The Point Radio: Cosplayers Dress For Mainstream Success

We see them at every convention, and anyone with a camera seem to adore them. They are The HEROES OF COSPLAY, now headlining a new series on SyFy. Cosplay Queen, Yaya Hahn, talks about how mainstream media has accepted the hobby and why it isn’t just about dressing up like comic book characters anymore. Plus DC edges to a #1 spot in comic store sales and is it bye bye to The Ultimate Universe? This summer, we are updating once a week – every Friday – but you don’t have to miss any pop culture news. THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

the point. Hello, it's Mike Robin. Welcome to the point. We're all parts of pop culture come together. We see him at just about every convention and

the photographers just love them. They're the heroes of cosplay with the new series now on Sci-Fi and we'll find out just how they plan to dress for

TV success. Plus DC edges out a number one month in the comic stores and could it be the end of the ultimate !

The point. The point radio. Get the point radio. There at every convention you can't avoid them and more than likely you really don't want

to. They're the folks who dress up as their and your favorite comic book, movie, television and gaming characters. They're the heroes of cosplay being

celebrated in a new series now on Sci-Fi and at the center of it is a young lady who happens to be considered one of the outstanding cosplayers and

that's the first thing I ask her is why she thinks the whole thing's been so misunderstood over the years and now is finally getting a little more

accepted. I think cosplay is a very unique art form and I I am not surprised that there are misunderstandings about it because you know it

inherently we're adults from all walks of life and we're dressing up as cartoon characters or comic book characters or video game

characters. I don't know if you guys have a question Mike. Why can't you just do it during Halloween once a year but when you understand when you take

the time to understand cosplay more beyond just the surface, you'll see that it actually offers a lot of positive aspects. There's a lot of

creativity in it. There's a lot of craftsmanship involved in making costumes. There are skills that you have to learn and these characters are being

developed more you know with video games becoming more elaborate and TV and movies becoming you know being able to offer more intricate costume

designs. We as fans we have to actually replicate those designs and we have to sometimes find very advanced costume designs happen. So in

a lot of ways cosplay really is more than just you know buying a costume and dressing up the essence of it lies within actually creating the costumes.

Also to me to most cosplayers you know us growing up as geeks as nerds we definitely have experienced our own you know or liking something that is

considered not mainstream and cosplay is a way for people to actually get out of their shell. It actually teaches a lot of social skills. People are can

become very confident in a costume. Someone who's shy can put on the costume of Wonder Woman and all of a sudden they have extroverted how do you say

extroverted tendencies in them or for me certainly it's been a confidence builder. It's been away from me to meet friends. It's a very social activity. So

I think it's it's a great thing that with the geek community with comic books with movies becoming more mainstream and more known. What about the

money involved? How does she balance cutting costs and getting the costumes exactly right? Absolutely. Good costumes do cost money but if

you think about it, everybody has something that they'd like to spend their hard earnings on. You know, some people are really into cars and other

people are really into fashion. Cosplayers prioritized by you know having a budget. I think the the cosplayers that are able to make costumes

they do budget for each project. They really take on not only the monetary budgets but also the time management and it is more than just a hobby. It really is

a lifestyle for us. You know, we spend most of our free time either thinking about costumes, thinking about the next convention, thinking about the

next project and there's so much more that goes into it because you just you have to be able to set the mind and being aside for it and also to you

know, I think we are very frugal. At least for me, I'm definitely always looking for buying things on like when there's sales or buying things

in bulk when there's plans going on. It's just shopping and buying things. I don't think there's really a trick to it. I think like if you really

love something, you're willing to spend your money on it. Yeah. Yeah. I told me that cosplayers like to keep their designs unique but they also want to

keep them interesting as well. Well, thankfully, there are thousands. Hundreds of thousands of designs out there. There's always something that you can

you can pull from or there's always something that can inspire you costly first and then you can get a product that's very deeply personal to

each cosplayer. You know, some are really into video games that they go out playing or some are really into the movie state. They grow up watching

like Star Wars. One of our cast members, Victoria, she she's an avid Star Wars fan and she will spend the majority of her you know, money and effort on Star

Wars costumes because that's why cosplayers choose projects to try to you know, to try to gain popularity so to speak at least to me and a lot of our

the cast on Heroes of cosplay. We choose projects based on you know, the characters that we want to be next and so the popularity of a character

doesn't always tie into what we do. It's because we each make our costumes. You can do your own version of a character. So even if you are making a

costume that has been done hundreds of times by other people and you can put your own spin on it. You can shoot your own materials and your own

execution of it and that is the great thing about cosplay is there are thousands of variations of the same character. So, what about the

rest of the cast? Well, all of the cast were really amazing life experience and some of the cast like Ricky Monica and Victoria, they were friends of

mine already before the show. We already had a personal relationship and so I actually you know, like through us knowing each other, we all were

able to be on the show and it was really nice to to see the cast. It was a very interesting way of cosplaying. You know, Ricky is very much so

into molding casting the armor part of costumes props. Victoria is very much about, you know, as much accuracy as she possibly can achieve with

her and she she works on a team with her partner, Jinyo and Ricky works in a team with her husband, Chris. So, we will get to see sort of what it's like

for two couples to work on something that's impressionable and so you'll see in her journey that she will go through some changes as

she is thrust in this world of cosplay and then we all got to know some of the other cast members who we didn't know before such as Holly and Jessica

and we learned that they're incredibly funny but also incredibly professional and Chloe who is quite the newbie in cosplay but just has a she

