The Cool Kids Table Vs. Halloween

YO!

As Ben already ably pointed out in his post from the actual holiday, we do it up right for Halloween in CKT country. And aside from our erstwhile editor's own foray into Tony Starkdom, the rest of the blog had a weekend full of playing dressup like children and eating like 40,000 Butterfingers (forget you, R.L. Stein!). Below, we get into each of our experiences on All Hallows Eve, and for more rad costumes, be sure to check out the contributions of our pals Mel Caylo, Ryan Penagos and Chris Ward.


Kiel!

Squeezing one last drop out of the year of Scott Pilgrim, I dressed up as Bryan Lee O'Malley's hero with an eye towards seeing how many people actually knew who I was dressed as (turns out...about 10!).


Is it just me, or is like 83% of the fun of Scott Pilgrim cosplay the act of poorly recreating poses from the book's covers?


My girlfriend Jami ended up going as Ramona Flowers, which it turns out is a much more recognizable look for party people to latch onto. She was a total trooper, even though she was ready to burn that wig by night's end.


There weren't a ton of other comics folks on the prowl at the three parties we hit up on Friday night, but one of them did have a lone copy of Blankets sitting next to a "Peanuts" Jack-O-Lantern. Instant photo op!


I took more than a few pics of the sword because it cost about $40 to make, and unlike the Plumtree t-shirt and the six XL women's winter coat from Old Navy, I'm never going to have any use for it ever again. The nice thing about the sword though is that when people did recognize who I was, they'd instantly go, "Holy shit! You earned the Power of Love!"


Our gimmick for the night was that whenever someone recognized who we were, we gave them chocolate coins. As you can tell, we had quite a few left over at the end of the evening.


This has almost nothing to do with anything else in this post, but I had to share the raddest costume I saw all night: a couple dressed as Finn and Pricess Bubblegum from "Adventure Time!" They were super keen. There was also a girl at the first party dressed as Tank Girl, but I forgot to get that pic loaded to this computer. I promise to put it on Tumblr later.


Rickey!

Here's me dressed as Pee Wee Herman. We went to a party on Saturday and then to the [infamous NYC] parade on Sunday. It was freezing and didn't seem organized in ANY way, so we wandered around for about 2 hours trying to find a place to stand. When we finally found a place, which was the run-off of the end of the parade, the organizers started cutting the parade at a block earlier than us, so we had to go in search of another spot to stand. But all the avenues were barricaded, so it was like they didn't want anybody to get in to see the parade. Later, as we were trying to cross an intersection about 2 avenues away from the parade, the cops closed off the pedestrian walkway, trapping about 150 people on each corner. This drunk idiot started shouting at the cos and then some younger guys under him started at him to stop screaming in their ears and then a fistfight broke out literally RIGHT next to us. It was nuts. We ended up having to walk over to Union Square to catch a train all the way back to where we started so we could catch a train home cause the cops blocked every sidewalk heading in the subway's direction. I was like, "Hey, can you tell me where I can catch a train form here if the sidewalks are all blocked off?" and the cop I spoke with was like, "Uh...To be honest, we're closing off this whole neighborhood cause the crowds are turning into mobs."

So we walked way way out of our way to get home.


Kevin!

Every year, me and a few of my friends attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween event at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It's a pretty rad tradition where Disney dresses up the Magic Kingdom all Halloweeny and there are special parades and fireworks and such. Tons of people show up in costume and it's a bunch of awesome fun every year. Also when we attend, me and my friends dress in themed costumes – previous years including Peter Pan and Disney Villains, and this year being Princes and Princesses.


As you can see, I totally went with a Beast costume from my favorite Disney film of all time, "Beauty and the Beast." Originally I tried to order a costume, but that fell through pretty hard. Thankfully, my mom and sister totally kick butt and made this costume entirely from scratch. My mom found a suit jacket, altered it to add coat tails, added the gold trim and replaced the regular buttons with gold ones. She also stitched frills to a white dress shirt and made the gold vest. My sister painted the horns and added a clear strap so it fit on my head and she made the gloves with acrylic claws, which she painted brown. My contribution included owning black slacks and picking up fangs from the store to give myself Beast's under bite. Whoo! So, yeah. My mom and sis are awesome.


