Cosplaying Goes Back to the Future at New York Comic-Con 2012

by Rich Handley

Twenty hours.

That's how long I was awake yesterday, as I attended New York Comic-Con 2012 with Paul Giachetti. That's a long day. After it was all over, despite being so tired that I would have fit right in with the zombies encircling the Walking Dead RV parked outside Javits Center...

Dale and T-Dog, doing what Dale and T-Dog

did for pretty much all of season two.

...I checked my e-mail at 2:00 a.m. instead of going to bed, and commented to a friend, Leia Calderon-Rox, that "I may never walk again. My legs are worn down to tiny nubs where I once had feet—I look like Rob Liefeld drew me."

Me.

On the other hand, we got to see this...

...and this.

Despite the resultant leg aches, a good time was had by all. We networked. We perused the dealer room. We groused about the complete lack of cellular connectivity and Wi-Fi service. We saw human-sized Lego Hobbits, Wizards and Hulks, oh my.

These two cosplayers were a bit stiff, I thought.

And when the day was done for many attendees, Paul and I went to a relaxing after-hours party hosted by the Geek Girls Network, where we were were able to spend some time with Jim Beard and Joe Berenato, two of the three co-authors of Hasslein's upcoming book, It's Alive: The Universal Monsters Chronology. That made the trip to NYC, and the time spent wading through endless seas of sardine-packed people, worth it.

This was actually one of the un-crowded areas.

Throughout the day, Paul and I were frequently amazed by the imaginative and often unique costumes on display. Therefore, we documented our day by photographing a number of them. Of course, the surprising highlight, for us, was the number of people dressed up as Marty McFly or Doc Brown (sadly, not a single Planet of the Apes or Red Dwarf character was in the house, as far as we could see). With the Back to the Future lexicon less than two months away from publication, that made us grin.

The first Marty shown below, in fact, blew us away, as he not only looked like Michael J. Fox but also sounded a lot like him—apparently, he's a voice-over actor, which is clearly the right job for him. Stupidly, we didn't think to record his dead-on Marty routine (if he reads this, we welcome him to provide a recording for us to post). Opportunity missed!

Whoa!

In addition, we also met the following Martys and Docs, including a zombie McFly who apparently has gone from butthead to Walking Dead.

       

Nice job, folks. It's great to see that Back to the Future fandom still runs strong.

As expected, given this year's release of The Dark Knight Rises, there were many Batmen, Catwomen and Banes walking around the show floor. But by a wide margin, the costume that we saw the most examples of was—I kid you not—Cartoon Network's Adventure Time. We photographed the first two we saw, but after that, we kept seeing Finn and Jake everywhere we turned. Within a half-hour of our arrival, the phrase "Hey, look, Adventure Time!" became a running joke. I must have said it thirty times before the joke got old (and then another dozen times beyond that point, just to annoy Paul).

Hey, look, Adventure Time!

The rest of the photos are presented below, in no particular order. Our apologies to anyone whose photo we took who doesn't see that picture here. Not all of the images came out as nicely as we would have liked, unfortunately, but we're posting as many of them as we can. Watch for periodic photo-bombs by photographer Paul.

These photos will also be posted on our Facebook page, so if you recognize yourself in any of the pictures, please feel free to visit that page, tag yourself and share them with friends (be sure to "LIKE" our page while you're there). Our thanks to all of the amazing cosplayers featured below.

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