So, a fan brought This Comic to my attention today, it’s a year old, but it got me thinking. I’ve known about Gutters for a while, but I’m not a regular reader. I find its humor to be hit or miss depending on who’s working on it and plenty of times it devolves into frat boy antics that don’t interest me in the slightest when it comes to the medium.
Now some could say there’s no need to be outraged about a comic strip from over a year ago, but it bugs me because this kind of attitude is still being displayed about cosplayers – need we remind you of the Tony Harris debacle or fake nerd girls or the various other problems that come up? Or hell, even just tumblr posts from people saying “FAT PPLE SUDNT COSPLAY SAYLOR MOON!!111”
Body-shaming, slut-shaming (hell, what exactly is so “slutty” about the girl in that bingo card?), and various other wonderfully hateful things are said in it and it pisses me the hell off, not only as someone who frequents conventions as a guest and gets to see all these amazing people wearing outfits, be they storebought or handmade, and just having fun like a convention SHOULD be.
At the same time, though, the more I thought about it… the more a “Cosplay Bingo” sounds absolutely ingenious. Not in the way Gutters did it, of course, but when you go to a big convention with several thousand people walking around, you’re going to see a wide variety of costumes. Hell, at Youmacon last November there was a guy in a Megazord costume that actually had a little bridge set in the chest with the MMPR toys inside of it. It was ingenious and awesome. In fact, this is such an awesome idea I’d be shocked if no one had ever thought of it before.
As such, here’s what I’d love to see people start having at conventions – Customized Cosplay Bingo Cards. The idea is that you either have one printed out on cardboard/postersheet/etc. with drawings of various characters and their name/anime/TV show/movie/etc. written on them so you can mark them off at whatever convention you go to, with the drawings there to help identify it if it’s a franchise you’re not familiar with.
What’s more, I’d love a digital version that could be put on phones and tablets and etc. – the digital ones with the added bonus that you can take a picture of the cosplayer (if they’re willing) and put it over that space in the bingo card as the proof that you got it.
Mind you, I’m not saying there should be prizes for doing it (unless you were a convention and you were actually wanting to encourage your attendees to do it to win prizes – looking at you, Youmacon/Otakon/Various Comic Cons), but it seems like the kind of thing that would be simple to set up. Hell, I’d play it just as a convention guest and getting to see so many awesome cosplayers out there.
And the reason I’m bringing this up to more people is because I don’t think it should be just screenshots of the characters, but fanart done of them. After all, cosplaying is already a thing based on fandom (not to say you HAVE to be a fan of it to cosplay it, but you get what I mean), so why not encourage other aspects of the fandom to take on a challenge and draw headshots or full-body shots of those various characters, possibly with stuff they’re not necessarily familiar with.
And the customizeable idea is that the cards would be randomized or swapped out so that you would HAVE to get some that you aren’t necessarily familiar with. Does this sound like a cool idea or am I just talking out of my ass since someone’s already done it?
Cosplay Bingo!