Anyway, pictures include all of us all pimped out in our Princes and Princesses gear, some fun shots with my friend Amanda, who dressed as Belle, and a totally badass image taken by my friend Bridget (Aurora) of us all in shadow. Enjoy the pics and I hope everyone had a Happy Happy Haaalllllloweeeeen!

Ben's Halloween as Tony Stark

I've already seen some pics of Rickey and Kevin's Halloween costumes for this year, both of which were excellent, and if the past is any indication Kiel will top us all, so hopefully all of them will post what they got up to, but I'll start and discuss my adventures as none other than Marvel's own...


...Tony Stark, aka Iron Man!

I fully admit that I stole this idea from roughly two dozen cosplayers I've seen at various conventions over the past two-three years; I figured it would be do-able, but also enough of a challenge that if I did it right, it would look appropriately cool.

The main advantage those dudes had over me was generally natural black hair, so dying that was the first order of business.


Also, as you can see, I snagged some neat accesories, namely the Repulsor Blaster and the Arc Chest Light. I always intended to hit Wal-Mart the night before I needed the costume done and grab whatever was neat and affordable, and I lucked out with these. The Chest Light in particular was a steal as you can clip it on any shirt and I know myself and the gang at Marvel will have fun for months with both gadgets, as they're definitely headed to work with me.

The other thing I didn't have was a goatee, so I grew my stubble out a weak, shaved it like Mr. Downey Jr., then my lovely wife used some black face paint to make sure it didn't look like a 13-year-old boy trying to grow facial hair like usual. I knew from the start that a suit was clutch (tank top wasn't gonna do), so we threw all that together and voila:

Last night I hit my buddy Jordan's Halloween party and had a blast with some friends from college and new folks we've been meeting via him and his wife, Chloe. A very fun group that included another Tony Stark! His costume had a few less bells and whistles than mine, but he did come up with a homemade Arc Reactor glowing from under his shirt by using a glowstick, which I was a bit jealous of. The coolest take away for me me, though, was that there were two guys at one Halloween party dressed as Iron Man in his civilian identity, when only a few years ago most of the general public didn't even know the costumed version--that rocks.


Pictured here from left to right are my friends and I: Taylor as Hunter S. Thompson, Jordan as a Jersey Devil (a devil from the Jersey Shore; pretty clever), Dan as a character from The Town (and he was quite frustrated that I was about the only person who realized who he was) and me.

And then here's me as well as Megan as a Pisces.


Interestingly aside from "Cool costume!" the comments I got the most were "You look great with a goatee--have you thought of growing one for real?" and "You look like David Arquette." On the first, yeah, I've been trying for about a decade; on the second, great, what perfect timing.

Happy Halloween!

Have a fun Trans-eve!: Halloween's invitation to be transgender in cross play, gender bending, cross dressing and more

Welcome to the night and weekend where trans is IN, trans-eve, or Halloween,the time when gender bending doesn’t get you beaten up but picked up or winning awards. It is the night for feminine loving men to go Rococo!
Trans, the T in LGBTQI, is short for transgender and covers an umbrella from the effeminate and feminine male, and Drag Queens, like the ones who rioted at Stonewall, getting gay, lesbians, bisexual AND T rights out in the open. But also includes the largest group which are heterosexual males who like to cross dress, as well as variance in gender roles, gender play, gender identity and gender perception preference. Presentation, or gender identity has nothing to do with sexual orientation, which is often misunderstood, as many famous female early cross dressers were as heterosexual as the majority of men (most married), like Dr. Mary Edward’s Walker (who won the Congressional Medal of Honor as a Doctor in the Civil War, 1868) to Katherine Helpburn (the heartthrob of so many baby-dykes)and now, the Butch Clothing Company has launched this year, selling to women who want to wear men’s clothes. Gender presentation, or even identity has nothing to do with orientation (gender is how you see or want others to see you: male, female, or a mix, while orientation is who you are attracted to sexually).

