of the mist? As deadly as she is beautiful, she is cutting a bloody path through the city's villains, who now wear suits and have 'legitimate' businesses. But who is her ultimate prey? And how does this Mirage take form? And why is her destiny and that of her sidekick Harper so irrevocably entwined? These and many other questions will be asked along with the most pivotal question of all - Who is Madame Mirage? Dini weaves a tale of murder, intrigue and revenge in a world of high-tech espionage and treachery. ()

I think she has a wonderful femme fatale feel to her you could pull off easily, especially with your black hair and... we'll say impressive... physique. She has a myspace page to at http://www.myspace.com/madamemirage.

Re: Off the top of my head?

[daucus-carota.livejournal.com]

I LOVE her!!! This is def one day... now to find all the pieces...
another year of thanks for the costuming!
xxx

Re: Off the top of my head?

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Yeah I thought it was a good look for you. Can't wait to see what you do with it:)

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Also check out Cobweb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobweb_(comics)), a pulp heroinne(sp?) written by one of the best comic book writers in the industry, Alan Moore.



Though the costume might be harder to pull off (but hey! Whadda I know huh?)

[daucus-carota.livejournal.com]

actually, I have most of what would be needed for this one in my closet already! I may have two costumes... heeheehee
How about you? Whatcha going as?
xxx

Whatcha going as?

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

A broke ass fanboy I guess.

Re: Whatcha going as?

[daucus-carota.livejournal.com]

you forgot cute!
xxx

Re: Whatcha going as?

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

That's nice of you to say. I guess I could always get one of those Hello Kitty hats.

[halfass-johnny.livejournal.com]

A more mundane link between RPGs and the explosive growth of Dragon Con is the convention Origins, which is a gaming convention. One year, Dragon Con and Origins combined (along with a comic book convention) to form Voltr. . . I mean, a freakin' enormous convention by Atlanta standards. Dragon Con hasn't been the same since.

[re-animating.livejournal.com]

That looks fabulous!

I wish we had something similar here. Unfortunately, I haven't heard of any outside of the typical Halloween antics in my area.

Hmm... I wonder what I costume I would dawn for such an event...

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

It is.

There's always next year though and Atlanta could use a dose of some serious mad science!

[destructodeluxo.livejournal.com]

Just dont know if I can face GiL Gerard this year even as a child,I avoided
"Buck Rodgers" with an uneasy contempt.
GiL Gerard

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Gil "Buck" Gerard didn't bother me so much, kinda of a poor mans Starbuck from the original BSG. What really annoyed the piss out of me was Twiki the stuttering R2D2 wanna be.


A bidi-bidi-bidi-I suck huge Gil Gerard Balls!


But you're gonna be there this year then?