Who was that masked man?

I love Halloween. Actually, that's a lie. I love chocolate and candy but I'm indifferent to scary/spooky/gorey/gross/haunted and every other adjective associated with the so called holiday. Honestly, I really just love dressing up in a costume and on Halloween I can justify my secret love affair with cosplaying without people looking at me like I'm an absolute freak. Cosplay is short for costume play, it's where super fans (nerds) of comics/anime/movies/videogames/science fiction show their affection for their favorite comics/animes/movies/videogames/science fictions by dressing up as their favorite characters. A lot of "hardcore" cosplayers will construct their costumes from scratch, the skills and patience which I lack. These cosplayers tend to gather at convention shows and congregate with other cosplayers and fans. Goofy posing for pictures ensues. I've been to one anime convention, I was there to watch Spencer and Tai play Smash Bros at a game tournament, the nerdness was overwhelming.

There's good cosplay











and then there's so absolutely god awful that your face melt like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.












Still the dedication some fans have to be able to create their own costumes is admirable (if not, obsessive and borderline creepy) and there's something cool about a really well done costume. Dressing up like your favorite super hero can be a lot of fun, hero worship is endearing to me and so every year when Halloween rolls around I really contemplate and plan out what I want to dress up as eagerly.

This year I've narrowed it down to about three choices. They are as follows:

Little Mac from Punch Out!



Pretty easy costume really. Some green shorts, a black under shirt, and some boxing gloves. The boxing gloves are the hardest aspect, since they're green and all. I could spend the money on some real green boxing gloves, which I can also get long term use out of w/ my actual boxing, or I could just buy some cheap ones and a can of spray paint. I have fond child hood memories of the original Punch Out game on the ol' Nintendo and with the new "remake" that came out for the Wii this year, this is a very viable costume. It is kind of too easy though, what with me actually being a boxer and all and only the video game savvy will be able to distinguish the subtlety of being Little Mac and not just a generic "boxing" costume.

The Spirit




As far as comic book super hero's go, none are as stylish as Will Eisner's the Spirit. Sure the movie came out late last year and sort of flopped but I loved Frank Miller's slick movie. The costume wouldn't be too difficult to construct either, the hardest piece being the signature black trench coat. Sadly there aren't too many cheap trench coats around so the coat could be costly, but I did happen to find a red trench for fairly cheap for my Dante costume last year so it's plausible. Plus, who doesn't love the opportunity to wear a fedora?

Kato from the Green Hornet



This is a costume I've been wanting to try for a while now but never could figure out how to get the materials cheaply enough. Kato is another comic book hero that is very simple and stylish in design, hailing from a similar era as that of Will Eisner's the Spirit. Of course, Kato was brought to life by the one and only Bruce Lee. For a while now I've toyed with the costume idea, the chauffeur's cap is easy enough to order online but buying the coat is rather difficult as I could not find a cheap alternative to the pricey jackets online. Recently though I read on a website that a chef's jacket could play as a cheap alternative and sure enough I can order online a black chef's jacket that'll help me look the part. Along with a domino mask, now fairly easy to find thanks to Kill Bill's crazy 88s, and some black foam nunchucks, this costume is now a very viable possibility.

I also considered a costume inspired by the movies Watchmen or GI Joe. However, Rorschach is likely going to be a very popular costume this year and a quality looking Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow, while it would be fun to dress up as a ninja again something I haven't done since elementary school, would require a lot more ingenuity and money.

I had some time to kill this weekend and was in the near vicinity of a Halloween store so I moseyed in and took a gander at what they had to offer. A lot of hats, a lot of prop weapons, some rubber masks, and packaged ensemble costumes, most of which were priced ridiculously in the 60 dollar range. They're complete quick costumes for the lazy and uninspired but I guess there aren't really a lot of places you can pick up a chicken suit. As I walked through the adult costumes I noticed something about adult male costumes and adult female costumes. Adult male costumes for the most part tend to be perverse gag/joke costumes. The hot dog vendor, or pickle vendor, or dick in the box, or some other play on the dick in the box sketch form SNL. At least there are some character costumes you can buy. Yet ladies have it worse, everything they have to choose from look like stripper outfits. Even their character costumes are "sexified." I suppose that's to be expected when Playboy starts selling sexy Halloween costumes. Now I'm not complaining that ladies seem to like dressing up in sexy outfits that on any other night would pass for lingerie. I'm pretty sure Mean Girls made a good observation about this same phenomenon. I just thought it peculiar that the preference for Halloween costumes and the intentions behind them are so different from my own. Some people seem to want to get lucky on Halloween. I just want to dress up as a super hero. Man, I'm a dork.