Transgender acts as an umbrella term for those whose gender identity or gender presentation for periods of time or completely do not mesh with the assigned birth gender. It has later evolved to include those who do not conform to gender norms. The term was created by Charles Prince who created Tri-ess, a group for cross-dressers as different than the medical term ‘transsexual’ (those whose assigned birth gender or body does not match their gender identity and take steps so that the two match, which can include medical such as hormone treatment). Charles Prince created the term because cross dressers and drag queens were being mistaken for (medical term) transsexuals and said, I “know the difference between sex and gender and have simply elected to change the latter and not the former” (changing the gender not the sex – it is if you ask a Drag Queen backstage if they are male or female, they will say male, even if they spend 75% of their time dressed and perceived as female). The umbrella though includes those who identify as trans, which ranges from cross dressers, genderqueer, Drag queen and kings, boi’s, transvestites, those who live cross gender and androgynous (and, of course, transsexuals, and those whose gender identity is not aligned to their birth assigned gender)

For Halloween, this is in North America, almost a ‘free zone’ for gender variation expression and behavior, particularly cross play and genderplay, where through clothing, appearance and/or behavior you are not your identified (for example, your birth) gender. For example, when we went to Japan we went to a ‘Butler Café’ where the Butlers were actually women doing gender play. But as two lesbians, we saw ‘Butch’ and so didn’t understand how in a society where even the food is gender designated (dark chocolate pocky is ‘mens’ while sweet and strawberry is ‘female’ – men drink: coffee, while women drink: milk tea), that this was a living stage of gender play. So the goth lolita’s, ultra femme, come into this café (which is female patrons only), where they are greeted, fawned over and have some male patronizing over what they have bought or are wearing, and how pretty they are by the gender playing Butlers. The Bulters, though biologically female, when on the job and website are socially male, and talk as men (while for us, we were thinking, ‘Butch women’ and missed the fun entirely). Thus the café is all hands covering the mouth and shy flirtation to the favorite Butler who develops a flirtatious fantasy gender play with a frequent patron.

Halloween offers a lot of fun opportunities this time and type of play, as regular restrictions don’t apply, and if all the girls want to wear those white wedding dresses, then a few of the boys might want to be ‘brides’ for a night as well. Of course, if you are going to pick up your girlfriend and plan on doing some gender play, and maybe later some gender play roleplay it is best to let her know BEFORE you show up in the tuxedo.
There is also, ironic gender play, where one dresses very BADLY as a sailor scout for example. However, I can say that since you have the chance of fantasy and gender play, might as well go for ‘HOT!’ and girls in traditional male uniforms tend to be pretty hot. A warning: if you are just trying this out first time you can pick the wrong outfit BIG TIME, this is what females learn between 13 and 15, that though you LOVE as an outfit and it looks amazing: it might not look amazing on YOU. This is why you have those pictures of you in outfits that just aren’t your body shape. Avoid that and take a friend who has some fashion sense and say, "No, it's great, but it's not YOU"!

The other advantage of Halloween is that it is accepting, and femme boys can be femmes, and butch women can be gender boi’s. Linda is what we call a ‘lapsed femme’ in that she isn’t exactly ‘butch’ but rather just a REALLY lazy femme who gave up on jewelry (“too much hassle”), never learned make-up (“Why do I always have to wait while you put that…..STUFF on?”), and ends up buying what is comfortable even if it is in the men’s section (hint: if in a discount shoe store, your size is out and you rush to the men’s shoes to see how they look, you might be heading into ‘lapsed femme territory). Ironically she went as a ‘Butch’ one year and was told she was unconvincing, while as a ‘lapsed femme’ she is often assumed to be Butch. But as Linda would say, “So…it’s comfortable.” (yeah, and some of us are more comfortable femme, as I often have ‘I will dress, wear earrings and blow dry my hair into a style even if I don’t go out’ one of the standards of self will and self pride within a chronic illness). I'm not sure 'lapsed femme' counts as transgender, but it sure is easy to make a costume: Linda, "I'll wear this guy's sweatshirt and my dockers"

Me: "What is your costume exactly?"