and she's very like, you know, like, why is it so important for everything to be made perfectly, you know, and she's like, why can't I just do it

for fun? And so, you'll see different people come in with different philosophies, if you may call it and none of it is wrong. None of it is the way

that it has to be. It's simply to show there are different ways of cosplaying and by the way, it's not just comic book and gaming characters you're

talking about cosplaying of TV show characters even those who who who don't really have fantastical outfits. I mean, it's you know, obviously,

there's like a lot of costumes of Game of Thrones because the costumes are fantastical and you know, really intricate and cool but there also has been a

rise in cosplay of for example, Breaking Bad or Walking Dead. You know, they'll actually dress and really put a lot of effort into finding the the right

clothing or Doctor Who actually is a huge cosplay phenomenon. There are there's like entire community of cosplayers who will seek out the exact t-shirt brand

and the exact the exact design t-shirts that Rose Tyler wore or even with Twilight, they will they will go and find out what they actually wore on the show

and they will go and find those and there's like eBay auctions for the the teachers and the jeans and the jackets and such. So, you know, there are

definitely different types of cosplaying and if somebody doesn't want to spend a lot of time making a costume, they can certainly still find avenues to

cosplay by finding you know, TV show characters that wear normal clothing but then to see the whole cast of the heroes of cosplay every Tuesday

on Sci-Fi right after Faceoff and you can see some interesting clips too right now at Sci-Fi dot com. right into the latest in pop

culture when it came down to the dollars, the amount of comics ordered by comic stores in July, DC came out on top over Marvel by a little bit and

by a little bit, we meet about sixteen and one hundredths of a piece of sold in the month by about 2.4% and that's how it began. A pretty interesting

July with some unusual books in the top ten comics and graphic novels sold for the month and we'll cover those for you. Coming up in a little bit. A

lot of fans have been waiting to see what Frank Daribond would do next. Of course, after dazzling us a while back on that first season of Walking

Dead and now his new event series which we assume is a one-time thing but you never know is going to appear at the show. It's a game two by the

way originally called Lost Angels. It's now Mob City and it looks pretty stylish and pretty cool to be honest with you. You be the judge. We put a

trailer up for you right now at Get The Point Radio dot com. It's the risk we take anytime we get into a TV series. It just may end be canceled. Go

away and we'll just never know what happens. There's no closure in it. That's not the case though for fans of the Showtime series, the Borgias.

It was canceled earlier in the year. The final episodes are available online written of course by the guy who did it all. Neil Jordan. It's called

the Borgia Apocalypse and it's based on what he had planned for the final two-hour episode of the series. It should be released as an ebook online

later this year. Effective in November, Marvel has canceled all their ultimate titles in a move that was expected and been rumored for quite a few

months. They're being replaced by a series called Cataclysm that'll involve each of the major ultimate titles. For example, Cataclysm Ultimate

Series, a three-issue Cataclysm Ultimate X-Men series and an Ultimate's Last Stand series in Cataclysm as well which will run about five issues. Seems

like the end game here will be to redesign the Ultimate Universe for something different sometime in 2014. Meanwhile, add to that some

rumors that Miles Morales might be moving from the Ultimate Universe to the major Marvel Universe. Effective with an Ultimate X-Men series and a

three-year-old ! The X-Men series is set for November. Xenoscopes first issue of their Oz title is

sold out of the initial 30,000 print run and it'll be going back to press for a second printing making it the most popular comic ever for that

particular publisher. It's a reimagining of the Oz mythology, one of several of those that are out from different companies but this

one by far the most popular as well. Marvel has one too called the Emerald City of Oz. The growing popularity and pretty big to-do list has

forced him to cut back a little bit which will saden a lot of folks who love his work on both Fantastic Four and FF. Starting in October, those will be his

last issues of those particular titles. He is writing, however, the follow-up to Infinity which will be called Inhumanity. Meanwhile, Marvel

is scrambling to see who's going to pick up the Fantastic Four books. It looks like Fantastic Four itself will be released sometime after the

twelfth issue which will be fractions last. No official word yet on who'll be writing FF which will which will need a new writer after Matt's last

issue which will be number eleven. The live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie produced by Michael Bay has been moved again. As you

remember, we were supposed to see it at Christmas time this year. Then it was pushed to spring of next year and then to the early summer. Now, the

official release date for the movie will be August 8th 2014. The movie will be premiered a little bit from the release of Transformers four which will

also be opening in the summer of 2014. It's been a good summer at TNT and some good news for fans of shows like Rosolian Isles, Major Crimes,

Perception and Falling Skies. All four of those series have been picked up for new seasons by the network and by the way, Rosolian Isles is the number

one basic cable series of the summer. They'll have their final episode of this season. And there'll be two seasons next year, one early in

the year and another in the summer of 2014. It's been the tradition for decades that comic sales would go up in the summer and well,

it happened this year with sales rising in comic stores in July, just about 12.65% not a bad jump even though it was a five week ship month which

always adds a little bit to the pot. More importantly, five years ago, the first time that happened since spring of this year. Here's your top ten

best-selling comics in stores in July at number ten. Superior Spider-Man team up number one from Marvel at number nine at Superior Spider-Man number 14

at number eight, Superior Spider-Man number 13 at number seven, Justice League of America number six at number six, Batman Superman number two

at number five, the Batman annual for the summer, the second one of those at number nine. The second one of those at number nine. The second one