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Stepping into a comic convention can feel like another world, one only seen in comedy sitcoms such as The Big Bang Theory, where characters like Mensa-geeks Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hoffsteider dress in brightly-colored spandex and pretend to be DC Comic superheroes for fun.
It’s called cosplay — a term coined in Japan during the 1970s — that’s short for costume play. Similar to a child wearing a sparkly pink princess dress or a Spiderman costume on Halloween, cosplay takes donning a costume to a whole new level. Dedicated cosplayers spend hours putting together ensembles of their favorite characters' outfits and even more time learning to role-play as them.
CosplayMeg is a professional cosplayer who attends comic conventions, known as comic-cons. Ever since her first exposure, as an attendee at San Diego Comic Con 2015, Cosplay Meg was hooked. She loved dressing up as her favorite franchise characters — Captain Phasma from Star Wars, Princess Merida from Walt Disney’s Brave, Silk Spectre from Marvel’s The Watchmen — and taking on their personas. “Getting to recreate the characters I love is honestly my favorite part [of cosplaying],” she says.
CosplayMeg is a featured cosplayer at this year’s AggieCon 51, a student-run convention held on the Texas A&M University campus that’s presented by Cepheid Variable, the second oldest TAMU student organization. Cepheid Variable began as a science fiction organization for Star Trek, and evolved over time to include all things nerdy, says AggieCon 51 director Alejandro Torres. AggieCon evolved from the organization’s Science Fiction Week, which started in 1969. “The convention has definitely grown with the organization, and AggieCon reflects that,” he says.
From cosplayers dressed in cartoonish martial arts gear and flaming yellow wigs to near-accurate recreations of Halo’s Master Chief, AggieCon welcomes people from all over the geeky spectrum. “The term we normally use to describe it is a congloma-con,” Torres says, using a shorthand term for a conglomerate convention of hobbies and interests. “We have anime, video games, comic books, science fiction — all just wrapped into one.”
Typically, different activities take place in various locations. In one room, a group of students will likely be seen huddled around a table, straddling the line between fantasy and reality, dice clacking as a tabletop role-playing game (RPG) player attempts to slay a dragon. The room across the hall may buzz with chatter and the shuffling of cards as a trading card game (TCG) becomes heated and a crowd begins to form around the competitors. In the Dealer’s Room and Artist Alley, local businesses and artists may show off their wares, some selling anime vinyl figures while others tote corsets, manga, and themed merchandise. In the Cosplay Café, servers dressed in themed outfits based on the hour can greet guests in-character.
Torres says there are few conventions within a couple of hours of College Station. AggieCon brings the convention experience home, he says, and adds, “It's really nice to do for all the locals.”
In addition to CosplayMeg, the lineup of featured guests includes Liam Norris, an Austin-based Spiderman cosplayer, and Medusa Cosplay, who dresses in primarily Harajuku-esque fashion, a style that originated in Tokyo featuring brightly-colored clothing and cute accessories. This year’s headliner is Aaron Dismuke, an American voice actor, best known for his work as Alphonse Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist, Tamaki Amajiki in My Hero Academia, and Senku Ishigami in Dr. Stone.
Just as in all comic-cons, cosplay will play a large role in this year’s AggieCon, Torres says. Their biggest event will always be the cosplay contests, because there are a lot of cosplayers in Bryan College Station, and events like these allow them to show off their skills, he says. “There’s a lot of people who build really awesome outfits, and so it’s always really fun to see and experience.”
AggieCon 51
When: March 25-26, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.
March 27, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Rudder Tower
401 Joe Routt Blvd., College Station
Tickets (online by March 24):
$20, students (with valid ID); $25, non-students
Tickets (at the door):
$25, students (with valid ID); $30, non-students
For more information, visit cepheid.org.