Linda: "Relaxed."

For those who want to give cross dressing, gender bending or genderplay a try this year, usually it is males wanting to dress as females so beyond the ‘shave, shave, shave – like legs! PLEASE!’, I recommend using this Kay Cosmetics guide to going from a 2 day beard to a stunning beauty: highly recommended as the directions are accompanied by 12 pictures showing the exact change from Rob to Allison. Or if you want to try female impersonation/drag, use some of ehow’s tips. Or you will end up with this kind of difference (cute guy makes cute girl in gown with bunny ears while school girl is out of proportion, no wig, no make up, and well, skary).We have all seen scary cross dressing on Halloween, and why? Because guys don’t want to admit a little gender play can be fun? Newsbreak: the secret is out, okay? 20-30% of men acknowledge they cross dressing regularly for pleasure (singer G-Dragon announced he does – read the comments, which are very interesting), and only 45% have said they have never done it (women 20% for pleasure or other reasons, but then, as pointed out, gender bending for women is a lot more blurry). So put the embarrassment on hold for a night and if you are going out girl, go for it!

I mean, sometimes it is all about the attitude. Like her, it is sort of obvious about the woman but wow, got the male body set, use of space and sexy man vibe going on. But for those who want a bit more clothes on, ehow has a basic guide for gals who want to be guys for the night (think boxers, pressed breasts). And sometimes it is about the body and gait. How you walk tells the world your gender (men tend to take up more room and don’t move aside while women take up less room and move aside for males). In walking your hips, biology (the ‘package’) and social influences mix, so if you are cross dressing as female and guys are bumping into you, it means they ‘read’ you as female – same with how far the arms are from the body. For a fun minute or two, click here at the Biomotion lab, where you can see the difference clearly in how the two genders walk and also how weight and size change your gait (it has arms, hips, knees feet and head – really fun to move the slider and see the changes we recognize on the street). Click on ‘lines’ if you want to see as a stick figure. For women, the arms don’t go full extension, and for guys they do, the same with smiles (smaller for female, full on for guys). This is why a girl who loves horror films, team sports, belches and can keep up at a ‘chug a lug’ beer contest is known as both ‘dream girl’ and ‘one of the guys.’ But then, you can always go as a GOTH girl, which lets you love horror films, sports, plus you get to carry a plushie as well as things like knives or small chainsaws (a Hello Kitty or Emily the Strange Chainsaw is best)

However it goes, have a great Trans-eve, Halloween and maybe, if you want, you can send me pictures (I wanna see!). Be creative, because even if you always wanted to win a beauty pageant (though you are a guy, and this is your night to be Miss Billings, Montana). But your fashion friend says fru-fru dresses and speeches about wanting world peace aren’t for you, despair not, I bet you could still be a Zombie Beauty Queen!
Have Fun, as this short video (2.5 minutes), The Sweetest Thing, to celebrate love, life and being who you are is about. Takumi, the younger brother of Mai (the heroine of Mai Hime anime) has a bad heart and needs a risky operation but isn’t interested in burdening his sister. He’s a feminine guy who likes his pink apron and cooking dinners, cakes and packing cute lunches. Akira is his roommate and has a few secrets, the first is that he is a Ninja (one who saves Takumi, and Takumi is gushing about this ‘cool ninja’ to his roommate). The other secret Akira has is that he is a transmale which has caused him to hope for love but not expect it. When his secret is found out, he flips, and realizes that all this time, getting to know Takumi (who makes him cute lunches) he has fallen in love. In Japan, the ending of the name (-chan for females and –kun for boys) lets you know how individuals are seen by each other. For Takumi, it is always Akira-kun (boy), for whom he decides to go ahead with the surgery, ‘because you gave me a reason to live’. These are teens having stutters, the anxiety, and the excitement of just being around each other of a first relationship.

