Prism Comics put on the newest LGBTQ+ comic convention in Hollywood, California. Cosplayers and geeks from the LGBTQ+ community gathered on Saturday, June 18th in Plummer Park for Q-Con, an event filled with nostalgia and fun.
Q-Con by Prism Comics
Q-Con let us into the world of nostalgia and playfulness. We spoke to some amazing cosplayers at Q-Con who represented the LGBTQ+ community.
What got you into comic books? What inspires you to cosplay? What made you want to write comic books? These are the kinds of questions I asked all day on Saturday.
What made you want to do this? And the consistent answer seemed to be: childhood. Now when the adult world hits, it’s rough, and very few of us are able to maintain a childlike wonder as we go about the world. Yet, childlike wonder is what creates and drives passion and hope. When I was meeting these cosplayers and writers who all felt the need to dive back into their childhood to save a piece of that wonder, I found it interesting.
What drives us toward “geek” media, Marvel, Star Wars, DC, video games, and more; all of these things allow us to escape, explore, and play. Nerd-dom has always been a safe space for people who felt alone and underpowered. It gave us somewhere to retreat and dream.
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What Q-Con did was take that outlet and comfort that so many of us have embraced for so long and made it so much more personal. In creating a space directly for the LGBTQ+ community and their allies, it allows for even more self expression. Nerd-dom might historically be a safe space, but as one of the most marginalized communities, LGBTQ+ nerds are still underrepresented in characters we see on the page and on the screen and in the creatives and executives giving us these characters.
Just for context, as of 2022, the community accounts for 10.6% of comic book artists and 15.93% of writers. The medium is still largely dictated by straight, white, men in their 40s. Those statistics alone are the reason why events like Q-Con are so important, these writers and artists have the opportunity to get their work to the exact demographic that will appreciate it.
Interviewing Cosplayers
I had the opportunity to interview some amazing cosplayers about what drives their passion for nerd media and what an event like Q-Con meant to them and here is the experience in their own words.
What originally got you into wanting to cosplay?
London: For me it was an outlet for me to come out of my shell and to embody things from characters that I wanted to see in myself.
David: For me, I just love creating. Being creative and putting things together and seeing what I could learn too.
Ryan: I really love seeing your effort, time and energy turn into something tangible especially through creativity so to put all this hard work and sweat and love into something and look into the mirror and say, “Hey that’s me!” is such a cool, fulfilling feeling. You can become anyone, cosplay is like the ultimate love letter to your favorite character or fandom. It really embodies the spirit of fandoms in general.
Something that holds me back from cosplay is how much time and money you have to sink into it. How do you guys manage it?
London: Well not necessarily, there’s also closet cosplay. I started with Disney bounding. I love being able to look at something I already have and think “this is something that character would wear” and then it works.
David: There are no standards for cosplay, there is no wrong way to cosplay.
What characters do you identify with?
London: Personally, I really love Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and Disney. I’ve also started venturing into the toy world, like Barbie and some vintage toys. Your childhood really fuels this passion at the end of the day is cosplay, costumes plus play.
David: For me it’s all DC, Batman, everyone in Gotham City, everyone tied into Batman. I grew up on the animated series, I was there when it started. A lot of it is growing up, these shows make us, they are a part of our lives. You see shows or certain episodes that are relatable and that’s what cosplay is all about, these characters and their struggles it’s all connected.
Ryan: I really like doing nostalgia cosplay, but I also love side characters and background characters, characters that don’t get as much representation. So for me growing up what was huge was X-Men the animated series, and what I love is showing up to a con where maybe not a lot of people will recognize my character by when they do they like freak out. One of my favorites is Longshot from the X-Men, and I also really love doing video game characters and some anime characters. But I just like characters that haven’t been done as much. Seeing people smile and freak out over your character is just a super cool feeling.
What was it like meeting through the cosplay community?
David: Everyone has the same passion and you just want to express yourself and have a great time. Sharing your moments, characters, nostalgia makes you just want to let go. For some reason, it doesn’t feel like you can talk about it outside the community. It’s really nice to just nerd out, fan out with people who share the same interest.
Final statements
Ryan: We love that Q-Con is here to give representation and safer space to LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies. For cosplayers, creators or just people in fandoms. It’s so welcoming and just great to see people with passion for what you love.
As we get older and take on more and more responsibilities, it can get difficult to find the time or energy to connect with the things we did as children. I think what conventions in general show us is that it’s important to keep the child-like energy alive. We need it, maybe even more as adults. Once you find something that makes you happy, gives you the feeling of letting go, and the ability to unsaddle yourself with everything that you can’t do, the world gets a little better. And finding that passion and sharing it with other people only makes it better.
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