Halloween '09: The Year We All Drank In Costume

You know that headline could almost work any year, but seeing as this Halloween fell on a cherished Saturday night, it seems to me like there were even more people in my immediate circle of friends dressing up and drinking at ramshackle house parties. To celebrate, I thought I'd share the highlights (lowlights?) from my own 10-person soirée as well as what a few of the other dudes were doing over the past weekend. Huzzah!




So my girl Jami and I followed up last year's experiment in couple's comic bookery by dressing up as the meanest couple on trashy TV: Chuck Bass & Blair Waldorf from "Gossip Girl." Since we kept it at our place, I didn't quite get to pull off my planned move of answering everyone who asked what I was supposed to be with "I'm Chuck Bass" only to have them stare at me befuddled, but I got to do it a few times. Plus, I'm totally wearing that vest later this week for my business meetings in NYC.

Jami's pal Chris popped in as the Hulk (posing here with Jami's sis Carries as the Hamburglar). Every year, Chris' Halloween goal involves dressing up as whatever allows him to layer on the most body paint, so mission accomplished on that goal. Also of note was the fact that even though I'd have guessed he'd have to go to eBay, he picked up a pair of Hulk Hands new at "Toys R' Us." Hulk Hands, you guys...more popular than either of that characters movies combined. Some day, we're going to be old men, and there will be young 20-something Turks coming up in the comics industry who talk about Hulk Hands like we do about Superpowers figures and the X-Men arcade game. *shudder*




My guitar player Pauly and his girlfriend Megan came out even though they'd gotten blackout the night before as members of Team Zissou at a party with our bud Nice Peter, so it's all aces for them. Pauly was a cow, and it disturbed everyone to no end that at any given time in the night his hand would absent-mindedly reach down and start jerking as his rubber utters. Later on, we made semi-use of Megan's Beer Pong costume by setting the board up on the ironing board and whipping golf balls at the empty Velcroed cups. I won. Also: grog's little bro Jimi showed up without a costume, so I made him wear a hat and be Hobo Indiana Jones.


Our food spread was defended by Bruce Lee and featured Laffy Taffy (Best joke of the night? Q: Why did the skeletons cross the road? A: They didn't. The dogs ate them.) and Geoff Johns' beloved Monster Cereals. When we took our final pic of the night, Carrie's boyfriend Steve looked at the "Astroy Boy" figures in her Happy Meal purse, asking me whether I thought that movie was just a blatant ripoff of Mega Man or what. I wasn't sure how to answer that.



Meanwhile, several states away, Rickey and TJ dressed as Golden Age superheroes, doubtlessly confusing everyone they were with. I'll let Rickey explain:

"My girlfriend and I were stunningly invited to a superhero costume party by NON-comics industry friends along with TJ and his wife, so I got to wear my first ever superhero costume! Although I DID have a Beast Man outfit from Masters of the Universe when I was 6. My girlfriend made my whole outfit complete with a winged helmet (which held vanilla pudding just 24 hours prior!), red booties and a lightening bolt-emblazoned shirt. I took the helmet off for everything but pictures and TJ lost the cape so we could dominate at beer pong (cause we're a natural, god damned team) before he unleashed the full fury of a fog machine inside the tiny room we partied in. He's a hellion. Also: our ladies are BOSS."



As you can see, Rickey's gal Sam was a convincingly radical Zatanna while TJ's wife Emily went as Black Canary. When I first saw Em's picture on Facebook, the whig had me totally missing that it was her. I guess that shit does work for secret identities after all.


Later, the crew's entire photoset devolved into shots like this one because, as Rickey told me, "TJ just turned the fucking fog machine on full-blast cause he was drunk. And it was funny. We were in that tiy room fiulled with fog for WAAAAY longer than is probably healthy for people. And the guy I was playing beer ping against at that point was getting super annoyed that he couldn't see the cups anymore and went so far as to accuse TJ that we were cheating, hahahaha! I even stopped playing full-on and just started throwing my ping pong ball as hard as possible at their end of the table. Then I stole a handful of Tootsie Rolls and dipped out."



Lastly, I spotted these sweet pics of Sean's Missus dressed up for her school day of teaching middle schoolers to sing as Victoria from "Twilight." Honestly, knowing Sean, I just figured Amy was trying to get super Irish, but the red eyes should have been a giveaway. In a hilarious and unsolvable misunderstanding, Rickey and I both thought she was also wearing makeup to make her look more pale, but apparently that's just how she photographs under the sickly fluorescent lights of America's public school system. Seriously, it's like the secret plan of the government is to take the segment of the population that think about how much they hate their looks more than anything in life and lit their skin to highlight acne. I hope all kids everywhere wore bad ass masks to school on Friday and then went off on a three-day candy binge instead of doing math.



UPDATE!: I knew as soon as I posted this, my brother would get around to posting pics of my too adorable for words nephew and niece, starring as a pirate and Foofa from Yo Gabba Gabba! Bask in the cuteness glow of superior genes.

The scariest comic I ever read

I'm not sure exactly how old I was when I first read What If? v2 #30; I don't believe I bought it new, so I must have been older than nine, but I also don't think it was long after it came out, so I'll ballpark myself around eleven.

As you can see from the cover, it was "two feature length thrillers" asking the question "What if the Fantastic Four's second child had lived?" Comic Vine has Jim Valentino listed as the book's writer and (ironically) current FF artist Dale Eaglesham as penciler, but I'm not sure if they did both stories or, if not, which one they were responsible for. I'm not concerned with the second story for the purposes of this post, as it was a fairly pedestrian yarn about Reed and Sue Richards' daughter becoming some sort of global messiah, but the book's first "thriller" scared the living heck out of me.

The premise of the story, as implied by the question/title, was presenting one possible scenario had the second child of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman lived. See, while today any FF fan worth their salt knows that Reed and Sue do have two children, Franklin and Valeria, back in 1991, Franklin was the only child of Marvel's First Family, as a second had been lost in childbirth during John Byrne's run on the book due to the mother's exposure to radiation in the Negative Zone (I believe).

Here, with the help of Doctor Octopus, Reed is able to save the baby, a girl, but Sue dies in the process.

The story is told from Franklin's point of view, and right off the bat Valentino (or whoever wrote this) provides an emotionally gut-wrenching account of a little boy losing his mother and having to accept that the person who ostensibly killed her is now a member of his family. That's not even the makings of a horror movie, that's a real-life tragedy that was certainly not typically dealt with in all-ages super hero comics during the 90's, not something I had ever really thought about at my tender age, and a subject I at least remember the creative team handling with impressive care and craft.

However from there creepier elements beyond the norm do begin cropping up as members of the Fantastic Four as well as friends like Alicia Masters are becoming weak and dying and nobody can figure out an explanation why. Franklin is the only one convinced his younger sister has something to do with it, but his father refuses to believe him and his uncles and their super friends humor him but try to explain to him it's only natural to feel threatened by a new sibling (which it is).

There's really no on-panel action or violence for the first two thirds of the story, just personal dynamic drama about your family being thrown into tumult and nobody believing you; it felt more like "Child's Play" or any other thriller designed to terrify kids specifically because it focuses in on your helplessness to save the people you love because you can't get anybody to listen to you.

Again, I can't say for sure that Dale Eaglesham was the artist on this story, but if he was, even at what would have been a formative stage in his career, he was doing some impressive work, as his visuals were a huge part of what made this story so dang eerie. I vividly recall a panel of Franklin walking by the room of an emaciated Johnny Storm who was half-conscious and mumbling as one of the scariest images my young mind had ever processed. This was the Human Torch, a cocky, young character full of life sapped of all that and there wasn't even a bad guy to throw blame to; gripping stuff when you're eleven (or twenty-seven).

Reed basically locks himself in his lab and becomes obsessed with figuring out what had happened to his family at the expense of paying any attention his son, who insisted his sister was to blame, a claim Mister Fantastic refused to hear. This worked because it was a pretty logical extension of Reed's character (how many times has he locked himself in a lab and ignored his family over the years?) and made the next bit even more shocking but weighty when he hauled off and slapped Franklin for daring to hurl these accusations.

Obviously this story played on some pretty realistic fears most kids have: your younger sibling trying to steal your family from you (literally in this case), nobody listening to you, and even a parent who is supposed to be protecting you turning against you in the cruelest of ways. This wasn't alien invaders or monsters from another dimension, it was real stuff that some kids are unfortunate enough to face jacked up with sci fi trappings.

The climax of the story is almost predictable, but no less horrifying, as the youngest Richards does indeed turn out to be a parasitic Negative Zone monster with emotion-altering abilities who turns into a giant green creature after Franklin recruits Doctor Doom of all people as his savior while his father curses at him to his last breath. The beast ends up tearing through both Reed and Doom and trying to come at Franklin, who is able to activate a switch and send her back to where she came from. The story ends with Franklin cradling his dead father's head and wishing somebody would have listened to him.

It was a horror movie in comic book form done to great effect and pulled off with maximum psychological effect. It terrified me so much I gave the comic to my mom and had her hide it from me, never wanting to see it again. I believe when I was in college we were cleaning some area of the house and I found it; I read it again, all my childhood emotions came rushing back, and I threw it out post haste.

It was the scariest comic I ever read.

Just Stop It, Hipster Superman

It's no secret that my favorite Holiday is little over a week away, and while I recognize that few things relating to life in general let alone Halloween will ever be as maddeningly exciting as they were when I was nine, I'm still pretty excited to roll out in costume this year and mix it up. But there's one element of the holiday that's really become quite popular in the past few years I'm not looking forward to, perhaps best summed up by this:


Now, I don't want to seem a prude or someone who comes down against sex. Like George Michael said: Sex is natural. Sex is fun. And in general, people who like to dress up as something sexy at Halloween should be one of the most liberating parts of the holiday. But boy oh boy is there a big difference between someone, male or female, who is confident with their body and sexuality and looking to explore that and some who just wants to be slutty. And holy shit, will there be a lot of people slutting it up out there on Halloween this year.

There is nothing that can ruin a good Halloween party like people showing up who are using Halloween some lame attempt at ironic detachment disguising their desire to get drunk, get fucked and then wake up the next day going, "God, I was so wasted last night. I totally don't remember anything. What happened? Did I make a fool of myself/get people to faun all over me, giving me the massive amounts of attention I desperately crave?"

Case in point:

Yesterday, the A-list Tumblr blog Look At This Fucking Hipster linked to a costume contest sponsored by the occasionally repulsive clothing company American Apparel whose rules were that all entries must use one article of AA clothing. Unsurprisingly, many of the entrants take liberties in sexifying some pretty standard costume ideas for no good reason (I'm not really sold on Sexy Hello Kitty for example) or just getting re-Goddamned-diculous (Example 1! Example 2!). Perhaps even more unsurprisingly, there are more than a few superhero costumes included in the bunch, which play out with varying degrees of sexiness and success. Seeing as I'm dumb enough to fancy myself an expert on superhero costumes, I thought I'd waste your time with my own personal critiques of some of the nerd-centric entries.

"Uh...meow, I guess? Whatever. Where's the keg?"

Nearly 20 years after Michelle Pfieffer donned that infamous latex number, and even Halle Berry can't stop Catwoman from being the go-to slutty girls superhero costume. But really, this girl here isn't trashy at all. From the looks of it, she just doesn't care that much. I mean, the caption at her own AA voting page says she sewed the mask out of an old T-Shirt, and I'm still having a hard time believing she's into this costume. Meh. Maybe some people just take rotten photos.

"Tonight, we team up to fight the crime that is my virginity!"

OK, maybe I was a little harsh with that caption, but dude looks like kind of a goober, right? Not that I don't often look like a goober in my photos in general. Anyway, besides the easy to buy at the mall Clark Kent garb, I actually think the ladies in this one really seemed to put their effort in. Unlike some of the other "heroes" on this list (wait for it) who just threw some color-coded shit together and called it a costume, there was some craftiness involved in pulling off a legit Wonder Woman and Aquamangirl (what do you call her?). Plus, Aqua's boots are kind of rockin. Vote for them here.

"He's not my boyfriend. He's my cousin, and I did ask him to shower."

As you can tell from above, I'm all about gender-bending in superhero costumes (my one major regret after this year's Wizard Chicago Con was that I didn't get a photo of the dude dressed as Phoenix), and for some reason I've been seeing a lot of she-Robins the past few years. There's actually another one in the AA contest, but the above Chicago girl really nailed what works about taking a costume from the opposite sex and making it work for you. Not that every girl version of a male hero needs a skirt, but this one solves the problem of Dick Grayson's traditional short pants nicely. Plus you can tell from the "R" to the stitching to the mask that she put her time in.

The Joker on the other hand is pretty fucking sad. Just like every year of late there are a bunch of d-bags out on Halloween dressed up as Maverick and Goose from "Top Gun" or half naked in a Tarzan getup trying to show how hardcore their pecs are in the October cold, since the Dark Knight hit, there have been all sorts of metal-listening misanthropes who think throwing on some Ledger-esque makeup is kind of bad ass. It reminds me of my middle school years where like six kids would show up in your neighborhood for Trick Or Treats wearing a black coat and some shitty The Crow makeup.

Anyway, her caption on the voting spot mentions her friends dressing up as Batman. I wonder why she didn't use that photo?

"No, I'm not busting out of anything tonight, asshole."

I'm a little torn on this one (pun totally fucking intended). On the one hand, I kind of dig a girl who picks She-Hulk as her costume choice. Not so left-fieldy it's totally bewildering to folks, but it's not another Cat or Wonder Woman either. At the same time, I think she could have put in a little more effort. As someone on her voting page commented, if you have to spell out what you are across your chest, you're probably fucking something up. But the costume works up to the point where she doesn't commit to painting her face green. I mean, with "Star Trek" out, people should find green chicks sexy again, right? All I know is that if she is trying to look good, wearing green lipstick ain't the way to go.

"God damn it, I am not Jennifer Garner on 'Alias.'"

I'm about 87% sure I've seen this girl at a con or in one of Wizard's annual costume contest spreads. That really knocks off points in terms of her getting a foothold in the AA contest for me, because if you're doing a contest like this, I think it's better to compete on the same level as the other folks who are doing a one-timer rather than flash your cosplay chops. Maybe that's just me. She does really pull it off though, so points there, and it seems like she's ranking higher than anyone else on this list so what do I know?

"Maybe if I morph into Lebron James he'll stop hitting on us."

Have you ever seen two people who look like their having less fun at a costume part that aren't throwing up into their wig? Maybe they showed up only to realize that they'd been invited to some kind of weird, ecstasy-fueled key party, but I'm betting they're just no fun to hang out with. Props on Mystique though – a costume that totally undermines its half-nakedness by liberal use of weird face makeup and blueness. The flapper girl is a total fail though. Vote for them here.

"My own personal Kryptonite is bands on major labels."

Christ Almighty, was this really necessary? I mean, I rarely get down on hipsters and don't get up in arms about people who could care less about comics claiming superheroes as their totems for all kinds of activities, but these two look like they just shot up and thought it would be performance art to go slap a few Williamsburg hobos around while wearing...is that a fucking throw rug?!? Wash your fucking hair, asswipe.

God, there weren't a lot of slutty costumes in there at all, were there? Um...go comics?